We now have a Gallery Page with a random assortment of pictures from the Land Rover Project, check it out here! Also check back soon, the photo gallery will be updated often as the project progresses.
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Posted in About
After driving the Series 3 for a year and a half with the
stock 2.25 liter motor it became very apparent that more power was needed. While the stock motor on the 88’s in plenty peppy and passable for daily driving, the added weight of the 109” takes its toll on the stock motor. 0-50 took somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 seconds. More power is defiantly in order. After kicking around a bunch of options, such as a Chevy 350 or Cummins 4BT Turbo Diesel to NV3500 5-speed manual transmission to Land Cruiser Transfer Case, a 1988 Range Rover Classic was given to me.
Getting Ready to Pull the Classics's Motor
The Range Rover would only run for 30 seconds (the ECU was shot) and the body was completely rusted out (the door posts were rusted out so
the doors opened up and out) but it only had 70,000 miles and had been well
serviced, and the drive train seemed to be solid.
One Friday after work I rounded up a few friends and pulled it into the shop the pulled the drive train out as one unit, it only took about 3 hours to pull the motor.
Don't forget to remove the driveshafts!
1987 was the first year the Range Rover was sold in the US, and from what I read online the 87-88 Classic are the best donors for the series conversion, if an automatic is desired. It has the 3.5 liter aluminum block V-8 motor, ZF4HP22 automatic Transmission, and the LT230 locking Transfer Case (this is pretty much the same setup that is run on the NAS Land Rover Defenders). More information and specifications can be found Here.
If you are going to go the donor truck route for your engine
conversion, I recommend pulling as many parts as possible from the truck before
sending it to the scrap yard, I only took the drive train, and regret not
pulling more parts from it, such as power steering gear box, steering column,
axles and so on.
'88 Range Rover Classic Motor out of the Classic and next to the Series 3
Stay tuned for articles detailing adding a carburetor and
fabricating motor mounts and everything else that is involved in adding V8
power to the series Land Rover.
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Posted in Engine Conversion
This is by far the best grinder I have ever owned. I burned out a Hitachi grinder in about 6 months of moderate use when I started this
project, and after that I decided to go the Makita. My Brother currently has
this same model of grinder that is at least 15 years old and still going
strong, after having been used heavily in an industrial fabrication shop for 10
of those 15 years.
This grinder has taken everything I have thrown at it, and
never missed a beat. It has more than enough power. While it is a bit on the
heavy side, it is not so heavy that it makes your arms tired after a few hours
of using it. The 5 inch wheel size is great too, 5 inch wheels last longer than your hardware store 4 ½ inch ones. I have been using this grinder for the last year and expect that I will be using for many years to come. Check the link below to get the full specs and ratings.
I purchased mine from Amazon.com were it sells for at the bargain
price of $134.99 (Amazon is a great place to buy all sorts of tools) http://www.amazon.com/Makita-9005B-5-Inch-Angle-Grinder/dp/B00004YOGZ/ref=sr_1_73?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1311128330&sr=1-73
If you are looking for an angle grinder for some serous fabrication work, this is it. Lets just say I have been known to prattle on about how great this grinder is to anyone who will listen. Yes it is that good.
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Posted in In the Shop
I found working around the frame on jack stands difficult and somewhat annoying. I have seen full Frame Rotisserie in at Summit Racing going for around $1000, and this was defiantly more than I wanted to spend. Fortunately I was given two free engine stands so I decided to just bolt each of the engine stands to either end of the chassis. Surprisingly it works pretty well; it won’t go a full 360 due to the front frame horns. I could have made a bracket to mount to the front frame horns, but it goes far enough that I decided it wasn’t worth the time.
The basic set up was very simple, some 8 inch ½ inch bolts and two pieces each end of angle iron on the backside of the frame and it was done. Now the frame spins and I can roll it around the shop with ease. I will update if all goes terribly
wrong somehow, but as of right now it is working great, and cheap, which is
always good.
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Posted in In the Shop
This 1973 Land Rover Series 3 109 Station Wagon most of its life in England, presumably by the sea due to the massive amounts of rust it was carrying around, or the massive amounts of metal it was not, depending on how you want to look at it. In 2008 it made the long trip across the ocean from the Port of South Hampton to Port of Charleston South Carolina, it was then towed an hour south to Beaufort, South Carolina where it sat behind a shop for six months until I happened upon it and promptly purchased it. It then sat at the local transmission shop for another six months while they put a clutch in it and then the poor beast was my daily driver for a year. It was an eventful year (we will get into that later) but finally the Landy?s old bones could no longer support itself and things began to fall off alarmingly fast. I then pulled it into a rented garage space to rectify its many issues, expecting the work to take 6 months max. Fast forward to today, two years later, and the work is going strong. Over time I will chronicle the work I have done and the current stuff I am working on, mostly so the unlucky few who stumble upon this site can learn from my mistakes, and the occasional idea the works well from concept to implementation.
Check back often as the updates will keep on coming
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Posted in About