The Rover-Landers of BC

Ok, I’ve likely lost 10-20 lbs in sweat over the last few days as it’s hot enough to cook eggs in the garage, but the bulkhead and steering are now mounted and the brakes are plumbed.

Brakes are done and bled. Accelerator cable made and installed. Wiper motor and wiper assembly in. Time to start fitting the fuel tanks then i’ll finish the wiring. Hopefully I haven’t messed up the GEMS wiring. 😳
Making progress! Yay! 🤗

Functioning wipers? Luxurious!

Looking good Marty, wont be long until the road test is here! keep it going :bounce:

Been making a fair bit of progress the past 2 weeks.

Got he seat box painted and mounted. Started figuring out the dual battery wiring. Re-welded the custom exhaust the previous owner mickey-moused. Every weld was porous and leaked. The arch over the rear axle was in the wrong place and needed to be moved back 2”, and I added a quiet resonator as well. My version is ugly, but she don’t leak or hit anything anymore. Then I insulated the bulkhead. Even did the brake tower. 🤗


Then I did the heater unit and got started figuring out where and how to mount the various bits needed to make her run. The GEMS cpu is now mounted on the bulkhead, behind the engine. I still have to make an insulated cover for it. All in all I’m quite pleased how she is coming together.

Ah yes, two steps forward and one back…. My daily driver, a ‘96 Disco 1, decided to start consuming copious amounts of coolant a few weeks back. I had most of the bits to do the head gaskets, but I’ve been waiting on a new oil pump before I pulled it apart. Pump arrived yesterday so today I began the disassembly. Oy. Dirty and greasy. Yuck. Once she cooled off, it took the rest of the day to get it down to bare heads. They’ll come off in the morning.

I’m not sure if this motor has ever been apart before as it has relatively low mileage (kilometerage?). Regardless, I don’t know it’s history before I bought it a few years ago. I’ve always done regular oil changes, Castrol 20/50, so expected the insides not to be too bad. Alas it was not to be. This is what the insides of the rocker covers look like:
The brown guck in the passenger side cover is scary. Yuck.

And this is inside the motor…. Surprisingly the cam looks ok at first glance. Once I’ve got the heads of I’ll know more.
Guess I’ll pull the oil pan while I’m at it and flush the entire block with brake cleaner to try to clear out as much of the crud as I can. Always something to slow down my series-hybrid build…. 😳😵‍💫

Well it took all day, a trip to Princess Auto and 3 to Cdn Tire, but the heads are off. Amazing what frozen bolts you can undo with a 40” breaker bar! 🤗 They don’t look bad at all.

Actually the cylinders also look good. No ring ridge at all. Cylinder 5 looks like it may be washed, but the matching head section isn’t, so I’m not sure about that. All sleeves are flush with the top of the block, so I may be lucky with this motor. M

Well my truck challenged me ….. and it won. It started losing coolant a few weeks ago and kept getting worse, so Sunday i took it apart. I thought I could do the head gaskets, lifters, oil pump and timing chain in two days. That is, until I opened it up and saw the crud build up. Ok, an extra day for cleaning and degreasing the parts and inside of the motor, so three days for sure. Yah, right…. Well today was day four and I ran out of steam with the exhaust to re-mount and fluids to fill. At least it will be on the road tomorrow. Sigh. 😵‍💫

M

Well the Disco is back on the road. Engine sparkling clean inside. Lifters, oil pump, head gaskets, valley pan and injectors replaced. I pulled the oil pan and checked the main and rod bearings while I was at it. All good. New rad hoses. Fresh oil and coolant. Running like new again. Now back to work on the Disco/Series hybrid build. :bounce:

Damn. I hate modern (well 1990’s) wiring. Specifically GEMS wiring. For the past several weeks I’ve been trying to work out what I can and shouldn’t delete. I sure hope I got it right now. Still need to hook up the dash wiring before I can’t really test it out. 🤞 I mounted the GEMS cpu on the bulkhead, so I’ll have to make up a cover to block some heat and the weather. That’s easy though.

Made a fair bit of progress the past few weeks. Finally sorted out wiring of the GEMS/Alarm unit and am able to connect to the cpu via the ODBII connection, wired up the seat box for dual batteries, painted and wired up the dash. Only took several dozen times of tearing the harness apart, 2nd guessing myself, to sort out “did I do that right?” type issues. Even repaired and sealed the Series 2 side tank. Going to use it until I get a replacement for the plastic Disco tank built. Then it will be used as an auxiliary tank feeding to the rear tank when I turn on it’s pump. Will mount the tank and pumps this week and then 🤞 fill the fluids and try starting her! :bounce:

Oh, and I bought a black 05 LR3 HSE last week as well. Glutton for punishment, I guess…😎

Looking good!

huuummmm the BIG RED switch is very intriguing ..... ejector seat maybe? :smilebox: