Thread: How many km have you done

Originally Posted by EchiDna

comprehensive list John!!

crikey by now your radiator hoses must be a bit dodgy ?

I said I probably missed something! - radiator hoses replaced twice, just replaced radiator cap.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I said I probably missed something! - radiator hoses replaced twice, just replaced radiator cap.

I was only takin the pi$$

and I wish I could remember 10% of what I've done to any given vehicle over the last 14 years

Originally Posted by EchiDna

I was only takin the pi$$ .....

I know!

John

mine has 440k on the clock now. Ive only had it since 330k. Replaced 1 thermostat, starter solonoid+brushes (brushes were a pain to solder), the top thermostat cover as it was leaking around the thread, the aicleaner (it still had the origional marked 1986), the water trap, top hose (leaking through webbing in the middle of the hose). I think Thats it engine wise. The rest of the driveline has been replaced with a defender one, bar the rebuilt rangie gearbox.

Andy

Fella i know has a 85 county with the n/a 4bd1 and last time i spoke to him was 3 years ago and the 4bd1 had 1.3miliion k's on it and no major repairs just the usual stuff like routine maintanance

Mine is an 84 mod in a stage 1 with only 150 k on it so its got alot of k'sleft in it

It's not uncommon for the donks in the trucks to do more than a million km's. Most of the time they just service the fuel injection systems.

Welcome to the longest ever first post.

My 4BD1T has had a long and terrible history.

Originally imported from japan as a used engine and gearbox with "approx" 100,000km. It had done soo many km that the original gearbox was toast.
It was fitted into an 85 rangie with a new Isuzu gearbox on the cheap. The genius of the man who did the conversion is obvious, but I imagine given a few thousand $ more to play with the result would have been soo much tidier.
Rangie had about 110,000km on the clock (dealer who sold it has since been struck off for winding back cars among other evil deeds).

The fueling had been increased and I suspect the rev limiter wound out too. The truck would do almost 160km/h, I found out later with the rev limiter set to 3600 that 145km/h is the limit.

The engine was stripped for balancing about a year later. The difference between conrod bigends was found to be 17g, needless to say the improvement in NVH was remarkable.
At the same time the fuel pump was reconditioned (also reset to factory spec) and rings, bearings and seals replaced.

A short while later the engine started spitting oil out the breather. A strip down revealed the valve stem seals (not original parts) had lifted, been hammered into pieces and fed the tension springs through the oil pump and all oil galleries.

What followed was a rebuild courtesy of the valve stem seal manufacturer. The block was bored out and cast iron sleeves installed (don't do this). Many parts bolted to the engine were reconditioned at the same time.

The vehicle then did about 40,000km of almost solely offroad work, then I inherited it. What was to be the start of a very intensive hobby.

I found and removed a tight restriction on the air intake to the turbo, noticing at the same time the turbo compressor wheel was eroded.
The result was a massive improvement in power, but the engine then again started blowing oil out the breather.
The source of evil this time was the air cleaner with elements which didn't seal.

Partial rebuild time. No time and no money so new rings were installed and away it went. The cast iron liners were noticably worn.

I found a new (old) turbo compressor wheel and threw it in. Boost went from 12psi to 17psi and took the headgasket with it (reused from last one).
Found that the turbo wastegate would only open at 25psi, welded an adjustable section into the wastegate rod and set it to open at 15psi. Before then the wastegate had never opened.

Rebuilt again 5000km later. This time the cast iron sleeves were bored out and chromard liners reinstalled. Generic pistons, rings, liners and gasket set was bought from a reputable (supposedly) engine parts supplier.
Half the gaskets didn't fit, found out later a genuine gasket set would have been cheaper.

For the next 27,000km I waited for the engine to bed in, stop burning oil and blowby to drop. It didn't.
I replaced both crankshaft seals with genuine items after the ones from the dodgy kit didn't keep oil in.
Coinciding with a turbo blowup (oil feed line came apart) the blowby got bad enough that the engine would run on it's own oil if loaded up enough.
The source of evil this time was again dodgy parts. The aftermarket piston, ring and liner set contained chrome rings. Chrome rings and chrome liners get on like sand and vaseline.

The engine was rebuilt insitu with a genuine gasket set, aftermarket liners (free), aftermarket pistons (can't buy genuine individually) and genuine rings. Valve guides and seals replaced.

Within 30 seconds of being started up it ran so clean that you could see up the exhaust pipe, the difference in friction between the old rings and genuine rings was huge. Old pistons had to be tapped out with a block of wood. New ones pushed in by hand.
Fuel economy improved from 8.5 to 10km/l, oil consumption disappeared and from startup the blowby was minimal.

The moral of the story is pretty clear. Genuine parts don't suck.

I've currently got the engine out cleaning all the crap off from years of it blowing oil out every seal. I have some silly turbo plans too.

Originally Posted by EchiDna

I was only takin the pi$$

and I wish I could remember 10% of what I've done to any given vehicle over the last 14 years

Would that be the 10% that you could have earned if you invested the cash ?