Thread: My series 3 petrol is dead. Help

If it was me, I'd pull the engine, drop another one in and rebuild the dead donk while it's out of the car for an education.

Pull the head off and have a look it is not hard and it will tell you what you are in for.

Originally Posted by morg

Hi,
If I'm posting in the wrong area i appologise but here goes.

I have a s3 swb that my grandmother bought new in 76(or 77 can't remember) and have been driving it for a couple of years now. A few months ago it all of the sudden started blowing smoke something awful and was well down on power. I had no choice but to keep on driving as I was in the middle of fraser island at the time and lets just say i could have nearly bought a new td5 with the cost of getting towed off the island. (i limped onto the barge but it exploded when i went to restart and needed to be towed off the barge)

The diagnosis from a trusted mechanic is that I have holes in two pistons and possibly a broken con rod. I'm fairly un-skilled with anything mechanical but i'm not an idiot either, so should I have a crack at fixing this myself or are we talking major rebuild here? I can have it in the shed out of service for as long as it takes so time isn't a problem but is this a job i could take on with a manual, parts and a few mates that kinda know whats going on under a bonnet???

Oh yeah its the Leyland 2.2 petrol.

Any ideas would be appreciated

Cheers

hi my name is jeff, i have just done a complete engine rebuild on my discovery, 3.9, its a diffrent engine then what you have but probably a more complacated engine, just some facts and tips, i couldent say if you could do it or not, but mine was tripped up prity good and i did all the work my self except the machining, it cost me about 6 grand to do it my self, that included alot of extras and preformance parts too , eg over sized valves, new cam new oil pump and new pistons, what would you like to know about it.

a few good tips , take lots of photos of the orentation of how thigs go together,

evrey single bolt and nut goes in a ziploc bag with detaled discription of where it cam off, eg all exhust bolts and washers go in there own bag, all head bolts go in a diffrent bag. this is because a full engin job takes monthts and you will forget what goes where, even if it is to be replaced keep it in a bag

get an engine stand from a mate to hang the block off. you will be flipping the block around to work the top and bottom.

get a torque wrench with a certificat eg i used a snap on 5-75 foot pound. becuase i found it did the whole range on my engine.

if you dont have what you need, stop, let it wate untill you have what you need too meny exceptions will give you a doggy result

always assemble the engine by your self, eg any mates around ore more than one and they will joke around or talk to you, its eazy to get distracted, all you need is one nut left loose in there and its all over.

dont buy cheezy or cheep parts that are critacal, if you cant aford to buy it right dont buy it. let it wate, engines cost money, the last thing you want is a brake down where there is no help a remote recovery could cost you thousands.

if you are spending more time cleaning and checking things and find that you are missing meals and not getting any thing done , your probably doing an acceptibul job. engine rebuilding should take a stupid amount of time. my assembly of the block alone was over 30 hours. with no distractions. and aprox 20 to drop it in. aprox 15 to remove and strip. not including sub assemblys eg the head and valves the machine shop assembled.

is there any thing that you want to know in genaral, when you do it there is no one rushing you, no deadline, just take your time and let no one interupt you, treat it as if its going into space , i wouldent let any one put my engine togeather or work on it, because now i know exacly how its gone together and whats inside. i have herd of people using lock tight on evrey thing and rattle guns on bolts inside it just turns my stomach

if you turn around for 5 min to do some thing put a brand new garbage bag over the engine to protect it from dust, if your garrage is to dusty or has wind blow by assemble it in your living room. i almost did, you should be able to put a brand new paper towel with clean oil from a sealed container in a cylinder after it has been honed and cleaned and scrub the cylinder only to find that it comes out with only clean oil on the paper towel, if there are any hints of grey there is still metal or honeing dust in the cylinder,

clean evrey thing with alcohal or carbi cleaner before assembly, i could go on and on and on, let me know what you need help with, im albout as anel and padentic as it will ever get when it comes to engine assembly, there is no way i would ever let any one touch my engine. i would hand over my balls first !

cheers, jeff.

if you want my number for advice just pm me.

Congratulations you have the simplest engine on the planet to fix

depending on where you are I know an upcoming young mechanic who might be interested in helping you.

I also know a greaser who has an engine frame at home you can have a lend of to sit the engine in while you organise the bits to sort it out.

If you update your profile to include your location or post it up in this thread we might be able to help you more.

oh yeah, forgot, the workshop manuals were written for british mechanics so if you can get a photocopy of one (I think theres a couple of places that have it as a PDF file) and you can read you can probabley build a series landrover from the wheels up.

If it has in fact got a broken conrod, there is a good chance that the engine block is beyond repair. I would remove the sump to have a look, and the head if you can't see the problem from below.

If there is not a broken conrod, there is a reasonable chance that the engine is repairable, and there is no reason why you could not do this if you have a factory manual and can read. You would still expect to have to take the black and probably the crankshaft to a machine shop for machining.

If you want to get the vehicle going in a hurry, trying to find a going engine has a lot to be said for it, and this is the best option if it turns out the engine is unrepairable.

John

I rebuilt a 2.25 petrol having never rebuilt an engine before. I blew the top off the radiator while going up a steep hill fast and cooked the engine. The engine still ran but contantly blew white smoke mixed in with blue smoke and had no power.

On pulling it down I found the rings had seized to the cylinders and then broken off wrecking the rings but thankfully the pistons did not seize and the melting of rings did not go deeply into the cylinder walls.

Pistons were salvagable, with a hone there were still marks where the rings seized but a mild bore fixed it - still within limits for the pistons with slightly oversize rings.

I did the bottom end as a precaution and conrods were still within specs. My only advice was from the engine assembly section of the workshop manual.

I cleaned up the head - slight shave to square it up - decoked - and relapped valves etc.

Reassembled with recond dizzy and carby - extractors - went like a dream and 20 years later is still on the road with the same engine. If the engine was more high performance I would have had everything correctly balanced and would probably do so if doing it again. I also used too much gasket sealants on reassemble and the excess ended up in the sump blocking the oil strainer so on the second time I fired up the engine I ran out of oil pressure but was on top of it so not problem - but could have killed the new engine. Something to watch.

With a bit of research it is not hard - so give it a go.

Garry

Hi,

I've been off air for quite a while with some work that took me away from civilisation for a spell. Now I'm back and the series three is getting the attention it deserves. Sorry to all that gave advice way back when only to have no further progress reported.

Anyway, finally got the head off only to find a busted piston (closest to fire wall). It has actually split horizontaly in half leaving the broken half at the top of the cylinder. I will post pics a soon as i can.

The bore is ok and has not been damaged so hopefully a light hone and i'll be right.

Will take the head in for a shave/service and order pistons/rings/gaskets etc and hope for the best.

here's hoping.

Here's a pic of the top half of the piston as it came out. (holes drilled in order to pull it out)

and can some one tell me wtf the first item is? A mate looked at it and threw it on the grass saying "nah don't need that" but i'm wondering why it's there if it's so unnecessary.

cheers