Blow by?

After driving 600 miles across Texas in my 1986 110 (rebuilt 200TDI replaced the 19J just over a year ago), I arrived at my destination with a few seemingly unconnected problems: leaking and clicking fuel lift pump, oil leak around the cyclone breather, some oil in the hose going from breather to the turbo. It was smoking a bit more than normal and smoke was whiter than normal.

Upon returning home via a trailer, my mechanic also said the engine had quite a bit of blow by and also needed a new valve cover gasket.

Are all of these problems somehow related? I'm stumped as the engine is only 14 months old (looked brand new when it went in). It ran a constant 65-70mph for about 12 hours but I wouldn't think that would be a problem with these engines. The blown parts may be due to cheap non Land Rover parts, but the talk of blow by is scary!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Get a compression test done, that will tell you loads. Looking for 400psi +

head gasket or valves not fully opening due to worn valve stem caps are the most common issues

this all depends on how much blow by.. it could be as simple your cyclone breather could be blocked hence the tell tail of a leak at the cyclone .. creating high crank case pressure thus results the turbo oil drain not to expel the return oil fast enough so the oil is by passing the turbo

for a test remove the cyclone breather also check end float on the turbo or maybe perform a leak down test ... like james said valve stem caps could be the issue but you need to run some simple and easy tests first

as for the lift pump remove it and install another ..mine leaked once so I removed installed a blanking plate over the camshaft drive hole and installed a facet fuel pump (delivery pump )

Could the failed lift pump have leaked diesel into your engine oil?
Dip the sump and smell the oil , diesel oil mix will not lubricate the cylinders very well as the diesel strips the oil off.

Simple test called the low orbit test.
Get engine hot and undo the rocker cover cap and loosely place it in its hole then start it, if the cap flies into low orbit its goosed!

If you still have the pipe from the cyclone into the inlet tract just before the air filter, its well worth moving it so the pipe vents on tops of the right hand side inner wing and black off the inlet tract stub.

What ratio transfer box are you running and height tyres? i ask because if its the 1.4 tfer box that would mean the engine was pretty much flat out for 12 hours, thats some real hard test.

Thank you all for the excellent comments. I sure have a lot to learn especially given my disadvantage of living in the US where Classic Land Rovers are rare.

I bought kit for a compression test and one for leak down, will get that going soon.

But first I decided to try the easy one first (recommended by jamesmartin), adjusting the valve clearances and what I found was that I could have inserted a modest size novel (paperback) between the valve caps and the rocker arm plates. So went through and adjusted them all back to 0.2mm and this engine now purrs like a kitty and the blow by is likely gone (further testing will confirm).

HOWEVER, the annoying ticking sound persists (it's not constant and does change some with throttling). It seems to be coming from the right side of the block. With a new fuel lift pump installed ($700 no less, wish I did it myself), my new target is the brake vacuum pump. I have pulled it, and the drive gear assembly from inside the block decided to hitch a ride out with it. Need more diagnostic to see if this is the culprit of the tick tick tick (hopefully no BOOM). Blades seem fine but need to get to drive shaft to see if it's snapped, if I can get the gear assembly unstuck.

So all of these seemingly unrelated problems (fuel lift pump, blow by, ticking noise, etc.) on a new engine seem to indicate, as lynall suggests, that pushing a poorly adjusted 200tdi with a 1.4 transfer box for 12 hours and 600 miles was just too much and parts started to fail.

Again, thank you all for the help. Next time I head to the other side of Texas to roam the desert, I'll ship the LR and fly.

If you have massive valve clearances its most likely the valve lash caps have broken up and that is why the clearance goes from 0.2 mm to 3.0mm, they are pennies to buy and as easy to fit, buy extras as they do it quite often.
ERR1158 x 8
I reckon mine has eaten at least 4/5 in the last 7 years, last time it was really noticable on the overrun and I genuinely thought the old girl was on its way out.
Also worth checking for bent pushrods and maybe getting a boroscope down to see if you can see the tappet rollers.

Ref the drive gear assy replace all the o rings as the guys on the series 2 forum have reported oil pressure problems due to the o-rings going hard and not sealing, Im not totally convinced but whilst you are in there cant do any harm.