A Landy is reborn

[tractorman]

I woke at half past five this morning and was watching the telly a couple of hours later when I heard a noise. The Landy has arrived!



Martin, the seller, had a Freelander with a decent car trailer and his father was busy unloading the Landy. The camera batteries were flat, so no chance of them appearing here!

After showing me the important bits (like the keys!) and other handy information (like the sticky reverse selector), they rushed off to help a friend move house. Unfortunately Martin forgot to sign the V5, so I hope Swansea won't be too annoyed.

As was mentioned on another topic, I suspect Martin didn't know exactly what he had bought (I suspect he deals a little with cars as he's only owned the Landy for a couple of months and his feedback shows other cars sold and parts bought).

Interestingly, the "VIN" is S2A - I have the plate in the kitchen as, according to Martin, you shouldn't have it in the vehicle as they get stolen! Hmm, I wonder about that! However, I do have the V5 and it all matches, so I won't worry too much about that at the moment!

There are some interesting features and, as expected, the photos made it look better than it really is.

The chassis is sound - as far as I can see - though has some quirks: underseat filler for the (plastic) fuel tank, which has no fuel gauge. That's another thing to try and sort out - though neither tractors' gauges work: I use a clean bit of wood! Martin's dad thought that the springs heavy duty ones as there's no give in them and, he suspects they are a little long and may be from a LWB. I'll measure them and probably ask someone here to measure their 88" springs so I can compare them. However, there is a lot of black gungy stuff on them and I wonder if they just need stripping and greasing.



It's got a massive brake servo, there's a cut out in the bonnet for it!




The dash is interesting too, with a number of switches from the spares box. I'll tidy them up eventually - and see if I can get a thermostatic switch for the electric fan:



There are loads of jobs to do to tidy it up and several to improve it but I haven't even driven it yet, so I don't know what needs sorting first! I'm waiting for the post as there are all sorts of things coming that will find they way onto it (like a radio - with CD and USB).

I insured it yesterday, so it's all legal. It cost £140 to insure fully comp with the NFU, though it will come down as it hasn't got any NCB yet. I can't put it on the tractor insurance as they are third party and they don't do a fully comp for them (something to do with them being classics I gather).

There are more pictures on flickr, I didn't want to post them here just yet!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cumbriantractorfan

Stop Press! Parcelforce have just delivered some mudflaps. That's one of the parcels I'm expecting!

[mach1rob]

Certainly looks a good useable old work horse, far better than some you see on the roads still!

[TerryG]

That looks smart for a series 3. Like all land rovers I suspect it has had a variety of parts replaced over it's life and not all of them will have been the correct part so some modification is inevitable. Are you going to take the spare off the bonnet and put it on the tailgate so you can see where you are going?
Are you going to call it the little blue tractor?

[tractorman]

It's not a series 3 Terry, it's like me - a mongrel! It's amazing what a bit of paint can do - though I wish the previous owner had masked some of the aluminium before he sprayed it. The bonnet is rather rough (and the spare wheel is now sliding about in the back) and will need doing even if I leave the rest of it. There are various places where there is rust coming back (if it was ever removed) behind the new paint, so there's plenty of body work and spraying jobs!

However, after searching the web, I still can't find the engine number. I gather it's supposed to be on the "back" of the LH side of the head (or top of the block), but, apart from blue overspray, there's no sign of anything there. DVLA will be upset when I send the V5 to them. If any Montego (diesel) experts can help on that one (it's the same engine).

I've even taken it to the local garage and they can't help with the engine number (great if I need spares!). It was an interesting trip as, as soon as the foot comes off the throttle, the car almost stops moving - very rapid deceleration. Perhaps the newly serviced brakes are a little tight - just something else to check!

However, the turbo
.
.
.
lag is horrendous! It's doing 40MPH before the turbo cuts in and then it's up to 50 before you can blink. 0-40 must take nearly a minute, 40-50 about two seconds! Unfortunately, at 50, the seats turn brown - the springs need attention before I go more journeys of more than two or three miles! It's also somewhat higher than any Land Rover I remember - though I know I've shrunk over the years.

One thing you don't want to see in the rear view mirror under those circumstances is a Police car. Yep, I got a couple of miles from home on the way to the garage (another mile or so) before turning off the main road. A Police car was coming from a long way off in the other direction, but caught up before I got to 40MPH) and followed me to the garage.

I had a closer look at the chassis and it's all looking good (better than the body!).

However, it does seem to warm up too quickly. I suspect that the Montego radiator it has may be a little small for the job, not that a kinked top hose will help: the engine outlet points to the n/s wing, but it needs to go to the o/s side of the radiator and all that's there is a slightly kinked hose. I'll flush the system soon and put antifreeze in before winter, so I'll have a think about the cooling and pipe when I do that job. Mind you, I wouldn't guarantee that the brakes aren't binding a touch, so I'll check those before I spend any money!

Some parcels arrived, but not the radio - just some speakers and a couple of tools (corner chisel for wood and a diamond-headed punch). The radio is due today, but I suspect the people who will benefit from that will be the pedestrians - it will drown out some of the racket from the engine!

[TerryG]

You can get an under bonnet kit to reduce the ambient noise a bit. Every little helps!
The engine number on my replacement V8 says "reworked 4552" So I suspect the DVLA don't care very much about the numbers as they put it on my V5 without complaint.
If you have a look around you can get a hybrid turbo that will help with your lag problems (these guys are recommended by various members of the ford forum i frequent http://www.turbodynamics.co.uk/technica ... ochargers/ ) They aren't cheap but one would radically change the characteristics of your engine and make it more driveable at lower RPM. Saying that it could be you have either a worn turbo or manifold leak that is stopping it spinning up as quickly as it could. Possibly even a restriction in flow somewhere down the pipe if it has lots of bodge patches on it.

[kstrutt1]

If it is a montego engine with a montego turbo it should not have all lag, does it have a oversize intercooler?

Perhaps the wastegate is not closing properly.

If you need any syspension measurements I have a 88"

[tractorman]

Thanks for the offer of suspension measurements, I may take you up on that before too long!

Doing a little more research into the Prima (Montego) engine conversions, I realise that the web is great for hoarding old pages and out of date information! I had searched for Prima engines and Prima conversions, so obviously got what I was looking for - and it's useful. However, looking at newer posts, the engine to use is the 200tdi Disco engine (I think!). Apparently it overcomes the shortcomings of the Prima: lack of torque at low revs, noise and reliability. Another advantage is that spares are easier to come across - and a lot cheaper! It's a little annoying as there's one near here listed on eBay - for £500! It's too soon to say that I need a new engine and I have no intention of buying one for the fun of it, but even the little tractor (with a worn engine) starts a whole lot better than the Landy did this morning and the Landy's hot starts aren't much better!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not slagging the Prima off as such, it's just that it was designed for a different vehicle and is now quite an old design (from a company that doesn't exist - ie Rover, not Perkins). I suspect (know) that it was a great engine in the Montego as a farming friend used to own one and kept saying how good the car was, but the one in the Landy is probably quite old now and more than a little tired - and hauling a lot more weight about.

One thing that won't help is the rather black air filter! I think it's a Montego one (though it's 23 years since I wrote my Montego off, so I am not sure what they look like), but it has a part number on it, so I suspect that the local factors will be able to sort something out.

It hasn't got an intercooler (or oil cooler for that matter), so that's one thing less to check! However, I will go through things like heater plugs, check for air leaks etc and see if I can improve things before too long as it has to sit in front of the garage at the moment and it'll annoy the neighbours before long as I have to move it to get the Golf or tractor out. I'm working on the solution, and it's not getting rid of the neighbours (they are great):



It was designed (honest!) to take the trailer, but I then realised something like a Land Rover would fit in the garage where the little tractor lives, so am making an extension so that the trailer will go across what is the front at the moment and the little tractor will fit beside - with a taller extension so the cab/frame is covered. Today's job is to get some stanchions in and the hardcore compacted - a tractor comes in handy for that, but I have borrowed my friend's whacker to get a nicer finish!

I have to confess that, while it leaks a lot of oil, buying the digger was a good move! Apart from putting a couple of "shanks" onto the drain in the garden (and some to do next year), I have also put a drain in next door's garden and other neighbours are interested - there are a number of gardens that were waterlogged last year.

[TerryG]

Put a V8 in it

The 200TDi conversion is the easiest one to do as it has mounting holes in the same place as the original TDi engines do. The 300TDi is a smoother running lump but would require fabrication to fit plus I vaguely remember something about the turbo from a disco fouling the inner wing on series vehicles. I'm not sure if the mounts will match a montego lump but I'm sure the interweb will hold that information somewhere. Keeping it all in the LR family means you will be able to use mainly standard parts which will make fault finding and parts replacement much simpler.

[kstrutt1]

A 200 tdi is very noisy too but a much tougher engine, many secondhand ones have been to the moon and back by now though.

Even with the 200tdi the exhaust is a problem, a common solution is to junk the turbo and run it as a di, much slower but lasts forever and does not strain thge driveline.

[Willy Eckerslyke]

Don't forget that the Prima has a cam belt. Personally I wouldn't even start that engine again until I'd changed it, unless I had proof that it had been done recently - I wouldn't take the seller's word for it.