My engine is buggered

[Des]

I've been topping up the coolant for a few years, about a pint or so a month, the low level light would start flashing and as long as I would see to it within a couple of weeks all was well, the pressure cap left loose helped matters in this instance. Then about 4 months ago it overheated to buggery, banging and farting, oil light came on, and once I stopped it wouldn't run until it cooled off a little. Parked it up assuming it knackered, then filled it one day to move it and found it ran ok, so drove it for a few weeks then boiled its knackers off again. I've done this about 5 times now and I can't believe the thing still runs, and runs very well, just can't kill it. There's a bit of a story behind this engine, and with hindsight it's my fault it's buggered. It's the 3.9 version of the Rover V8, about 3 or 4 years ago I was getting the bits together to build up a 4.6 engine to replace it, a later 4.0 block from my old car and 4.6 internals, (The internals of my 4.0 engine were in a bit of a mess, in spite of having been built up by a 'specialist').

The later 4.0 / 4.6 blocks tend to be shit, this is usually explained as Rovers machinery being worn out, was it bollocks, having ballsed it up I realise it was Rover deciding to delete a row of head bolts each side, no problem until the heads get disturbed, then the increased or concentrated stress at the block from the remaining bolts causes lumps of it to pull away from the liners, this is usually diagnosed as liner slippage whatever that is, I had to go and figure it out the hard way.

Before I got around to building up my nice engine, busy with work and all that, I popped the 4.0 litre heads on my car, I'd done a bit of port opening and matching and was a bit too keen to try them out, that and opening up the airbox and a bit of a fiddle with the dizzys mechanical advance made a great improvement, the cheapest mods are always the best, only the 4.0l heads didn't have the holes for the outer row of head bolts, I now wish I'd thought to drill the buggers as my actions took out the block.

The nice engine I've been meaning to build up is still waiting, the cure for these engines last minute design flaw is to get the liners replaced with nice new stepped jobbies, (and I suppose drill and tap to retrofit the missing headbolts) when I looked into this about 2 or so years ago the cost was £800, about double the cars value but worthwhile, have to consider the cars value to myself rather than market value, really, really should have done it then because the cost has now near doubled, which would buy me a better car without all the faffery. I suppose the obvious thing to do now is to buy a used engine, a quick look on egay shows lots, priced from a few hundred to a few thousand, only prob is, whatever the price I have no confidence that any of them will be any good and I'll just waste a whole load of time / oil / antifreeze, I'm probably going to have to buy a whole car to get an engine that I can check out before the hassle of fitting, oh balls I think maybe it's time to scrap the bugger.

[baldrickthecunning]

Glad you found your solution via this forum!

[dollywobbler]

Fit a Perkins Prima. Sorted.

[scruff]

Prima in a Disco...

 

[Bren]

Top hat liners cure the problem but are very expensive.

 

The original SD1 type heads have an extra row of bolts compared to later ones, it is now recognised that these extra bolts "tip" the head when torqued up, and cause problem with head gasket / lifter valley gasket sealing. Specialists just "nip" up this extra row of bolts.

 

Unfortunately there are a lot of knackered v8 engines around, and ones that have been "tuned" (rebuilt in the kitchen to save money). Your best bet is to look for a 3.5 that is in a running vehicle, and preferably one with either 9.35:1 or 9.75:1 compression.

[Des]

I'm not really a diesel fan, could be swayed by a BMC 1.5 from a Morris J type though. After swearing I'd never touch egay again with a sticky thing, I've just used my brothers account to buy this;

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120837002398?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

 

Described as a 3.9, although I think it might be a 4.0 as it's missing a few drillings for the head bolts. I've heard about the head tipping / HGF thing caused by that outer row, but I think I'll fire up the drill and taps, tighten down the heads just enough and see how it goes, might have to do headgaskets every 5 or 6 years, but otherwise I fear it could be cracked block every couple of years.

[Albert Ross]

I have a BMC 2.2 Diesel you can have..!