Marty, please tell me you are going to clean that engine bay out!!! How the fukk does it get like that?
You can't put that beautiful engine into that bay.

You've never been up the track to Marty's workshop then Shep?
Two trips up there and that's pretty much what my engine bay looked like :)

OldShep56 wrote:

Marty, please tell me you are going to clean that engine bay out!!! How the fukk does it get like that?
You can't put that beautiful engine into that bay.

I need to see what mine looks like now... I didn't fancy going full pelt for fear of the drawers in my tool box in the back collapsing :)

Day 2 is about to begin.

Always good to have spare drawers in case of accidents :)

I've just been through the gopro pictures from yesterday, and deleted a load of them where there is not a lot of activity (or too much skin showing!)

Will document proceedings of today, and then see about stitching together a time-lapse video of it all...

Oldshep... I am planning on doing a bit of a clean up in the engine bay, yes... I feel it should be at least somewhat clean for at least half a day before it gets driven home!

Now jump over the slampanel armed with a gardenhose...

This is exciting waiting to find out if all their hard work has paid off.

I'm waiting to find out what didn't go as planned and cause them to stay in the workshop until the early hours of tomorrow........

Looks like you're right, Gilbert ..... you reckon he has locked Sloth in so he can't escape?

I always put a short engine in ( easier to get at bellhousing bolts) then do the rebuild in the car, but suppose I've done so many of these, it's like changing the plugs to me, lol.
Hope all went well Marty, and you was just to tired to post anything..

I think they were distracted by Sloths drawers and Marty showing too much skin (see prev posts). :)
In the real world, as General Von Moltke said:
"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy".
Great to have a deadline to shoot for but something always comes along to shoot you in the @rse. In my case yesterday it was a cracked lpg solenoid body and a split water hose. Wonder what it was with Marty?

Unfortunately I didn't have any Hylomar for the other orifices - RAVE/Workshop manual doesn't specify using anything there at all, but figured a bit of RTV can't hurt it.. if it starts pissing coolant out from the water galleries then I'll just have to tear it back down and get some hylomar.

I use engine jointing compound (wellseal) it's the stuff engine builders use, you can't miss the smell, just like walking into engine shop.
Can even be used on head gaskets !

and here we sit, just waiting......

Like a bunch of circling vultures........

no10chris wrote:
.

Hope all went well Marty, and you was just to tired to post anything..

He shouldn't be tired!! He had Sloth doing all the hard work lol Bet he stood there supervising and doing the teckernickel stuff.

Right, well.... how do you keep a load of RR enthusiasts waiting on news of an engine install......

I'll tell you later!

Seriously though... I'll start with the bad news... we were there until just about 0430 working on it. A LOT later than I think either of us imagined, considering where we got to the night before with getting the old one out, and the new one nearly ready to go in.

However, there's a few reasons for it taking as long as it did, and none of them disastrous or catastrophic as you are probably all wondering (or hoping... because a bit of drama always makes for a better story, right?).

I think that as much as we just wanted it chucked in and working, we also both took out time with things and went over things a couple of times to make sure bits were connected, bolts were tight etc as for Nick it wasn't like his last engine swap where it was putting a known running engine in, it was something that had never run, so you want to do it right - and for me it was that too, and the fact that it's personally a big investment money wise, and I didn't want to do something to destroy it and have wasted the money! I know that might sound strange - but short of buying the vehicle, this is the single most biggest investment I've made in it as part of maintenance and keeping it going.. That and I've never installed a engine before, yet alone one that I've built up myself...

So.. to rewind a bit...

We started the day with a bit hole, and a big lump to fit back into it... Nick started off with giving the alternator and A/C compressor/PAS pump brackets a clean up, whilst I got in the engine bay and cleaned a few bits up. I'd already pulled some of the firewall foam out, and pulled some more of it out first thing.. then a wipe down of the firewall followed by replacing it with some new insulation material:

We then finished dressing the new engine - finished cleaning up the exhaust manifolds, and replacing all the studs, before bolting the manifolds on:

Before hoisting it up to get it in:

And getting it into the engine bay:

And finally sitting on the mounts and located to the gearbox:

We then set about doing up the bell housing bolts (not as hard as getting them out!) and then getting the flex plate bolts in. These were a right PITA as we had forgotten to check/slide the TQ back further to give us some wiggle room - but we manage to get it all lined up and the 4 bolts in, with some fresh loctite.

From there it was all the normal stuff of plugging the starter solenoid in, running the starter motor +ve feed, plugging in knock sensors, oil cooler lines, doing up exhaust manifold down pipes, and nuts on the engine mounts.

Moving back to the top of the engine, it was time to make a start on the plumbing for me and getting the LPG injectors in, whilst Nick was starting to attach the brackets at the front for the ancillaries.

With that done, it was on to putting in the new radiator, plumbing all that in, LPG plumbing for vapouriser, and gas feeds to the injector rails.

The LPG injectors JUST fit under the manifold... I think if they were in pairs, then it would be a piece of cake - a rail of 4 was tight. I might look at swapping them out at some point, but will get it running on gas again at some point soon first and go from there.

Didn't really get many more pictures from here, as it was getting late and were were making the push to get it finished... but from there it was getting the upper manifold on, plumbing in throttle body heater, and refitting ancillaries for me, whilst Nick was taking care of IACV and air intake side, and plugging up sensors, evaps purge valve etc.

From there with the last of the plumbing done it was on to filling it up with coolant and bleeding it out. We back filled the block and the radiator, before filling the expansion tank, and using a radiator pressure test kit to pump some pressure into the header tank and force coolant into the system and air out. We got just under 10L of coolant in this way, and kept going until we started getting some out of the bleed nipple on the radiator.

finally after final checks, it was time to start it up.. I think both of us were pretty nervous, as prior to this we had spun it on the starter before fitting the rocker covers to see if we could get oil up to the rockers etc and prime the pump..

However that hadn't worked as turning it over on the starter probably wasn't fast enough for the pump to actually suck much up, and we couldn't get the oil pressure light to go out. After a comparison on Nick's one with the fuel pump/coils disabled, we found that his pressure light would go out when cranking on the starter, but it took a long time, and his system was already full of oil and primed..

So with a bit of nerves and hoping we'd see the pressure light go out when the engine revs came up, we took a deep breath, crossed out fingers and I turned the key... after a fairly long crank we stopped as it hadn't fired up... we then thought that maybe it was still purging air through the fuel line and rail as the Bosch system is returnless and it would all be full of air...

So another deep breath and key turned again... a few more cranks and boom.. up she fired... foot on the gas up to about 2400rpm and the break in had begun! We fan it only for a minute first time before shutting straight down, as we had left the viscous fan off... on purpose, so we could hear if there were any weird noises a bit clearer than over the roar of the fan before if unlocked itself. I was watching the oil pressure light as it first fired up as I was slightly worried that it hadn't gone out when spinning over before... but I shouldn't have worried - it turned off within a couple of seconds of the engine firing.

All good, so fan back on, cover on, and ready for proper break in.

I got back in the hot seat and we prepared... fired it up again and again, straight back to 2400-2500rpm.. 20min timer on phone set and counting down.

Nick watched everything under the bonnet like a hawk as it all warmed up and check to see which hoses were getting hot etc. a couple of minutes in and shut down again as still a fair bit of burning off from one of the manifolds - and it had drank a bit of coolant out of the tank. Investigated manifold to find that it was just residual coolant from a leaky hose that we had found/replaced when filling the system... coolant top up, and then again started up and run back to 2400-2500 with the timer running.

This time we let everything get up to operating temp and to the point the thermostat opened and full coolant circulation. we got about 10 minutes in and then shut off again, as the tank level had dropped a fair bit as it had pulled coolant in/bled air out, and it was getting pretty hot in the engine bay as there's not a lot of airflow from the viscous fan down past the exhaust headers when the vehicle is parked up.

We decided best course of action was to let it cool for awhile, so we could then double check all the cooling hoses and top up where necessary. We took the time whilst it was cooling to start stripping the old engine down to see what we could find (pics of this in a separate post, later!)

After letting things cool, looking over everything - checking twice, 3 times and topping up with coolant, we fired it back up again and set the timer running... back up to 2400-2500 and again ran it with the cap off to purge the rest of the air. got it down to about 5 minutes left to run and it was getting pretty hot again, so decided to let it all cool off a bit more. We probably could have left it to go - but we were both of the 'better be safe then sorry' mentality... I hope it's ok for the cam/lifters to bed in with the start/stop - it never idled in the whole time - but trying to manage the bleeding of coolant on the P38 whilst running for 20 mins straight is a bit challenging...

Anyway - let it cool again, another coolant top up, and then fired up for the last time to finish the run it - but this time with the coolant tank cap on. Nanocom hooked up and on instrument screen, and timer running - we got to the 20min mark. and then slowly dropped the revs back to idle, to hear her at idle for the first time...

I haven't heard the engine run yet from outside the drivers seat, but Nick reckons that it's smooth as silk when it was running for break in and sound really nice. sounds pretty good at idle from inside though...

So after that, did a bit of a tidy up, closed the bonnet and took it for a spin down the track and back... it worked, it drives, and instantly feels like it's got more get up and go than the old motor..

Back from a quick up/down the track, and backed it into the workshop to tidy up tools and load up. Parked up outside, and moved the other one back in, lockup and and headed home... tired but satisfied!

Couple of pics from break in run:

Drove it home, but wasn't really paying attention to how it drove as I was so tired! I got home, parked up, had a shower and went to bed.... so Yes, I hadn't posted earlier as I was either working on it, or got home and was sleeping... No, I didn't let Nick do all the work - it's not my style... I was just a filthy from crawling around under it! No, nothing went sideways that we were pissing about with for hours, or having to bodge something because we didn't have a part at silly o'clock on a sunday night...

It took a lot longer than I had anticipated, or hoped for - but most of that was because were were being meticulous about putting it together, and checking things. We had a bit of fun getting one of the engine mounts to line up, but with a bit of persuasion it went in... that was about the most difficult part of getting the engine physically in - but it wasn't a 'oh shit, how do we fix this' moment..

I'm sure there would be a few things we would do differently if we were to do it again... I would plan on doing it over 3 days, not 2 next time - not because it's difficult, but more because there is just SO MUCH to take off and put back. And it's all the little things that add up time wise too.

But for now... that's it, she's in, she run, she's home.

I'll get a picture of the finished engine bay later today when I go down to check the fluids, hoses for leaks etc, and unpack the car. I will also post back later with pictures of the old engine when we tore that down... it's nearly ready to be wrapped up and put on the palette back to V8 Dev...

Thanks for all the thoughts and well wishes... hopefully this engine will last another 15 years... now it's new and I've been the one putting it in, it will be cared for a lot better than the old one was in it's previous life!

I'll also sift through the photos from my Gopro which was doing the timelapse of the whole thing, and make a timelapse video and put it on youtube or something, with a link to view it on here. but first, I have to go and work on some other things....

I have 2 BECM's here now that require attention, an 3rd due to arrive today or tomorrow, a couple of HEVAC screen connectors to post, and a car full of tools and an old engine block to empty out! not to mention scheduling a dash ripout for Morat, a possible diagnostics hookup for someone else fairly local, a pile of switchpacks to repair, and door latches to strip and rebuild... oh the joys! I've enjoyed being able to do some work on my own one for a change - but back to everyone else's now!

Marty

Good to hear it all went well Marty, that first turn of the key... glorious moments. Good you took your time to work out everything without cutting corners just for peace of mind, that was my remark on a tight schedule.
All best wishes to last the engine a long time, now you know what you got.
Beautyful dashlights btw!
Tony.

Bet you've got a grin like a Cheshire Cat,, well done, always a good feeling, especially if it's your first rebuild.

Ferryman wrote:

Good to hear it all went well Marty, that first turn of the key... glorious moments. Good you took your time to work out everything without cutting corners just for peace of mind, that was my remark on a tight schedule.
All best wishes to last the engine a long time, now you know what you got.
Beautyful dashlights btw!
Tony.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the kind wishes, and also for your input. The first turn of the key was the most nerve wracking time of my P38 ownership... Mostly because it's something that I've pretty much built from scratch, and if it doesn't behave, then that's on me and my work! But I am glad that it is in and running, and can breathe a sigh of relief now (and have a bit more space in the garage!). I hope it last a long time too - just need to get out of the thinking that it could stop at any moment (like with the leaky plug on the old one!) and get some miles on it!

How is your one running now? you must have passed your break in mileage of 500? 1000? miles? I hope yours is still running smoothly and a joy to drive!

I also like the dash... it took me a long time to convert it so that it was all lit separately, but it's nice to look at at night, and somewhat more modern than the standard Land Rover green! It's a LOT brighter too!

no10chris wrote:

Bet you've got a grin like a Cheshire Cat,, well done, always a good feeling, especially if it's your first rebuild.

Cheers Chris,
The grin isn't quite there at the moment - I feel proud to have actually done it, as it's been one of the things on my 'bucket list' I guess you could say, that I have wanted to do! I was too tired on the drive home this morning to appreciate it, but I have to go out in a bit to run some errands and pick Leanne up at the station this evening, so now I am a bit more awake, I'll be able to enjoy it a bit more!!

Thank you to everyone in the forum that has offered advice, insight, encouragement, or even just had a read of this and found it interesting!
Previous experience and advice is always useful, and has helped me many times in the build of this beast! It is all much appreciated!

Also a MASSIVE thank you to Nick/Sloth for giving up his weekend (every last bit of it!) to come and give me a hand with the swap! I know others of you had offered to come and lend a hand, and that is also much appreciated. I would have taken you up on it, but it kinda happened by last minute planning, as I've been waiting for parts to arrive last week - and didn't know if everything would be here for the weekend! I also wanted to get it done as otherwise I'd procrastinate and I also need to get the old short engine back to V8 Dev... Ray didn't charge me a core charge on the old block, and I felt bad telling him that it would be a few months before he'd get the old one back again! But he was really good - so from that end I don't want to take the piss and drag it out!

My next question.... I have a bit of the LPG plumbing left to do (got all the under manifold bits done, but have a few vacuum lines to run and plumb the gas rail temp/pressure sensor and filter in still)... but how long should I leave it before getting it running on gas? should I do the first 500-1000 run in miles on petrol and then look at it once the first oil change is done, or should I just go for it and get it up and running whenever I can?

Again, thanks to all that have contributed... I'm back to getting stuck into a couple of BECM's for people this afternoon - but will attempt to get the timelapse video and also the pictures of the old engine up at some point in the next couple of days!

Cheers,
Marty

Well done to the pair of you. Especially pleased that Nick's drawers survived and that we weren't subject to too many flesh shots :)
Looking forward to getting mine fired back up. Would have been today but decided to sort out the ashole job that someone had done on the plumbing. Converters are a pain to get round here so some creativity required,
WELL DONE!

What a great job and well done, Marty! I have loved every second of this thread as it's the one thing that really grabs my attention. A picture story of a rebuild ............. yes, even LLT's story of his rebuild on the other site enthralled me. The buzz from hearing it run for the first time would keep me going for weeks lol