Thread: URGENT HELP NEEDED FOR LR90 on Route

This maybe a silly question, but here goes, did you gap the piston rings in their individual bores before fitting to the pistons, if you did what was the gap (in thou's.), looking at one of the photos of the bore marks, which Dave described as ring gap marks, they look to be excessive, forgive me if I'm wrong but a lot of people take the ring size printed on the packet as Gospel. It pays to check each and every ring in it's bore. Also did you check to see if there was any oil in the vacuum booster (brake), Regards Frank.

What a nightmare trip, I admire you for perservering as you did, I would have driven the car off a bridge in a rage halfway though the trouble you had. You titled one of your posts 'Epic Fail', no way, you fought hard and you should be proud.

Originally Posted by TJWA

What a nightmare trip, I admire you for perservering as you did, I would have driven the car off a bridge in a rage halfway though the trouble you had. You titled one of your posts 'Epic Fail', no way, you fought hard and you should be proud.

Thanks TJ, it was a interesting and massive learning experience. And yus, I did on many occasions want to either burn it or push it off a cliff! But seeing it today, I just want to get it running again, since it looks pretty sweet and its in excellent condition.

Originally Posted by Veryan

Thanks TJ, it was a interesting and massive learning experience. And yus, I did on many occasions want to either burn it or push it off a cliff! But seeing it today, I just want to get it running again, since it looks pretty sweet and its in excellent condition.

Hi James

That didn't take too long to get that Land Rover back.

Before you do much more to that motor, it would be a good idea to find exactly what is causing the sump to pressurise.

Get hold of a cylinder compression gauge and then do a dry and then wet compression test, this test will show if the motor is within specification, has ring blow by or has a top end problem with say, the valves stems.
Make sure that you take an accurate measurement, using the same technique, for each cylinder in turn.

PM me if you need any info for doing this.

By the way, is the oil able to return ok, from the rocker cover, back to the sump ? As if the rocker cover is flooding, this will give the same problems as you have described.

Cheers Arthur

Good plan! Just need to track down the appropriate adapter, or mechanic willing to come to mine. Unless someone is willing to let me borrow the correct fitting or advise on the correct one to get?

At present the the only way for the oil to return is via the drain holes in head - the usual way. Although I doubt much is due to the pressure in the sump. This engine does not have the little cyclone/separater breather from the rocker cover to the cam shaft that the later model 2.5D N/A had and up to 300Tdi (I recently read because they used to breath a lot of oil into the air filter, and runaways occurred...the first bit sounds familiar). At the moment, any oil from the Rocker cover goes into a pump bottle

So having got m y truck back to Perth, ordered up a new clutch I finally got around to swapping the engine last weekend with a similar unit from my flatmates S1, a BN52. Now I have known this engine since 2007, when my housemate used to store his S1 in England at my place in Cornwall when we were at Uni. It was a good runner:

Not bad for a days work...


Why did I go down this route? Well it was a like for like swap, and to get my wheel rolling while I saved a few pennies for something with more grunt.

I have had some offers from many people here for engines, but to date, this whole exercise has left me a little short in the bank, so I wont be able to upgrade until next year. And when I do, it will be a 300Tdi or a 2.8 Isuzu.

After a little trouble trying to get the BN52 to start (had to bleed it about 10 times), it finally , after 8 months of sitting around, spluttered into life. Great I thought. Until I realised that is had the same symptoms as the engine I had in it before. In fact, worse blowby and even more oil being ejected from the dip stick. I even managed to get the bulkhead with oil on idle when I pulled out the dipstick this time

080120071434.jpg

Thought better of advancing the throttle without the dipstick in, not sure the owner of the rental would appreciate my 90's impersonation of Pollock all over the garage wall

I jerry rigged up the pump bottle to catch oil from the breather, note you can see quite a lot of oil residue from the 10 minutes of running around the hole I cut to allow the gasses to escape.

080120071437.jpg

This leaves me with a dilemma, either this is totally normal to breath this much, or both engines are stuffed?

Should I park it up, or drive about like this? If I drive about, I will need to plumb the rocker cover breather into the intake manifold, but with some form of oil catcher, to catch the oil so not to get a run - away engine, like this:

080120071438.jpg

I was thinking of using a small pop bottle, and silasticating in a couple of tubes like shown, or is there a PCV from another vehicle that is cheap to buy and I can jerry rig up like I have shown? (I think the 200/300Tdi have one between the rocker cover and the cam gallery?).

So my ability to get my hands on stuffed engines continues...awesome. Joke is wearing a little thin now. Time for a Ceremonial Burning?

When I mean the Breather PCV of a 200/300tdi I mean the cyclone breather bits, specifically part #9

Untitled-1.jpg

I have done a little research and this is what I have come up with:

2.5D N/A set up - most bit shard to get. Had a separate valve and breather. Rocker cover hose feeds into cyclone, which has a oil drain to the sump (not sure where exactly) and then gases exit via the valve to the intake manifold:

080120071440.jpg

200/300Tdi Set up. Rocker cover gases go into the cam gallery area. Oil drain pipe comes from the block/sump to the bottom of the cyclone breather and gases etc exit via the top to the intake manifold.

080120071441.jpg

I note that on all the cyclone breathers there is a 3rd "hole" alongside the mounting hole.

Can I use this modern cyclone breather thus - rocker cover into this 3rd hole, drain pipe down to the sump (not sure how I will get it in, will have to look at the sump tonight) and the the gases exit as per normal to the intake manifold:

080120071442.jpg

Is this going to work? Or do i need that side plate like the 200/300Tdi engines have on the cam gallery?