The Landblogger

Progress report

Last Sunday night the V8 came out. I can't believe it's now Friday! This week I cleaned the shop and organized the tools on Monday night, pulled the console and shifter and dropped the transmission out on Tuesday night. Installed the motor mounts, block heater and lots of hemming and hawing on Wednesday night. Finished installing the newly arrived skew gear and manifolds on Thursday. Tonight I brought home a bunch of degreaser and did a thorough cleanup of the engine bay, the shop floor and the driveway. Then I fabricated a rear engine lift mount. I'd like to say this was some sort of planned high performance engineering, but the truth of the matter is I forgot to insert the motor lift point when I torqued the head bolts, and since they are stretch torqued and its only two of them, I decided to leave the head bolts torqued and simply create a new lift point. There are two fairly deep M8 threaded holes at the back of the head, so I created a skookum new mount and attached it there.
I've now also taken the engine off the stand and hoisted it up and moved it around in preparation of first fitting. Transmission is on the floor, awaiting its rear cross member to be installed and then it will get slid underneath and jacked into position. Who knows, I may have my first test fit done tonight.
Gonna have to take some time off from it tomorrow as grass needs cutting, not to mention a half dozen other chores that are niggling...

Now we're getting somewhere

I took a week off work last week, much needed due to some new stresses, but now I have to go back to work to rest up!
I spent several days putting the finishing touches on the 200 tdi. Waiting for Fedex for the final parts — only to discover that when they were delivered it was actually an order for a guy in Ontario. Don't know where mine went, but Britpart is sending again and the skew gear and clutch fork should be here tomorrow.
Also had to order a couple of glow plugs as 2 were shot. Paddocks had them on sale for £1.95 each so I picked up a half dozen. The block heater should arrive tomorrow too, I hope.
Finally, I took the injectors in to the local fuel shop and they rebuilt them, which was surprisingly inexpensive, only $137 — even better, Pamela paid!
So the engine sits with everything done but putting in the skew gear, glow plugs and block heater. Today I cleaned up the shop, and turned my attention back to the Range Rover. I had loosened a lot of stuff but hadn't actually pulled the V8. So today was the day. And boy, was it a messy bitch of a job. One engine now sits on the shop floor, but I have a lot of cleanup to do again.
The next process will be to remove the tranny, clean out the engine bay, remove all the unneeded junk from the V8, install the pedal assembly, simplify the wiring, then figure out whether the pile of engine mounts from various projects will adapt to this one or if I'm gonna be fabricating engine mounts too.

Getting traction on 200 tdi

I spent about 6 hours last weekend and again last night working on the engine. I got the camshaft back in and the valve train assembled. Everything pretty straightforward right now. Thanks to Bill in Edmonton the skew gear assembly is ordered, along with a clutch release bearing and one of the new heavy duty clutch forks from Britpart. The ones JD was making on the island, found here are pretty cool, but I think it'd be overkill in our stock daily driver. So lots to do until the parts arrive, and the shop is a mess again due to getting both trucks detailed a bit in preparation for the VanDusen ABFM.