Thread: Rover 3.9 v8 missing badly

What year is the engine? V belt or serpentine? Something completely left field that happened to me was the drive gear at the end of the cam completely stripped. This was during my saga where the car would run without the fuel pump and then would die with it in. When I thought I had fixed it, it drove ok for a little bit then wouldn't start again. At this point the timing was so far out it had me baffled as to what was going on as I had to wind the dizzy right around to get it to cough. I pulled the dizzy, only to find the drive gear stripped.

Sounds extreme, but it's a possibility.

Now before you go crazy, just try to adjust your timing, see if you can get the miss to disipate and maybe run it on petrol too if that's an option.

Also check your earth's!

Originally Posted by Konradical

What year is the engine? V belt or serpentine? Something completely left field that happened to me was the drive gear at the end of the cam completely stripped. This was during my saga where the car would run without the fuel pump and then would die with it in. When I thought I had fixed it, it drove ok for a little bit then wouldn't start again. At this point the timing was so far out it had me baffled as to what was going on as I had to wind the dizzy right around to get it to cough. I pulled the dizzy, only to find the drive gear stripped.

Sounds extreme, but it's a possibility.

Now before you go crazy, just try to adjust your timing, see if you can get the miss to disipate and maybe run it on petrol too if that's an option.

Also check your earth's!

serpentine belt 3.9 in a range rover classic. I've had the dizzie out to swap the ignition module over and its drive gear looks fine.... Excellent idea though, I'll shine a light down into the dizzie hole and see if the drive gear on the camshaft is intact. I also refitted it and rolled the motor forward then back to see if there was a delay in the rotor button moving forward/back (ie: timing chain slack). There was none.

I'm going to pull the rocker covers this afternoon and see if the valves are all fully opening and closing properly. This is fun right? Just as well I don't desperately need the car right now!

I'm not heaps familiar with the serpentine belt engines. From memory the oil pump is driven differently, or is that the earlier ones again..

If you turned the engine over and the rotor is pretty tight, I wouldn't bother checking the drive gear. Sounds like it is pretty good.

Def have a look at your earth's still.

Have fun with that manifold. Does my head in having to take it all apart to take a rocker cover off, then the heater hoses..

This is incrdedibly frustrating .... I could have had another motor swapped in 3 times over given the time I've now spent going in circles

I whipped the drivers side rocker cover off and rolled the motor over.... the valves are doing all the "valve" things nice and smoothly. Im confident I can rule out mechanical engine problems now. So I whipped the dizzie out to swap in the other that is fitted iwth a different set of ingition pickups .... and chased the dizzie clamp nut over to the back of the water pump with my finger tips at which point it "dissapeared". I've spent an hour searching for it now. It didn't rattle or clunk, so it didn't fall through to the ground ..... but it sure as **** isn't there anywhere I can find. Is there anyway I've just dropped that dizzie clamp nut down into the timing chain case ?? I don't want to crank the motor until I've found that damn nut!


Oh, can anyone tell me who the clown was that fitted 12 point 8mm bolts to the rocker covers .... I feel I need to give them a good slap around the ears I don't own one ... My father finally found one of his sets went down to 8mm in 3/8ths ... so was 12point.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

This is incrdedibly frustrating .... I could have had another motor swapped in 3 times over given the time I've now spent going in circles

I whipped the drivers side rocker cover off and rolled the motor over.... the valves are doing all the "valve" things nice and smoothly. Im confident I can rule out mechanical engine problems now. So I whipped the dizzie out to swap in the other that is fitted iwth a different set of ingition pickups .... and chased the dizzie clamp nut over to the back of the water pump with my finger tips at which point it "dissapeared". I've spent an hour searching for it now. It didn't rattle or clunk, so it didn't fall through to the ground ..... but it sure as **** isn't there anywhere I can find. Is there anyway I've just dropped that dizzie clamp nut down into the timing chain case ?? I don't want to crank the motor until I've found that damn nut!


Oh, can anyone tell me who the clown was that fitted 12 point 8mm bolts to the rocker covers .... I feel I need to give them a good slap around the ears I don't own one ... My father finally found one of his sets went down to 8mm in 3/8ths ... so was 12point.

Well I changed the pickup in the dizzie .... and the car started "as normal". ie: rather than cranking for 5seconds before spluttering to life, it now fires instantly again .... with a distint heavy miss. So i changed the lead and plug on No 8 and tried again ..... and it wet the plug. So I put the compression gauge into that hole and fired it back up. Sigh ...... < 75psi tops .... I've bent a conrod when it hydrolocked.... or damaged something. That's a shame ... given every other pot is near bang on 135psi .... this was a good motor!! (was ).

Sorry to hear

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Well I changed the pickup in the dizzie .... and the car started "as normal". ie: rather than cranking for 5seconds before spluttering to life, it now fires instantly again .... with a distint heavy miss. So i changed the lead and plug on No 8 and tried again ..... and it wet the plug. So I put the compression gauge into that hole and fired it back up. Sigh ...... < 75psi tops .... I've bent a conrod when it hydrolocked.... or damaged something. That's a shame ... given every other pot is near bang on 135psi .... this was a good motor!! (was ).

I doubt very much that you have "hydrolocked" #8 cylinder just with petrol. Even with a free flowing faulty injector it is doubtful that enough fuel could ever enter just one cylinder while cranking.

The head has to come off whatever is the fault, and I suspect that it is probably a burnt valve.

We are both chasing an issue see posts in distributor drive failure