Well, curiosity got the better of me...

As everyone knows there was a ticking noise from our P38 that I would have sworn was a top end tick and probably from a faulty tappet.

Video here so everything stays in one thread: Click Here - YouTube Video...

On Sunday, I dropped the wife at Edinburgh Airport at 8.30am, drove the hour home and started tearing the P38 apart.

I got the inlet manifold and rocker covers off the engine and had a good look around, without seeing much I then proceeded to take the rocker shafts off. The passengers side one was nice and oily, the shaft was still silver and everything was moving freely. The drivers side one wasn't quite as nice, the shaft had browned, and a couple of the rockers were stiffer then I'd have expected. Number 4 cylinders rocker arm wasn't as lubricated as the others either and there was some sludge in the oil way under the rocker shaft.

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None of the rocker arms looked worn though, all of the pushrods looked ok and none of the tappets were dished either. I was getting curious at this point as with the noise it was making I was expecting to see something that was obviously wrong. I was also convinced after listening to the engine that the noise was coming from the front of the NS bank.

Anyway, I decided to keep going as I'd gotten this far. I tried to be clever and remove the manifolds with the cylinder heads but gave in on the passengers side as the manifold was a doddle to remove, on the drivers side I managed to fiddle with the bolts enough to get them undone and then removed the starter motor as the steering shaft makes getting to the back manifold bolts a pain in the tits.

By the time I'd stripped it on Sunday we had visitors arriving so I had to get cleaned up, after they left I was tired and was up early for work on Monday so I left it alone having given it a very, very brief look over.

Last night I went back to the workshop for a proper look and I'm 99% sure I've found the cause of the knocking noise... and much to my amazement, it wasn't the top end!

So... it looks fairly conclusive that the liner for the number 3 cylinder has moved. All of the other 3 are flush on that bank and you can see on the number 5 cylinder next to it that there's no shiny lip at all. When running my finger nail over the others, there's no lip, on number 3 there's a lip that I can very easily click my finger nail in.

So... she's currently sitting looking like this in the workshop...

I spoke to Rob at V8 Developments yesterday about a top had linered block, a high torque camshaft and some stage 1 gas flowed cylinder heads. He advised me that if we're buying the components from them, they don't actually charge to assemble the engine so I'm going to buy an entire engine from them as that way all I have to do is fit it and bed the camshaft in before following the running in procedure and it'll come with a 12 month warranty on the complete unit.

Once I'm certain and I've given Rob a deposit, it's a 3-4 week lead time on the new engine so I've got plenty time to get everything out of the engine bay, get the car dragged out of the workshop and steam clean everything in sight. I'm determined I'm going to do this properly whilst she's in bits.

The engine number on this car has also been damaged too...

It looks like it should be XM56M95B31. Is there a way of decoding these to find out any more about them like there is with some manufacturers engines?

David.

Shame - quite a clean engine inside!

My silver P38 appears to have a crack or some other porosity behind no6, as the plug over time rusts, and on start up it would miss quite badly on #6 till it sorted its life out.

"Fixed" that temporarily with proper water glass solution and water - which has stopped the coolant loss, missing and excess pressure in the cooling system. Unfortunately, the rest of the solution appears to be dropping out of er solution and causing sludginess in the header tank, so I need to give it all a good flushing soon.

I'm not sure what to do long term though... one of the body mounts is badly damaged on the passenger side and would ideally need the body off to repair it properly. So depending on the next MOT results it may or may not get a new engine down the line... :/

David, How much will the new engine cost from V8 developments?

Depends what spec you want, see http://www.v8developments.co.uk/products/engines/short_engines/index.shtml and http://www.v8developments.co.uk/products/engines/long_engines/index.shtml

That engine number is completely the wrong format, it should start 60D. What engine number is shown on the V5? I'm wondering if it is one of the mythical Coscast blocks RPi were selling at some eye watering price? They didn't fit top hat liners but did put an O ring around the liner which would explain why it has shifted (and, as you can hear it tapping, is moving with the piston) but isn't letting coolant around the edge so steam cleaning the combustion chamber and pressurising the cooling system.

This is how the engine number appears on my 4.6 Thor:

It had the compression ratio listed above and starts with 60D as Richard said.

Looks like yours has been ground away and a new one marked.

Rutland Rover - That's what I was expecting!

I found this on the V8 Forum regarding the XM engine number. It says it was made by a company called Mitchell Cotts. When I've Google'd them I'm not getting much information though.

I've never heard of Mitchell Cotts until tonight.

David.

Looks like they were based in Yorkshire and went out business in 2007:

https://companycheck.co.uk/company/03966103/MCT-MITCHELL-COTTS-LIMITED/companies-house-data

I think Mitchell Cotts morphed into MCT ReMan who seem to be pushing the transmission side of the business more these days https://www.mctreman.com.

Allegedly they took on the Rover factory tooling with a contract to supply new engines for several, initially 5, years from 2006 https://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/company-lands-25m-contract-for-rover-1-306290 . Have some doubts as to the accuracy of that story as the Rover factory tooling would have been full blown, fairly old style, transfer line geared to supplying production line quantities. Such things are huge, need significant skilled staff to tend them and chuck completely machined blocks off at a silly rate of knots. With a fair quantity of scrap initially whilst things are dialed in. Given Brit Leyland inssues with investment said set up was probably completely worn out as well as obsolete anyway.

Given that the Rover is absurdly simple by current standards hafta wonder what you'd need to do blocks the modern way with up to date kit from the likes of Gehring who set out their stall on modular systems, as mentioned in the first few paragraphs of this link https://www.igus.co.uk/info/energy-chains-gantry-loader?WT.mc_id=NLGB-0219N&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_02/2019&utm_content=newsletter_02/2019&C=GB&L=en

Clive

No10Chris has an odd engine number on the one in his car. That was a Land Rover replacement fitted a few years ago. His might also be the same format.

James Taylors' book on the Rover V8 has a 3 page last chapter entitled Afterlife which covers the MCT built engines and engine numbers. Apparently Mitchell Cotts began in the 1960's as a Birmingham based company making fans under the Alldays Peacock brand name. They grew and moved to Weston-super-Mere in the late 1960's taking in work from the Ministry of Defence and gradually diversified into re-manufacture of engines and power train components. Name changed to MCT late in the 1970's as a wider customer base was attracted. By the start of the 21 st century they were already working with several manufacturers, including Land Rover, on remanufacturing programmes to keep older powertrain components available. Pretty much all new tooling and methods because Rover buit around 1,200 motors a week whilst MCT were expecting to build 2,000 to 3,000 a year. Coscast blocks were developed for MCT and their production methods. Direct quote from Taylors book "At the time of writing in 2016 small quantities of unused Coscast blocks were still in stock at specialists waiting to be built up to meet customer orders."

"Apart from very clean looking castings the MCT remanufactured V8 engines could be distinguished from Rover built ones by having an additional XM in front of the engine number prefix."

Book doesn't actually say but as written it implies that the XM is followed by Rover style identifier (number)D as given below. In which case XM56M95B31 makes no sense although 56 implies Discovery 2 high compression 4.0 litre.

The book has an appendix (apparently) giving chapter and verse on engine number format for different applications. There are 4 varieties of complete factory P38 engines listed covering 1998 to 2002. 57D and 58D are 4.0 litre engines in low and high compression versions respectively to whilst 59D and 60D similarly identify 4.6 litre versions. There are 21 varieties of short and stripped engines identified by prefixes 61D to 68D and 73D to 84D. Prefixes 69D to 72D are Discovery 4.0 service and stripped engines. Not quite so clear for 1994 to 1998. Says 42D is probably high compression 4.0 litre and 44D the low compression version with 46D and 48D being the 4.6 versions. 43D and 47D apparently weren't used.

I could scan this to PDF if anyone is interested.

Clive

I can confirm a couple of those, 42D is high compression 4.0 litre GEMS and 46D is high compression 4.6 GEMS. These later changed to 59D and 60D respectively for the Thor variant. If 56 is 4.0 litre Disco, then it might be worth checking the stroke on the engine. Although as someone has tried to disguise the number then it may well be that the block started off as a 4.0 litre Disco motor that has since had a few bits changed. A change of crank, rods and pistons will turn a 4.0 litre into a 4.6 and the Disco used the Thor motor (although why there should be a different code for a 4.0 litre Thor fitted to a P38 and a 4.0 litre Thor fitted to a Disco is anyone's guess). From the honing marks on the bores it looks like it hasn't been run that much since someone had it apart.

Not that it really matters as when Ray top hats a block the faces of the block are skimmed which removes the engine number. He stamps the engine number back onto it so if you ask he'll stamp it with the number that matches the V5. The other difference is the earlier engines had the number stamped in whereas later ones had it dot etched as in the picture Rutland Rover posted of his.

My engine has no number at all, to confuse things somewhat, either on V5 or engine itself.

But I've no idea of the history of it... the vehicle is/was, so far as I can tell, a pre-production Wabco D/Bosch engine prototype or test vehicle. Lots of handwritten build stickers on bits and pieces, experimental warnings on the Wabco ECU, calibrated cluster (not the same as the police ones), prototype fusebox label, and a Thor engine in a 97-98ish P38. Coolant plumbing didn't match either GEMS or Thor parts either initially, though now its entirely custom bar bottom hoses.

The XM engines are certainly interesting - what is more so about this one, is how it appears to have been stamped out. Weird.

I've just been and measured the stroke of the engine, with the digital calliper I got a stroke of 83mm, not exactly what it says in Rave but it's 11mm longer then what the 4.0 should be so I'm now certain that it's a 4.6 engine that's in the car.

So it does look like someone made a 4.6 but using a block that had originally been made for a 4.0 litre Disco. That probably explains why the engine number has been mullered.

Just went and looked at mine, it starts 08D, suppose i better update my logbook, lol

Just double checked after reading all through the posts, it’s definitely 08D, compression 37:1, the 0 has / through it, runs just as well, if not better than the high comp engine it had originally

My 4.6 Thor starts 60D, quite odd this ;)

Got a big smile on my face, seeing David’s parts cleaner on FB,
( dishwasher) brings back memories of a missed friend here, RIP Orangebeam,,

I'm not on FB, I want a picture!!!

Gilbertd wrote:

I'm not on FB, I want a picture!!!

Ask and you shall receive... there was a massive improvement with one cycle so I’ve left them in for a second... will get some cleaned pictures tomorrow.

David.