Land Rover TDI 300 Swap Time

[WhiteRover]

More progress today! I finally got the engine sitting on its mounts in the truck. I ended up having to cut the mounts off of where I had first welded them on, they ended up being located too high on the frame. I then bolted the transmission into place and installed the radiator, fan, and fan shroud. I positioned the engine such that the fan was centered in the fan shroud, or it would be when the engine was sitting on the mounts. At this point the engine was a little higher than I wanted it to sit in order to compensate for the compression of the engine mounts. This compression amount I had to guess on the first try. The mounts ended up compressing more than I had anticipated and on the first try the fan blades were almost touching the bottom of the fan shroud. I cut the mounts off again and figured out how much more I needed to lift the engine to compensate for the compression of the engine mounts. The second try was a success, with the fan sitting centered in the shroud. I ran out of daylight today so the mounts are just tacked in at the moment. Tomorrow after church I will burn in the rest of welds and then this big step will be DONE!! I will get some more pictures of the install tomorrow, but this is how it sits at the moment:

 

[WhiteRover]

Got a little more work done today on the truck. The hood is back on, so its starting to look like a vehicle again. I also test fitted the radiator and intercooler in their frame to make sure they will fit. Everything looks good; even though the intercooler isn't the stock intercooler it looks like everything will fit with some minor trimming. I cleaned up the radiator/intercooler frame from rust tonight as well and tomorrow I will repaint them before assembling the radiator/intercooler assembly and dropping it in. Oh, and I also got the wheels back on the truck. Sorry the pic are a bit blury, it was getting pretty dark by the time I remembered I hadn't taken any yet.

 

[WhiteRover]

Got a little bit more work done today on the truck. Got the radiator/intercooler frame painted, got the fuel filter installed on the firewall and most of the fuel connections mocked up. I am missing a couple fittings that I'll have to get before I can have it fully connected. I need the banjo bolt that attaches the fuel line to the injection pump and I need a compression fitting to attach the fuel supply line from the tank to the inlet of the fuel pump. Then I got the radiator and intercooler mounted in the frame and it looked good, however, when I went to install, the intercooler was running into the A/C condenser. There's not much clearance between the condenser and the radiator in the truck. This intercooler, which isn't stock, is a little bit thicker than the standard intercooler and this is causing a problem. I'll have to make a couple more modifications before it will fit properly. I also started the plumbing on the pre-oiling system but have to wait until everything else is done so I can find a location for the pressure tank for that system. Some of the pics below are unrelated to today's work but I wanted to include them because when I was researching this swap, there were no pictures of anything. Most of this I've been able to figure out as I've gone along but it would have been nice to have pictures to reference in order to plan in my head how everything was going to go.

Radiator/intercooler frame getting painted:


Radiator/intercooler installed in frame:


Truck as it sits now:


Passenger side of engine showing Fuel filter and routing(incomplete)


More of the same:


Front of engine, no radiator yet:


Driver side of engine:


TDI transmission crossmember w/ transmission mounts:


Another underbody shot:

 

[WhiteRover]

Alright some more progress: Got a frame built to hold the intercooler in place and the radiator/intercooler is installed in the truck. The radiator plumbing is mostly installed, driveshafts are back in, and all work under the truck is finished apart from filling the transmission and transfer case with oil. The transmission cooler hard lines did not fit correctly and interfered with the TDI so I will be replacing them with SS braided teflon lines eventually. The transmission was shipped with a trans cooler blanking plate because in England the trucks did not come with a transmission cooler, so there's not a rush on getting those lines finished. The exhaust will also need to be done under the truck. The intercooler plumbing is proving to be a challenge as all I got from the guy who sent me the engine was a hand full of elbows and a section of aluminum pipe . . . so I'm still figuring that out. That in addition to the inlet/outlet to the intercooler is right in the middle of the radiator plumbing. The new banjo bolt for the fuel inlet on the injection pump has arrived and I'll get that in this week(end) and I'm going to focus on the intercooler plumbing as well. Here's some pics of the progress with the intercooler frame:

 

[WhiteRover]

I've been working and making progress these past few weeks. Well, the aftermarket Charge Air Cooler didn't work out. It was going to be very difficult to plumb it neatly and without hoses rubbing on other hoses. I ended up ordering a lower CAC pipe and a new stock fit uprated CAC with silicone hoses from England. They arrived last week and just popped right in. I got everything plumbed up, exhaust down pipe wrapped and installed, and the fuel system complete. I went to fire her up this weekend and ran into issues. It wouldn't start. Checked for compression and found I had compression on only one cylinder. After trying a bunch of different things and sending some emails to Duncan (who I bought the Engine from and was the hero of the day) I was running out of ideas. I was getting ready to take the timing cover off to check that the timing belt was installed correctly when Duncan suggested checking the valve lash. That was the problem. All valves had no clearance to the rocker arm and all but two were being held open a little when they were supposed to be closed. I'm just glad they weren't open enough to damage anything. I corrected the valve clearance, fired the glow plugs for a few seconds and then cranked her over. She fired right up and settled down to a lovely burbling idle spewing oil everywhere because the oil cooler lines weren't hooked up (I had the radiator out in preparation to pull the timing cover). I'm perfectly fine with cleaning up that mess after all the bad scenarios that had been going through my head this weekend. Praise the Lord, it started.

I'll get a video up soon of the engine running.

Things left to do to get her driving:
-- Refill engine with oil/coolant
-- Fill transmission/transfer case with oil
-- Finish off the exhaust
-- Hook up power steering hoses
-- Electrical (engine to chassis harness)
-- Put console back together
-- Put fenders back on

Other Items:
-- Install HD springs up front
-- A/C
-- Replace washer bottle (One pump bad, one damaged when removed from car)

 

[WhiteRover]

Here's a video of the engine running: [video=youtube;QQaSVO1WSd4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQaSVO1WSd4&feature=share&list=UU0HMHuWXX33h8IKN5GXr97w[/video]

 

[jimbo92]

Any updates on this thing?

 

[WhiteRover]

Sorry for not keeping it up to date. Everything is running and I've been using the truck weekly. After all the effort to get the intercooler I was sent working, I ended up just buying a stock fit uprated one from Allisport; Fits perfectly. On the first trip with the truck the timing belt blew 80 miles from home and I had to have it towed home. This was in December. I spent several months making sure the timing belt/pulleys were correct (there was a defect from the factory and several different updates to sort through) because they were not the latest and greatest. Rather annoying since I would expect that someone rebuilding an engine would make sure to put the most up to date timing components in; timing components were new, just not up to date.. It took some time to fix the truck as I had to pull the head because when the timing belt broke, it took all the pushrods, two or three rocker arms, and the rocker shaft with it, also stripping the threads in the head for 2 or three studs for the rocker arm. Then there was a bad oil leak coming from above the oil filter due to an o-ring not being replaced at the rebuild which took forever to find and has left a big mess. Then there is a plastic piece that joins two radiator de-aeration lines together that decided to let go on the interstate and piss all my coolant out on the way to work. Got that jerry rigged and still need to permanently fix it. Another pain is that the clutch circuit still has air in it and refuses to cooperate, so I've had to rev match all gears. It seems to be getting better, but I'm not crossing my fingers. Oh, and the rear engine seal is leaking. That is the biggest pain in the butt. The guy sent me a new seal but I'm going to have to wait to pull the transmission again to replace it as I'm in the middle of moving to our new house (and detached garage with concrete floor!!!) and need the truck to move stuff. Truck sounds great; did a straight exhaust on it but its not too loud. Sounds like a dump truck :grin: I still need to do some injection pump tuning but need to install a pyrometer for that. Its currently sitting at stock tune apart from adjusting the diaphram preload (bosch VE pump) to get it off the line a bit quicker. It was very anemic off boost before, but is better now. I love it but it still needs some work like A/C plumbing, trans cooler lines, plumbing in the pre-oil system and windshield washer bottle reinstalled. It will get there eventually, maybe, haha.

 

[97TJGUZZY]

Sorry for not keeping it up to date. Everything is running and I've been using the truck weekly. After all the effort to get the intercooler I was sent working, I ended up just buying a stock fit uprated one from Allisport; Fits perfectly. On the first trip with the truck the timing belt blew 80 miles from home and I had to have it towed home. This was in December. I spent several months making sure the timing belt/pulleys were correct (there was a defect from the factory and several different updates to sort through) because they were not the latest and greatest. Rather annoying since I would expect that someone rebuilding an engine would make sure to put the most up to date timing components in; timing components were new, just not up to date.. It took some time to fix the truck as I had to pull the head because when the timing belt broke, it took all the pushrods, two or three rocker arms, and the rocker shaft with it, also stripping the threads in the head for 2 or three studs for the rocker arm. Then there was a bad oil leak coming from above the oil filter due to an o-ring not being replaced at the rebuild which took forever to find and has left a big mess. Then there is a plastic piece that joins two radiator de-aeration lines together that decided to let go on the interstate and piss all my coolant out on the way to work. Got that jerry rigged and still need to permanently fix it. Another pain is that the clutch circuit still has air in it and refuses to cooperate, so I've had to rev match all gears. It seems to be getting better, but I'm not crossing my fingers. Oh, and the rear engine seal is leaking. That is the biggest pain in the butt. The guy sent me a new seal but I'm going to have to wait to pull the transmission again to replace it as I'm in the middle of moving to our new house (and detached garage with concrete floor!!!) and need the truck to move stuff. Truck sounds great; did a straight exhaust on it but its not too loud. Sounds like a dump truck :grin: I still need to do some injection pump tuning but need to install a pyrometer for that. Its currently sitting at stock tune apart from adjusting the diaphram preload (bosch VE pump) to get it off the line a bit quicker. It was very anemic off boost before, but is better now. I love it but it still needs some work like A/C plumbing, trans cooler lines, plumbing in the pre-oil system and windshield washer bottle reinstalled. It will get there eventually, maybe, haha.

good to hear you are making progress, even if it is slow.

 

[LR Max]

Awesome. On the fuel pump tuning, look for a shop that does it. If they've got a bunch of cab over Izuzu lawn trucks out front, they are good.

Sorry to hear about all of your issues. PM me if you are looking for parts. Currently working with my buddy to get a pallet or two of crap from England in the next couple of months.