3.9 rebuild winter project

picked up a 3.9 from a classic last week for silly money, plan is to rebuild over the winter and then fit to 90 early next year, this is my first engine rebuild i have the workshop manual and hopefully with the advise from you guys i shouldnt make to many cock ups any way on to some pics

to get it to me shed i had to strip it in the back of the 90 as i dont have a hoist yet, the bottom end is bloody heavy when theres only two of you,heres how she is so far








also knocked a little engine stand out of some steel i had lying around




hope to make a start on stripping the bottom end this week

Have just done my first, tis fair easy and very enjoyable, just check everything many times and read the manual slow.

Also the boys on here are fabulous help!!

Use composite gasket and torque up the outer set of head bolts to 30nm, get some good engine build lube like comp cams paste as it wont drip off parts if your planning on building it up over a period of time. If itsd got the little black rubber washer type valve stem seals on the inlet valves make the effort to get the later type seal fitted too. As Noisy says it's a easy engine to rebuild and you'll get it done sooner that you think!!

Thanks for the comments, was going to ask about the head gaskets and using composite, also read that a lot of people leave the outer 4 bolts out and some just torque up as suggested?
The plan I have in my head is
Light hone of bores
New rings
New bearings crank and cam
New cam and lifters
New timing gear
Valve steam seals and lap valves if all ok
Have I forgot anything?

Also what's your thoughts on using arp studs on the bottom end, as this is the early non cross bolted block or is this only need when building a performance lump?

Also will the engine be ok to sit for a few months once rebuilt as I still also have some bits to collect for putting it in the 90?
Plan is manual gearbox , flywheel.and clutch, egg sauce and magasquirt?

Gonna keep an eye on this one should be interesting! planning to buy MOT fail disco v8 next year, rebuild it a swop it with the one in my disco good luck and keep up the pics!

Are you going to grind the crank and/or fit a reconditioned 10 thou crank?

Just fit new main cap bolts, don't need to be ARP, price dependant really I guess.

Engine will be fine to sit for a few months just make yourself an oil pump priming tool and every couple of weeks pump a bit more oil around it, squirt some oil in the bores and give the engine a couple of revolutions by hand.

Try to keep it warm and dry to avoid condensation inside!!

Mr Noisy said:

Are you going to grind the crank and/or fit a reconditioned 10 thou crank?

Just fit new main cap bolts, don't need to be ARP, price dependant really I guess.

Engine will be fine to sit for a few months just make yourself an oil pump priming tool and every couple of weeks pump a bit more oil around it, squirt some oil in the bores and give the engine a couple of revolutions by hand.

Try to keep it warm and dry to avoid condensation inside!!

Click to expand...

Not sure about crank yet depends on condition, managed to get the timing cover off and chain was well stretched as expected,also took out no 1 piston and the shells don't look to bad but will see once I get it all apart, need to make more room in me shed as I didn't realise how many parts I'm going to need to lay out and check

Will get some more pics up later

Yeah there's a fair few bits to be fair, but not that much when you get it all in bits. As you say, every item needs stripping, solvent washing, checking and then ideally washing in the dishwasher if it is to be refitted!!

managed to get everything stripped down today, lifters are well shot, quite a bit of wear on the bearings but the ckrank looks good, need to have a good clean up and measure, will get most bits in the dishwasher next week when the missus is at work
some more pics.






















also managed to give the block ago over with the jet wash

Wanted to ask you guys for some advice been doing some cleaning and noticed there is not alot of wear on the cam bearings but the one at the front near the timing chain has some notches cut into it, but the rest have not should this be like that? Also as there is minimal wear on them should I get all the cam bearings replaced or not?
Here's a wee pic of the front bearing with the notches

wangie46 said:

Wanted to ask you guys for some advice been doing some cleaning and noticed there is not alot of wear on the cam bearings but the one at the front near the timing chain has some notches cut into it, but the rest have not should this be like that? Also as there is minimal wear on them should I get all the cam bearings replaced or not?
Here's a wee pic of the front bearing with the notches

Click to expand...

Im no engine expert , but as you got it fully striped down you may aswell replace all wearable parts?

Stuck the heads in the dishwasher today while the missus is at work, but just spent the afternoon cleaning the dishwasher before she gets homeWhat a mess the dishwasher ended up in might have been easier cleaning the heads by hand

Ah, so basically the muck got transferred from the heads to the dishwasher?

Best to buy a secondhand dishwasher off eBay for parts washing?

Did the heads come good??

Didn't come out to bad, but could have done with a soak in the parts washer first I think

On your rebuild I wouls strongly suggest

Elring Head and valley gaskets
ARP Head stud kit
Duplex Steel Timing Gear set
New Mains bolts (Genuine) NOR ARPs !
Valvoline VR1 20/50 Racing Oil
Vandervelt bearings for bottom end


Nige

Using comp gaskets will drop the compression ratio and if you are re-using the standard spec LR pistons then there's precious little compression anyway.
So, the options are to have your heads skimmed a few thou to take into account the extra material in the comp gasket compared to tin or, the best solution would be to upgrade to 10 bolt heads. They have a smaller 28cc combustion chamber, bigger valves and flow a lot better than the 14 bolt equivalents. According to Peter Burgess, all bolt on mods you do to a Rover V8 equate to around an extra 20bhp improvement up until the laws of diminishing returns start to set in at around the 200bhp mark.

One of the best things you can do is to spend a little bit more and have the bottom end fully balanced. It will make the engine rev a lot more cleanly and feel much smoother. Don’t forget the 3.9 RV8 is the only version of the RV8 which is externally balanced – the pulley actually has weights attached to it so you’ll need to bring that along to the machine shop and remind them that it’s a 3.9 .

Thanks for tha advice guys

Not a lot of progress so far as all I've been doing is scrubbing and cleaning bits so no pics really

Any advice on what I can use to poke in the oil gallerys in the block to clean them out?

Welding rod?