The worlds most ungrateful Land Rover

[hazzalandy]

This Land Rover hates everything.Two engine rebuilds and it is still not on the road! Here is the back story;

 

 

1:The engine was extricated using a borrowed crane (definitely not pulled down main roads by hand!)

 

It was pronounced dead at the scene. It leaked badly, drank oil and had main bearings with craters deeper than the moon. All parts were dutifully ordered. While waiting I decide to go climbing with friends and break a leg.Paddockspares supply the wrong bearings, so the engine is stiff to rotate once fitted.  

 

2:Engine rebuilt to this state with correct ( but Britpart) bearings by a one legged mechanic.  The doctors were not impressed wit my cast wreaking of 20/50!

 

 

 

3:Engine refitted and ran, but being a silly twat I forgot to re-prime the oil pump. This completely toasted the bearings. With access to the crane lost I changed the main and big end bearings with the engine in situ. NOT FUN!

 

 

4 Seizure had toasted the starter motor, so with my patience wearing thin I took it to a 'repair shop' in Leicester. They exchanged it for a rebuilt unit. Once fitted the engine would not start, and was blowing back through the carb. After days of investigation, the starter motor was found to be spinning the engine backwards. This caused the re-used cam chain to skip teeth so once rectified the engine ran like a bag of bats.

 

5:New cam chain fitted and the engine ran beautifully. This leads us to today, in which...

 

 

You guessed it, more bad luck happened.

 

[Parky]

I believe Pillock will be along shortly with a suggestion to kill it with fire......

 

I however would like to hazard a guess that the replacement cam chain has broken and trashed the internals?

[HMC]

That sounds really frustrating! Full marks for persevereing with it.

 

What happened next?

[Albert Ross]

Just exactly HOW can an inertia starter motor turn backwards and throw the pinion into mesh with the flywheel? This sounds like bollocks to me.

[dieselnutjob]

it was an exchange starter motor so maybe the bit what throws the pinion was backwards too. Basically just the wrong motor for the car.

[hazzalandy]

Yes the ' thread' that throws out the pinion was also backwards on the starter motor. They essentially sent Guptha the YTS off to find an identical starter motor from their storeroom.

[Rusty_Rocket]

This all sounds entirely typical.  My 110 hates me too, despite all the quality***** parts I lavish upon it.

Keep us updated!

[Pillock]

 

 

I believe Pillock will be along shortly with a suggestion to kill it with fire......

 

Cover it with kisses. It's obviously feeling a bit under the weather.

[Inspector Morose]

Then kill it with fire.

[Albert Ross]

I'm struggling to think of an anticlockwise engine of that kind of size that takes an inertia starter with an identical DEB to a Series LR Petrol..... Honda certainly didn't make anything like that. I know certain manufacturers mounted the starter over the gearbox.. VW, Subaru maybe. I can only think that Aston Martin shared a DEB with the LR.... dunno then....

[cobblers]

What about one that has the starter mounting the other way?

[Pillock]

Ignorance mode enable:

 

Starters are DC, so wouldn't wiring it up wrong cause that? Or is that impossible?

[lisbon_road]

So could it be a positive earth/negative earth thing?  But in all the times I have seen comments about changing from one to the other, I have never seen reference to starter motors going the wrong way round so that can't be right.

[drum]

The direction of the thread is crucial Shirley?

[Albert Ross]

Exactly. On an inertia type starter, as the shaft spins, it turns the "screw" which sends the pinion up the shaft. If it were to spin the wrong way, the pinion would stay exactly where it was put. Unless It's a pre-engaged type, 3 bolt unit off a 5 bearing engine. And in that case, the pitch of the teeth on the 3 bearing flywheel would not match with the starter. Even if they did, the directional clutch within the pinion on the pre-engaged starter would prevent it driving anything, and therefore NOT turn the flywheel at all, Ergo it's never happened. You'll have to forgive my cynicism. It still sounds like bollocks.

[Pillock]

I'm going to turn my ignorance mode off and just believe whatever Albert says about Land Rovers.

[hazzalandy]

You all have the right to be cynical of anything written on the internet, especially by someone with so few posts as me, but, I can assure you that the exchange unit did turn the engine over backwards.

What I believe happened is that the starter motor repair shop took in a starter motor with the 'big spring' on the shaft borked. The circlip at the front was removed, so was the spring and then the pinion gear and possibly the thread that it rides on. (the thread is a separate assembly as it is heat treated to toughen the metal)

This was then reassembled in the wrong order.

[Albert Ross]

It can't be reassembled incorrectly. NO chance. Ever stripped one of these down? If anything tried to "drive" off the pinion, it would push it out of mesh.... because the thread is turned one way only. That is to say, if the starter was turning in the opposite direction, and the pinion already in mesh, the thread would naturally keep it in a situation where any load would push it out of mesh. It only meshes and drives if turning in the correct direction. ~Unless a reverse thread pinion and screw section were inadvertently fitted at time of production, and it was coincidentally wired incorrectly.

[hazzalandy]

I concede to you superior knowledge of Land Rover construction.

 

HOWEVER, I do still stand by the fact that the engine was turning over in reverse. 

[panhard65]

Thinking about this if it were a 2 bolt fitting starter motor that is mounted on the side of the engine and it was possible to fit it 180 degrees out ie the other side of the engine even though it turned the same way it would turn the engine the opposite way. Probably not very well explained if I was any good at drawing a diagram would explain it better. I will say I have no idea what type of starter or where it's mounted on a Land Rover but that might explain his engine going backwards.

[twosmoke300]

Or if a starter that should be mounted on the gearbox with the inertia bit towards the front were put on a vehicle facing the other way

[Albert Ross]

Agreed.... but in this application, it is mounted engine side. The chamfers on the flywheel teeth are on the clutch side, so as the pinion is drawn into mesh, there is less chance of clashing. Trust me on this one.... I have about 15 2286/2495 LR engines in my garage... about 4 more at the back of the house... I've been fettling them for over 30 years.  Also, this is not a feature unique to LR engines. Sorry to sound like an utter know-it-all miserable cunt. But I am one. In a few specialist areas. This being a large one.... Also, if your engine was trying to rotate backwards, there would have been zero oil pressure, and the timing chain may have been in a position to slacken off and jump a few teeth. Unless it was replaced with new parts and wasn't stretched/slack, and there was nowhere for it to slacken off to.

[twosmoke300]

Soo if he was supplied with a starter set up for being fitted on the gearbox side it could run the wrong way ?

[Albert Ross]

There is no such beast that will mesh or even bolt up. It's an inertia style motor, first used in about 1937..... yup, the origins go way back to pre war Rovers. It was originally used on a IOEV Land Rover engines, and was used until about 1983/4, as the coil sprung models were introduced. The part number for this unit, RTC5225, covers models from 1954. IOEV and OHV petrol engines. It doesn't fit anything else, except, as mentioned above, possibly some Aston Martin models (6 cylinders IIRC) and maybe Bristol engines.... but cannot be 100% certain on these thoughts. It would have to be a complete mirror image of parts in order to work if mounted the other side of the flywheel. I would hope that IF such a beast existed, QC would spot it before it left the factory......

[twosmoke300]

So you are 100 percent sure that no ag or plant application uses a reversed version ?

[Albert Ross]

You mean with the correct DEB, pinion diameter, teeth pitch and amount, pinion deck height, electrical connection, and all other coincidental requirements that would make it work? No. I don't have encyclopaedic knowledge of all applications.... but I know my Series Land Rovers.

[panhard65]

I had a look at the land rover starter and it is a 2 bolt job so it looks like other starters of the period and it is possible that they have supplied a wrong un. The teeth and pitch only need to be close for it to pick up and turn it. Pretty unlikely but that would be the only way to explain it. It wouldn't start though turning it backwards and unlikely to damage the timing, do they have a tensioner on the timing chain I know a lot of older engines only have a guide that couldn't be compressed. The electrical connection is just one cable from the solenoid so not an issue

[Albert Ross]

It has an oil pressure fed ratchet type internal chain tensioner which carries a free sprocket. It's very quiet in normal pressure fed operation, but once pressure drops (at times like pointing downhill, sudden stops, low oil level etc, they DO rattle their arses off..  And at that point, they are prone to jumping teeth with resultant retarded cam timing, which causes blowback through the carb venturi, and also a retarded spark. They will run like it, but only when hot. This shows a new chain installed. The free sprocket is behind the orange coloured arm, on the left.

 

I have just checked the Lucas crossover part numbers for the drive end bracket. Apparently unique to LR applications... I must dig further....

[jakebullet]

It has an oil pressure fed ratchet type internal chain tensioner which carries a free sprocket. It's very quiet in normal pressure fed operation, but once pressure drops (at times like pointing downhill, sudden stops, low oil level etc, they DO rattle their arses off..  And at that point, they are prone to jumping teeth with resultant retarded cam timing, which causes blowback through the carb venturi, and also a retarded spark. They will run like it, but only when hot. This shows a new chain installed. The free sprocket is behind the orange coloured arm, on the left.

 

I have just checked the Lucas crossover part numbers for the drive end bracket. Apparently unique to LR applications... I must dig further....

 

Can you still buy spin on oil filter conversions for 2 1/4's?

[mat_the_cat]

Yes, but you have to be careful the thread goes the right way...