While they are a higher maintenance engine than the 4 and were designed for car use and not 4WD use, the main issues that caused them to be removed was the exhaust valves - or should I say, lack of adjustment of said item. When they were in Military service they never have any issues as the book said ‘adjust valves every 3 months’ (I think it was 3 - could have been 6 - so they did. I know a couple of people that worked on them when they were in service and they got it down to a fine art - exhaust manifold off, side cover off and do the job. In private ownership almost no one could be bothered to do this so the manifold nuts became rusted up and although you can do them without removing the manifold, most didn’t bother so after a couple of years they’d start to lose power and that would be it. When kept in good fettle, they are a very nice motor and sooooo smooth it’s almost unbelievable. A set of extractors and free flowing exhaust will give them a huge torque increase and they rev freely enough to allow 100KPH if that’s your thing (if you can keep the petrol up to them)
I get why people don’t like them, but I think they’re a nice motor - a little fragile yes, but worth keeping IMO.
Parts are getting VERY hard to come by though so they should probably be looked on as an enthusiasts engine only, but if that’s the case, well worth keeping.
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