Series/Disco Hybrid Build

[swamijake]

What wireless remote did you use?

[bsa_m21]

What wireless remote did you use?

Harbour Freight. Bought new off Craigslist. Cut off the plug and wired the transmitter direct to the contactor. Will eventually hard mount it under the Frankenrover hood.

[bsa_m21]

I got started on my winch bumper late yesterday. I want to make one like this (pic stolen from web):

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I ran off to Metals Supermarket and bought a length of 3x4 x .125 rectangular tube. After some measuring I started cutting the lengths and angles.

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Next was cutting and welding the curved closed ends of the raised bumper sections.

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Then I started on the centre cutout on the main section, where the winch will mount and the cable will go through.

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The opening on the backside is 1” wider then the front. For the cable to not bind on the bumper when spooling and winching, the front, hawse side, is 1.5” wide, the back, winch side is 2.5” wide.

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I added reinforcing tubes for the bolts, to prevent the bumper collapsing when winching.

I then did a quick mock up on the bench before calling it quits for the night.

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Still have to box and weld in the cable opening to seal out cable crap and water from the rest of the bumper, weld on the raised ends, close off the 45^ cuts, weld on mounting tabs and upper winch mounts. Still lots to do.

More later.

[RamblerRob]

That looks great... Exactly what i want for my bumper as well. Settling for something more standard thoughas funds are getting tight

[bsa_m21]

Today I boxed in the winch bumper cable tunnel and made and welded on the upper winch mounts.

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Tomorrow I’ll work on frame mounts, make a set of D rings as part of the upper mounts, and possibly even weld on land close off the upper bumper sections. :bounce:

[bsa_m21]

Today I almost finished the new winch bumper.
I made a set of integrated, shackle D-ring, upper bumper mounts and lower mounts. Bolted them to the frame and slid in the centre section of the bumper in between them. A little bit of fiddling to get it all to line up and centre, and then tack welded it together.

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I took it off and completed the welding on the bench, then tacked on the upper wing sections. A trial fit, perfect!. I left the rest of the welding (4 blanking plates) for tomorrow.

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I'm pretty happy with the results, so far.

[ANDYD]

Very nice booumper young lad! 8)

Maybe put "something" into the bumper cavity before you weld the blanks into place... kind of Time Capsule for someone to find in 200 yrs :wink:

[bsa_m21]

Hi Andy. Only thing going inside will be air. Hopefully my welds are air tight so I can use it as an air reservoir. I drilled holes between the centre and end sections before I welded it. I’ll know once I put in a shrader valve and pressurize it, because aside from that ....... it’s DONE!! :bounce:

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[bsa_m21]

Well, last week I figured it was about time to do some more work on my coiler project, after ignoring it all summer. The front end and bulkhead bodywork is fairly well in hand, so time to see whether or not I need another motor. (The truck wasn’t running when I bought it) So, several weeks ago, off came the bodywork, borrowed an engine hoist and out came the engine and tranny. Actually, after much swearing, scraped knuckles, broken bolts and torn engine/tranny mounts, out they came. Then I cleaned up the frame, mounted a tow bar and prepped it to sit out on the driveway for the winter while the engine/tranny are gone over.

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Yesterday I started the motor tear down. The good news is the block looks solid with no slipped liners or obvious cracks. The head gaskets actually looked like new. The bad news is the previous owner didn’t like oil changes….. :evil:

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Lots of cleanup to do.

But, there are virtually no ring ridges or slop in the pistons. And, it doesn’t look like it was burning oil or coolant. Cam is most likely shot, and the lifters I’d replace anyway. I already have a set of those and cam bearings. Depending on the the crank wear, I may be lucky. It will come apart this weekend.

So, at a minimum I’ll still need to get headbolts, a timing chain, frost plugs, water pump, and gaskets. I have another set of rockers in fairly good shape, if needed. Depending on the crankshaft condition it may need a regrind or just a new set of bearings.

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More to follow.

[bsa_m21]

Well..... The 1996 4.0L Gems motor rebuild is likely not worth it. Worn out are the oil pump (scored), cam & cam bearings, lifters, cam chain and gears (badly scored), rockers and rocker shaft, main and con rod bearings, water pump and injectors. However, for some strange reason the block itself isn't cracked and the bores look good. The heads, pistons and con rods are also good. I haven't checked the rings or bore yet, but likely new rings at a minimum or else a rebore oversize and new pistons/rings. Lots of $$$$$$$$$ to redo this motor.

I do have a good set of rockers and shafts and a new cam and cam bearings left over from a previous build, which is good. But, I just checked and the cam is for a 3.9 with a Dizzy, not a 4.0. Typical..... :oops:

Might be cheaper to pick up some kind of mid 2000's GM LS engine and buy an adapter to bolt it to my tranny.

Anyone looking for a new stock 3.9L cam and/or good rockers and 4L block? :bounce:

[swamijake]

Sorry to hear that Martin.

Well seeing as you didn't ask: I do like the LS engines, but if you go that route, there are a couple minor mods recommended to make sure it doesn't starve itself of oil on off camber driving. I think the main bits are the "dumb - bell" a little piece of plastic in the rear of the block that should be swapped for an aluminum one, A larger baffled oil pan and pickup which you'll probably need for a swap anyway, and replacing the the seal on the cam retention plate.

Also if you stay before 2006 you don't have to deal with displacement on demand nonsense. I think the best option is 04-05 gmc envoy's came with an aluminum 5.3 that has the lower profile intake manifold. I think it might even be lighter than your 4.0.

[bsa_m21]

So after asking around for quite a while, I scored a 2nd 4.0L for free from a good friend.
It had a new cam, lifters, timing gear and rebuild heads, but apparently, even after the upper end work and with great compression, it still blew lovely clouds of blue smoke every time you backed off the throttle. Rather than do more work to it, it was swapped out for a diesel and the v8 had been sitting for 6 years outside, under wraps. I figured it can't be any worse than the 4.0L that I have and may just be stuck oil rings and a relatively simple fix (hope springs eternal.... :roll: ), so I brought it home.

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You can see the rust and corrosion from the backside of the motor, but that shouldn't affect what is inside (fingers crossed).

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First I pulled the exhaust manifolds and rocker covers. Nice!

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Then off came the intake manifold. Seemed someone went a bit crazy with the silicone sealant....

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I wonder if it had been overheating? Anyhow, I pulled the heads.

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One side was definitely crudded up with major oil. And it appeared that some water had gotten inside and there was quite a bit of surface rust on the pushrods and a few of the rocker tower bolts.

Oh well, time to pull the oil pan then pistons and crank. For some reason, I neglected to take pictures while doing this and cleaning up, but aside from some minor surface rust on the exposed surfaces of the con rods and crankshaft, it all looked good. All bearing surfaces were immaculate.
The pistons crowns had a fair bit of oil and carbon build up, but it easily came off. There was very little build up of crud on the sides of the pistons and it too came off easily. However, the oil control rings in most of the pistons were completed jammed up with burnt on oil, wouldn't budge and I believe were the cause of the blue smoke. The amount of crud in the ring grooves after I got the rings out was ridiculous. I did remember to take a pic after I had cleaned up the pistons:

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The pistons have almost no wear so I was hoping to just hone the cylinders and reuse them. And then, then Murphy's Law came into play.

On close inspection, the rear two cylinders, 7 and 8 of, had slightly slipped liners. One was about 3/4mm down and the other about 1/2mm. Not a lot, but it might have been why there was moisture in the crankcase.

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If you look close, you can see that the liner is not flush with the surface. Now what to do...... I know! I have another block.

More to follow.

[bsa_m21]

So I have the block from my original motor and it doesn't have any slipped liners. A quick check on the wear in this block's cylinders and then a check on the piston diameters from the new (to me) motor, told me that I likely could just get away with a hone and rings. The piston to cylinder gap would be right at the max tolerance, but hey, this is a budget build for a "franken-rover" that I'm doing on the cheap. The cam bearings in the block were shot, but I knew that I had a set of new cam bushes left over from a previous build many years ago. And when I went to dig them out of my parts stash, I also had a full set of rings. Bonus!

So the plan was to send the block out to be boiled clean, honed and the cam shells replaced then swap all the parts over to the old block. I took the old block, cam shells and the virtually new cam from the 2nd block, to Heads Unlimited in Surrey in lat December and got it back before Christmas. Sweet. I highly recommend their work.

I cleaned up the good crank and mounted it in the now clean block.

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Next in went the pistons.

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Then in went the new cam and lifters. Of course I forgot to take pics of that process...... :oops:
Then on to cleaning up the recently rebuilt heads from the 2nd block. Minor grunge build up on the chamber, exhaust valves and port.

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You can easily see that one side was way oilier than the other. I popped out the valves and proceeded to clean it all up. Everything went fine until the last intake valve.

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I have no idea what the yellow crud was. It wasn't rust and the intake port was full of it. Yuck.
Anyhow, I cleaned it up, reassembled the heads, cleaned the bolt holes in the block and started to mount the heads on the motor.

Of course it was going way too smooth at this stage so Murphy had to show up again. :roll:

For those not in the know, Rover 4.0 and 4.6 motors require the use of TTY stretch bolts (Torque To Yield). These can only be used once, then thrown away (or melted down and recast if you have a forge :alien: ). The tightening procedure specifies the following predefined pattern, torque them in all in order to 14lbs (just over finger tight), then mark with a white marker and rotate clockwise 90 degrees, rest a few minutes then repeat another 90 degrees. If you are like me, you will need a pry bar on the wrench to get enough leverage for the final 90s.

So, back to Murphy... The RH head torqued up fine and I moved over to the LH one. First set of 90s, perfect. Then I started on the first bolt of the 2nd set of 90 turns. As I wrenched, suddenly it came loose. OH NO!

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Yup. Aluminum is softer than steel so I stripped the threads in the block. :oops: I have no idea how many times the heads had been on this block and who knows how they were torqued previously. Ok, pulled up google and did a search. Success. A quick trip to Crappy Tire (Canadian Tire to non-Canadians) and I had this repair kit:

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Shortly the hole was rethreaded and the repair coil fitted.

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Whew! Saved. However, now I have to get a one half set of TTY head bolts as the ones I've already partially torqued can't be reused. Typical.

So why haven't I gone to ARP studs? Well given the unknown history of the block the hole may still have stripped; TTY bolts are cheap, a few bucks each; but a set of Rover ARP studs are over $300 up here in Canada.

Next installment in a few days, once I have new bolts. Time to see if I can strip any other holes. :twisted:

[swamijake]

So . . . I have not had good luck with helicoils for head bolts. Haven't done it on a rover block but scrapped a motorcycle block trying. By all means try it out, but if if pulls out there are Time-serts and Huhn inserts:

http://www.timesert.com/html/LR.html

https://www.huhnsolutions.com/

I like the Huhn kit better and would buy the tools off you after your done.

[bsa_m21]

Thanks for the info Jake, ..... but my thread repair worked!! The bolts easily torqued to the desired rating, this time around. And nothing stripped! Hard to believe. :bounce:

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Pushrods fitted and rockers bolted on with no issue.

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Oil pump cleaned up and packed with vasoline to help with oil priming (no pics, my hands were to greasy :roll: )
Then the Timing Cover bolted on.

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And then the valley pan and intake manifold bolted on.

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That's enough for a Friday evening. The hard work is done. Finishing of the motor now is just bolting on the sensors, intake and rocker covers. Simple

Then its onto the ZF tranny and LT230 transfer case. Always something else. :spinning:

[swamijake]

Yay! looking good!

[bsa_m21]

Well the engine is now complete and ready to go back into the frame when it’s painted. I only had to remove the intake cover, plenums and alternator bracket 3 times before I sorted out all my incorrect “assembly sequences”. :(

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I had a “minor” detour 2 weeks ago. The transfer case whine in my ‘96 Disco daily driver had gotten to the point where earplugs weren’t enough, so I decided to rebuild the transfer case from the hybrid build, swap it into the truck, then deal with the case I removed. Turned out the donor case was in great shape and didn’t need a rebuild. Yay! Well…. It only took 2.5 days on my back on the garage floor under the damn truck, getting greasy and bruised, to complete the swap. “Murphy” must have rolled over in his grave laughing, what with all the f-ups along the way.

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After much swearing, I got the donor case back in and all hooked up. Whoever in the UK that designed the plug connection locations for the front O2 sensors (top of bell housing behind the coil pack) was a bloody masochist. The scrapes on my hands won’t heal for weeks….

Then I tore into the removed case. The intermediate gears shaft was loose in the housing (a common issue) so the case was going to need repair. The various gears showed some signs of misalignment wear, but no serious damage. After a bit of searching, I found a case from a 200TDI that had already had the steel sleeve repair for the intermediate shaft holes and after some $$ and my old case, I set about the reassembly. New bearings, seals and intermediate shaft went in. Preloads set. All good. Ready for the hybrid install.

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Idiot that I am, I didn’t realize until I was virtually done assembling it, that there are some variations in LT230 cases. The replacement case doesn’t have the casting bits for the auto tranny 4x4 shift-interlock. Oh well. Just means less wiring needed later in the build. :bounce:

[swamijake]

Engine is looking fancy!

[bsa_m21]

Next, with space in the garage, onto the wiring harness. GEMS rewiring apparently is not for the light hearted. The amount of interconnected bits feeding inputs the the Disco 1 ECM is simply ridiculous. Online, most people throw it away and go with an aftermarket setup. Well that is big bucks and I’m a cheap SOB. One way or another I will sort this out. The only nice piece is that the engine sub harness does not need to be touched, just everything else :roll: .

It begins…..

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I will have another update in a few weeks (or after I give up!).

[bsa_m21]

I think I'm put on this planet to fix stuff .....

• - 8 or so weeks ago I took apart the motor for my Rover hybrid build and realized it was junk.
  - 6 or so weeks ago I got a 2nd Rover v8 motor from a friend, which turned out had 2 slipped liners (.... I was pre-warned). So I sent out my old block for tanking and honing, and over the next few weeks pieced together one (relatively) good motor using my old block and bits from both motors. I'll see if she blows oil later this spring when I put it in the series/coiler hybrid I'm building.
  - 4 weeks ago I replaced the muffler (that had sat at a Canada Post depot 15min from my house since mid Oct and was only delivered at the end of Jan!) on my wife's car.
  - 3 weeks ago I had to remove my daily driver Disco transfer box that was howling like a screeching cat, and take it apart only to find the dreaded intermediate shaft hole ovalling; So I took apart and rebuilt the box from my Rover hybrid build and put it into my truck, and then bought a good case and using the old gears rebuilt that box for use in the hybrid build
  - 2 weeks ago replaced the exhaust flex pipe on my wife's car (a Nissan Rogue)
  - Last week, every once in a while, my Disco would lose power for a second or two, then be fine. A bit of research indicated that it usually a dirty speed sensor assembly (which is painful to get at on the transfer box when in the truck. Idiot that I am, I didn't clean it when I replaced the box - typical....

This past weekend -

• - On Friday my Discovery suddenly started overheating on the highway; pulled off the road - no coolant in the overflow tank. Great... made it to a gas station and bought a jug of coolant ($$$) - it took the entire jug and was still low. By the time I got home it was running hot again. Next morning there was a big puddle under the rad. The original rad (clogged beyond repair) was replaced, by me, with a cheap Chinese knockoff 4 yrs ago.... Sigh.
  - The wife's car suddenly got "really" loud. The exhaust gasket at the flex pipe rear joint had blown apart, even though the bolts were still tight.

So....

• - Two days ago pulled the rad from the Disco (requires pulling the fan assembly - which only took me 3hrs, and a new very large wrench to get the damn thing off...sigh. The bottom spigot and rad side tank on the Chinese knock off are both made of heavy plastic. The bottom spigot bolts to the rad with 2-10mm bolts. The bolts screw into threaded inserts that look like they are PRESSED into the plastic tank wall. They look like the kind that you would press into wood.... Both had very slightly (a millimeter) pulled outwards, meaning the spigot was a bit loose and leaking like a sieve.... more sighs. I tried to pull the inserts out (screwed in the bolt with an oversized nut), but they are still very tight in the plastic and didn't pull any further outwards. I can only assume that given all the heat thaw cycles, the plastic softened enough to let them move a bit. So.... I roughed up the connection surfaces, added a thin o-ring and then epoxied (with plastic epoxy) and bolted the spigot back onto the side tank. After the epoxy set I put everything back together, filled the rad, got the motor hot and watched for leaks (none) and went for a shower.
  - Yesterday I pulled and cleaned the speed sensor from the hybrid's transfer box. Then I fought to pull out the old and swap in the cleaned sensor. It is in a tight space above the exhaust pipe and behind the parking brake. Several hours and multiple scrapes, contusions on my hands and wrists, and a lot of foul language later it was changed. A long test drive showed me: a) no rad leaks and b) no intermittent power losses. Hopefully she is now good for another 4 years or so (and yes, I can live with noisy lifters/rockers).
  - While out for the drive I bought new exhaust gaskets for the wife's car and a tube of muffler cement. Back home I jacked up her car, pulled apart the connections and re-sealed them with gaskets and cement. Let the cement set up for 3hrs and then took it for a drive. Nice and quiet again (for now anyhow).

So I ask you, was I really put on this planet just to fix stuff ? :rolly:

[ANDYD]

Wow busy few weeks!

Look on the good side, at least your not paying someone to do all these repairs ..... think of the savings $$$$$$$
Plus better that these things happen in town rather than on top of a mountain :wink:

[rgallant]

The universe is out to get you

[bsa_m21]

Not much progress the past month or so. Sent my custom winch bumper for my build out for galvanizing. And decided to get my Koenig winch bumper on my 80" galvanized at the same time. Well when dismounting it, I found out that my old Koenig winch had sucked in some water during one of my off road adventures with it several years ago and I didn't notice at the time. It was seized solid. (Stupid me.....) So, $$ later, I now have a fully rebuilt winch on my 80" with a number of parts on it newly galvanized, as well as the galvanized bumper.

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I was hoping to try to make the bumper for my hybrid into an air reservoir and it was air tight after welding. Before I dropped it off, I had pre-drilled holes at each end for drainage and that I was going to tap and mount fittings in them after I got it back. Well the galvanizing firm had drilled a bunch more drainage holes in the bumper before galvanizing. When I picked it up I wasn't happy at all and complained. They said they had to, to ensure complete inside coverage, but they then gave me zinc plugs to hammer into the holes to plug them. I hammered them in and filed them flush so they are almost invisible, but I seriously doubt that the bumper will be air tight now. Oh well. Always something.... :(

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[bsa_m21]

Aug 14 and she isn’t on the road yet, but I have been whittling away at bits, in between fixing and keeping running the wife’s car and my Disco 1 daily driver. Always something to take me away from my “project”. ☹️

So. Engine, tranny, transfer box, suspension are done. Wheel brake bits are done. Breakfast and bulkhead are painted. Breakfast, radiator, front bumper and winch are mounted. About1/2 of the wiring is done (the GEMS engine components, unless I really messed up. Will mount the bulkhead and steering tomorrow and then finish plumbing the brakes and m/c. So I am getting close….. (I know, I know - hope springs eternal :shock: )

[swamijake]

Looking great!