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The only place for a coil spring is up Zebedee's arse
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If its a petrol, at wide open it shouldnt be trying to shift until at least 5k.

So i would actually suggest the opposite is the problem, the gearbox isnt shifting because the engine hasnt reached the shift point yet... Something on the engine side is stopping the RPM climbing any higher.

Lifting your foot will have lowered the shift point and so it changed gear.

Will it rev past 4k in neutral? Any fault codes on the ECU?

defo worth checking the fluid level

Is it a diesel?

Oh i also found a small leak on the top radiator hose at the manifold. Replaced the factory constant tension clamp with a nice JCS HiGrip to see if that fixes it. It almost looked like it was leaking out of the fabric reinforcement at the radiator end too which is very weird. Will need to keep an eye.

Not sure if i should try to steer this back on track or just make a new thread. Anyways i had a day off yesterday and after the brake issues i decided to do some more plumbing on the engine.

When i put it all back together i replaced every coolant hose on the engine. That meant that the LPG vapouriser was no longer connected so i've done the last few hundred miles on petrol. MOT is due next month so i need the LPG working as the cats are worn out and it probably wont pass on petrol... I didnt want to hack up my new pipes, and i wanted to try something i've been thinking about for ages.

Some years ago i blanked off the throttle heater loop. So yesterday i removed my blanks and ran new pipework to the LPG vapouriser. Now it comes off the manifold pipe stub that used to feed the throttle heater plate, goes over to the vapouriser in 10mm hose, then from the vapouriser back to the small header tank inlet underneath.

Obviously cant drive it, but i fired it up, initially with the return line just poked in the top of the reservoir so i could see the flow, and once the air purged out, i was getting a nice strong flow from the pipe. win?

Wont know until i fix the brakes and try to drive it, but hopefully it all works nicely and its a LOT neater than the horrible T'ed fittings that were there before.

My only concern is both the manifold and header tank stubs are 8mm, with a 10mm hose cinched down onto them. I'll keep an eye as that might leak, if it does i'll probably get a short length of 8mm and some streight couplers and use those for the final connection. The vapouriser has 10mm stubs so those fit nicely.

I also reinstalled the passengers side exhaust manifold heat-shield, and peered at the drivers side one thinking how the F am i getting that back in there... any tips?

enter image description here

Found a great angle from a youtube video and took a screen shot.

Blue line is the caliper flexi we can see above.

Then there is a red line representing the hardline that seems to just span from two points on the chassis.

Then a green is flexi from chassis to body.

Then the orange line is the hardline that heads off to the front of the car.

My thinking is to simply connect the orange hardline directly to the blue flexi.

Thanks.

The early setup (my car is a '94) has hard lines running across the axle a bit like the older classic/discovery, which then jump up to the body/chassis from a bracket off the middle of the axle.

So i have Flexi from caliper to axle, hardline across the axle to a bracket, flexi from bracket to body/chassis, hardline to the front.

Except my axle is the later type and doesnt have the bracket. Someones bodged it previously by hacking the bracket off the old axle and clamping it to the newer axle with a jubilee clip. The later axle also doesnt have any provisions to secure the hardlines to the casing, so they're attached with cable ties. Its all a bit crap and thus I'd like to try and convert it over to the later style as per your pics.

The bit you've pictured i can understand, i need a new flexi and possibly i need to add a tab on the chassis to hold said flexi.

The bit i was struggling with, is what happens after that. Your car will have a short hardline that goes up to the top of the chassis near the spring mounts, then a flexi going somewhere, then eventually the hardlines to the front.

I'd like to run the hard line from the front, directly to the flexi in your photo.

Looking at photos, the later "caliper" flexi goes from the axle across to a tab underneath the chassis. Then theres a short hard line to another flexi.

I dont understand what that second flexi is doing?

Can the hard line not just run along the chassis and then directly into the caliper flexi?

My best guess is that the original brake hardlines were attached to the body during assembly, rather than the chassis, and the second flexi is to allow them to jump across to the chassis during mating?

I'm not sure my lines are actually attached to the body any more as they've been replaced, so i'm thinking i use the late caliper flexi to the chassis, and then reroute the hardlines down and in, skipping the second flexi entirely.

That way i'm using standard late flexis, but only the two for the calipers.

Since i need front hoses, i'm revisiting my thoughts on the rear axle hoses.

My car has an early pipe routing, with the pipes above the axle. But the axle is a later one without the bracket, so its all a bit bodged currently.

I'm struggling to figure out what exactly the short pipe and jump hose does on the later setup?

If the caliper pipe goes from the axle to the chassis, why cant the hard line from the front just go directly into that flexi?

Lpgc wrote:

If not a collapsed flexi could it be a problem inside the ABS unit?
Yeah that was the only other thing that was on my mind...

I drove it up and down the drive a few times after putting it all back together. brakes feel normal, but the passenger caliper is still loose and not even touching the pads.

I think i'll order a pair of front flexis and go from there.

I'm wondering if its a collapsed flexi? They look pretty old.

Went to the builders yard this morning and when i got there i could smell cooking brakes. Got out for a look and passenger front wheel was smoking hot.

Got it home driving slower and using the brakes as little as possible, and i've pulled the corner apart hoping it was just a stuck slider, except i cant actually see anything wrong.

sliders are free, pads werent even stuck in the carriers. I lifted the pistons boots and the pistons are shiney clean. I then got a G clamp, and if i push one piston in, the other pops out and vice versa, very little force needed, suggesting the pistons themselves are free. Now heres where it gets really odd...

I put a block of wood in the caliper leaving about 10mm of space, jumped in and pressed the brake pedal, in an attempt to push the pistons out some more, so i could check for rust, except nothing happened. The space remained at 10mm. I turned the ignition on and charged up the brake pump and properly heaved on the pedal... same thing.

Got a chunk of metal across both pistons and managed to force them both back 5mm or so with the g clamp. Reinstalled the caliper on the car. Since i pushed the pistons back theres now a 5mm gap between the caliper and pads. Stomped on the pedal as hard as i could inside the car, but the gap didnt close.

So what on earth is going on here!?!

One minute they're stuck on, and now they;re not getting any pressure at all?

4v just isnt needed, as GM discovered with the LS.

Ford went off down the 4v OHC route in the 90's, at the same time GM ran the numbers and realised that a very well designed 2v pushrod engine with all the latest technology could compete favourably at much lower cost and we got the LS, which is now in its third generation and has all the good stuff like cylinder on demand and variable timing, and competes pretty favourably with 4v designs from their competitors.

4v is great when you need to extract every horsepower from a tiny engine, but for a big V8 it tends to matter a lot less, and they can get close enough with a good 2v head.

Yeah its odd, especially given the massive range of heads available for the various other yank V8's

I suspect it comes down to cost and volumes. Massive numbers of chevy/ford/chrysler V8's sold and a thriving tuning/hot-rod scene mean huge aftermarket for them. Heads are available at a massive variety of price points and performance levels.

The Rover in comparison was only ever really fitted to a few niche low volume sports cars back in the 70/80's and spent most of its life powering various 4x4's..

The two heads that do exist (wildcat and TA) are very expensive as a result and both are a bit "weird" requiring many additional parts which drives up the cost further.

the D2 only got the 4.0 IIRC? and the rumors go that they used the better blocks for the 4.6, and the worse ones for the 4.0, so i guess it would make sense that you see a higher instance of issues on the D2 simply due to them always getting the poorer blocks, whereas the P38 will have had a lot more 4.6 engines with the better ones.

I think as with anything, a common fault doesnt mean every single one has issues. The aforementioned N47's are a good example of that. A huge number of them having timing chain issues, but there are still plenty driving around. eBays also full of cars with broken timing chains!

I dont think its fair to say they dont have liner issues though. It was enough of an issue even during manufacture that they were x-raying blocks and sorting them based on cylinder wall thickness. Wether you call it cracking or "porosity" its the same thing in the end, water gets thru the alloy cylinder wall, up the back of the liner and into the chamber. The fact that top hat liners exist tell you its enough of a problem that a fix has been developed. If it was a rare problem the fix would be "just get another block"...

VW/Audi and the other german marques use a sleeve style clamp with large bands:

enter image description here

They come in a variety of sizes. The Audi exhaust systems come from the factory as one single piece, but if you need to replace a muffler for instance they have a prescribed cut line, and then use those clamps to join the two halves back together. They also use them between the downpipe and system, instead of a flange.

They work really well if you can find one the right size. They are often metric and come in 5mm increments.

FWIW the police engine with issues is the N57, the M57 is the previous generation and seems much more robust. The N series diesels are pretty crap, the 4 cylinder being renowned for eating its timing chains. Certainly one to avoid.

The whole police thing is weird, because they stopped making the N57 in 2015/2016, thus at this point they'd naturally be getting cycled out of the fleet anyway. BMW also appear to be the ones to pull the plug, rather than the police refusing to buy them. As with anything theres probably more complexity than portrayed in the media.

Isnt the "porus block" just another name for the cracking-behind-the-liners issue that they all seem to eventually suffer from?

StrangeRover wrote:

You can build a rover v8 to over 300hp with a mountain of torque to go with it..

Maybe i drive like a granny but i've never found the stock 4.6 lacking in punch, unless it has no compression and the proverbial cam that has had the lumps lathed off it..

Mine feels lacking down low, but if you get it in sport mode and right up the rpm's it moves along just fine (though it doesnt sound particularly great up there). And thats an engine thats evidently pretty worn out. I'm sure a fresh 4.6 with a mild cam and say ~240-250hp would be perfectly fine. Its not a sports car after all.

The problem is more that you'll put thousands into a Rover V8 to get it to that state, and its not like its then suddenly reliable. Its still the same engine with many flaws, its just a fresh one. Thats the bit that i'm wary of. Furthermore its been indicated that getting hold of certain parts is difficult. For example finding high quality rockers and shafts seems like a complete minefield. Lifiters are similar though a few companies do seem to make decent ones, you pay the price for that. I've seen folk with freshly built engines wipe a camshaft out in a 100miles just down to bad luck. My own car had a full engine replacement by land rover at 6 years old, so even the factory bits werent great. Its also a fairly inefficient design meaning higher fuel consumption than a modern engine would achieve.

You can pull a 20 year old M57 out of a scrap E39 and pretty much know it'll just work. It might want a new turbo at some point, but the actual engine is solid. And the same goes for most modern engines. Thus the question, do you spend the time/money making a good Rover V8, or do you instead spend it making some other more reliable modern engine fit instead.

I'm wanting to eyeball up a gearbox adaptor as per the chat in the other thread.

Shipping the whole thing will be dear, but if you could remove the rear extension housing and output shaft and chuck em in a box that would be excellent, i could send some beer tokens for your time and ofcourse cover the shipping costs.

Will drop you a message :)

If anyone happens to have a transfer case let me know!

Does anyone happen to have a scrap transfer case or gearbox knocking around they'd be willing to part with?