Thread: Isuzu Engine Swops for Dummies

Subscribing.

Originally Posted by Dougal

Subscribing.

Appreciate it. Though don't expect an epic conversion It's more like how much work we can cram into a week or two in Vern's shed...

HAve plenty of time before the defender gets here, so time to do as much prep work as possible. Drivetrain was broken down to give everything the once over. Not worried about the engine as it felt and sounded great in the Range Rover, however the gear changes felt a bit sloppy, so definitely worth taking a look.

Sump had to come off the engine anyway, to be cut down later, so why not take a look inside.



Just what I like to see - nice, clean oily bits. No signs of wear anywhere at all.



Same under the rocker cover.



Cracked open the transfer case inspection panel to take a look...



The transfer case looks to be in excellent condition, 1.222 gearing, no play in the input gear mainshaft, no wear on the input gear mainshaft splines, bearings are good. Checked any play in the system against Vern's recently rebuilt TC and all seemed pretty comparable. So all in all, pretty happy.



While I had the input gear out, and seeing as it had no wear, I figured it would be no harm to crossdrill it to increase lubrication to the spline. I've seen plenty of threads out the on the interwebs about how hard it is to do this, that the drill bits won't get through the case hardening, etc. A well set up pillar drill with the input gear well secured and squared, and a tungsten carbide drillbit, and although it takes a bit of time to get through the case hardening, it's a pretty straightforward job.

Before:



After:



The gearbox, I was happy to find, was an LT85, which was used on the V8 versions of the 90 and 110. Better still it was a solid case LT85, as opposed to the later split case variety, which is much weaker, and AFAIK, more prone to bearing failure. While it won't match the 4-speed LT95 in terms of robustness, it's probably the best 5-speed for the job other than using an Isuzu gearbox and adapter kit.



Because of the position at which the gearbox sits under the cab of the Range Rover, someone had obviously cut the gear selector shaft, bent it, and welded it up. An easy five minute fix with the welder. However, when the cover plate was lifted off... looks like they took a sledge hammer to the gear shaft in order to bend it. The nylon collar that secures the ball joint of the shaft was in a hundred different pieces - cheap fix, but certainly explains the even-more-sloppy-than-usual landrover gear changes...





More bad news inside...

AS soon as the extension housing came off, the most obvious issue was a bodged repair to the 5th gear selector fork - one of the bodged welds had broken and was obviously about to fail completely....



And this was floating round inside the case.



A quick look at the RAVE manual told me that one of the slipper pads for the 5th gear synchro had been broken up and spat out, so all in all, not good news.



Other issues included a missing bias spring from the gear selector assembly, and a loose input shaft bearing. Obviously this gearbox had been cracked open before, and a few items didn't make the cut when it came to putting them back in

Had a chat to JC down in Tassie about what my options were, and as luck would have it, he'd pulled an LT85 with a busted input shaft out of a customer's Defender sometime before christmas, and it was still sitting on the shelf somewhere, awaiting a trip to the scrapheap. Same solid case gearbox, low mileage, and it's on a pallet up to Victoria as we speak. Between both gearboxes, we should have one decent one sitting on the bench by the end of the week.

Nice build Mike, I tried to buy that RR, phoned up and had a chat to the bloke, in the couple of days it took me to decide that I would buy it, it had already been sold then changed hands another 3 times!
My plan was to do like you and use it as a donor car for the motor into my 6x6. I will be back on the hunt for 4bd1 soon so will be following this with interest! Subscribed.

Originally Posted by Jitterbug

Nice build Mike, I tried to buy that RR, phoned up and had a chat to the bloke, in the couple of days it took me to decide that I would buy it, it had already been sold then changed hands another 3 times!
My plan was to do like you and use it as a donor car for the motor into my 6x6. I will be back on the hunt for 4bd1 soon so will be following this with interest! Subscribed.

Yeah, that sounds about right Don't think the original owner knew who was actually buying it by the time things had sorted themselves out

Originally Posted by mike_ie

This *is* your fault, you realise that? Your fault for letting me behind the wheel of that bloody County of yours.... :

Sorry ........I think you were converted in the first few hundred metres of the drive
Once you're back on the road we'll have to do another trip to give your 'new' car a good run.

What brand/model is the turbo you took off ?? I might be interested in the turbo and manifold if nobody has their name on them already.

Cheers, Murray

Guess I'd better follow whats happening since my name's been mentioned

Steve

Originally Posted by rijidij

What brand/model is the turbo you took off ?? I might be interested in the turbo and manifold if nobody has their name on them already.

Cheers, Murray

I am interested as well, Murray has call before me of course...