Thread: Dismantled 3.5 litre Rover V8

Hello Frank,

Everything that I have ever read and everyone that I have spoken with that work or have worked with Rover V8 engines advise regular oil changes for engine longevity, and nothing even close to 10,000km per change. I figured that if the oil was clean then the filter would be less likely to suffer blockage.

The engine that you have with 385,000km on it. What oil pressure does it show at 2500 or 3000rpm? Have you pulled it down and inspected the shells?
Are your rockers and shafts the original ones too? What brand and grade of oil have you and do you continue to use?

Before I had my original 3.5 removed and stripped I spoke with a mechanic who had not long before rebuilt another 3.5 with 400,000km up. He said that the owner like me had changed the oil ever 3 to 4000km and that the inside of the engine was as clean as a new pin, but everything was totally worn out.

I gather that you suggest that the foam filters that I used for 19 or 20 years were responsible for increased wear within my engine. Could you please expand on your thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Ron.

The RRC V8s used by the various Police forces of the UK were in constant use for nearly 24 hours a day and as a result many of them racked up several hundred thousand miles on the clock and were only taken off the road for essential servicing, so they probably went the full 10 000kms on oil/ filter changes and reliablilty was generally reported as excellent, with many Police RRCs reaching the civilian market after a normal service life of 5-6 years although some some examples gave 10+ years service.

In saying that, I presonally go for 5000KM/ 6 monthly oil and filter changes. Penrite HPR 30 (20W-60). The Rover V8 likes oil with a decent ammount of zinc.

Originally Posted by CSK

In saying that, I presonally go for 5000KM/ 6 monthly oil and filter changes. Penrite HPR 30 (20W-60). The Rover V8 likes oil with a decent ammount of zinc.

I must agree with the Penrite oil, I haven't seen much camshaft wear since I started using Penrite 20 years ago. For example, a taxi company I once did a few Falcon engines for had an XE with 400 000km with major cam wear. I then built an XF engine which I told them to run on Penrite. 600 000km later they came back with a head gasket problem. The timing chain and cam were like new. (The chain was the same type as the Rover one)
Bearing metal had fatigued and disappeared, but the crank was within specs.

Originally Posted by RoverP6B

I gather that you suggest that the foam filters that I used for 19 or 20 years were responsible for increased wear within my engine. Could you please expand on your thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Ron.

Oiled foam filters are great so long as they are kept oily. I used Unifilters for years in atrocious conditions, never had problems with them leaking dust.
I gave up fitting them to customers cars because they were never maintained. Once dried out they are no better than a sieve.

Ron, I am a mechanic (mostly trucks) and I have never seen oil changes at 3 to 4000klms.
Land Rover Workshop Manual states Oil and Filter change evry 10,000klms.
I used to have a Falcon P/van with a 5L V8 as a courier vehicle in Sydney and I clocked up over 100,000klms in city driving, the car ran on LPG only, never petrol, the company I worked for had an enormous fleet of trucks and vans and they had an oil test facility. At 10,000klms I had the oil checked, it was as good as new, to cut a long story short I eventually changed the oil at 50,000klms and it still tested good.
What stuffs your engine is the carbon (esp. in a diesel) that gets past the rings and into the oil which the accelerates engine wear, some of the company vehicles (Petrol) clocked up 1,000,000 klms before rebuild and they had oil changes at 30,000klms. Rick130 is the expert on oils on this forum, check out some of his posts.
I believe that you have dusted your engine using a foam filter, read some of the "Filter" posts on this forum and you will see why.
The 3.5 is a spares motor that I've had for years, don't know what oil or how often it was changed, but it could be put back together with a new cam and lifters and would still get another 200000klms from it, looking at the pics of your engine leads me to believe that your oil was full of Silica (dust), Regards Frank.

Speaking of oil I am also using Penrite with my new engine, HPR30 which is their mineral 20W-60 oil.

Frank,...thanks for that..will have a look at the posts that you suggested.

Talking of dusted,...I remember during the mid 1980s...having removed the oil filler cap and looking inside the rocker cover...the rocker shafts and the inside surface of the cover itself all looked and felt like they were covered in dirt...brown and rough to touch. I mentioned it to a Rover gent and he said...."crook oil" to which I replied...I am using Castrol GTX! He replied...."that is what I said".

This was while I was still using paper element air filters so the foam filters were not responsible.

Ron.

Those bearings look like the ones that came out of my 3.5 a year ago. There are pics on here somewhere. Mileage unknown as the odometer doesn't work but I suspect well over 300 000km.

Ron, looking at the mess that the sides of the pistons show leads me to believe you had a great deal of blowby which not only would have added to the carbon and silica in the oil but raw fuel would have diluted the oil as well, your engine actually looks worse than some engines I have pulled down that had little or no servicing. If you stick with good oil, filters, air and oil, and stick to manufacturers instructions on service's you should get a lot more klms than you got with this one, Regards Frank.