3: Some Engines

...Continued from previous page

Having the 4.6 block, I'd sold the old 3.9 to a mate but then realised I needed a front cover, sump, and all that jazz to build the 4.6 up… so I bought a shagged out 3.5 lump from RR Parts for cheap and had all the ancillaries off it.

Here you can see one of my working situations - on a trailer in the alleyway behind my house. My vehicle itself was 50 miles away so this made mid-week operations a bit of a chore. People kept dumping shopping trolleys in the alleyway, which came in pretty handy as you can see.

Now the long process of sticking it all together begins… however, unlike most Land Rover or classic car rebuilds, re-assembly was NOT going to be the reversal of removal. A LOT of stuff was going to need modifying.

First off, the Gon2Far suspension mounts were welded on - these allow the spring to twist more easily off-road and are locked on-road. In reality I forget to unlock them 99% of the time.

Here you can see the naked Volvo axle slung approximately where it needs to go (on the centre bolt of the leaf spring) with temporary extended shackles cut from a piece of TXE/Type 62 Telephone Exchange steelwork.

As I'd never built an engine before and it was a job that could happen “at home” (outside of quality “lab time”) I dragged my junk round to Nige Barker (Megasquirt-V8) and he helped me bolt it all together.

The trigger wheel for the EDIS crank position sensor is mounted on the front pulley after a tickle on the lathe

A big pot of special nuts & bolts - the Rover V8 has a few oddities and I wasn't flush enough or sensible enough to just buy a full set of new fasteners for the engine. These came from the donor dead 3.5.

I was at least flush enough and sensible enough to buy ARP head studs and a duplex timing chain kit for it. Given the low cost and added loveliness (especially head studs) why anyone wouldn't do this by default is beyond me.

Bits cleaned up in petrol before fitting.

The heads from the 3.9 going onto the 4.6, technically you lose a little compression this way (if you use the better composite head gaskets) but it's negligible, although some very angry people on the internet will swear blind you're ruining everything.

Following the ARP stud tightening/torque guide, which is different to the standard head bolts.

All built up - the SERVICE written in marker pen and the Land Rover plaque glued to the front attest that this was a factory service-exchange 4.6 unit.

Forwards to some actual assembly!