engine question sd1

Hello
i have recently bought a disco 1 with a 3.5v8 sd1 engine in it(not sure of age but apprently its a recon one ) .
it sounds fine but there does not seem to be much oil on the rocker shaft, its not bone dry but then again its not soaked.
i am not sure how much oil there should be?
any ideas??

It's fed through the head gasket joint, and while not exactly full-flow, there should be oil up there. If the tappets aren't noisy then the lifters are obviously getting oil OK, so you may want to run some detergent oil in the beastie for a while to get any accumulated crud out of the rocker shafts etc.

I would recommend something like Shell Helix 10W-40, which is a very good oil and not just a flushing oil, you can use it for the normal period/mileage and then revert to standard multi-grade. We run our 4.0 V8 on it full-time.

Peter

cheers mate
the tappets sound fine, on one of the shafts it looks a purple ish colour so i was a bit worried it was getting hot. i will give that oil ago
thanks again

I'd be inclined to have a rocker cover off and look at it while running. I cannot do that on our 4.0 Thor engine, but on the SD1 you should be able to run it for a short while and see if any oil is present.

If nothing obvious, then strip the rocker shafts down, clean out the middles and turn the engine over on the starter to see of oil is getting up the pedestals to the shaft. I think that you can get the pedestals or shafts on wrong so there is no oil feed.....

Note the shaft ID/orientation details, the second picture is from the Thor V8 manual, note the comment re oil restriction etc.

Peter

Hello Peter,
i have had one side off today. there was some oil in the oil way. could i leave the shaft off and remove all the con rods then crank it over to see if there is any oil coming out. im guessing it would be under a fiar bit of pressure.
chris

You could leave all the pistons in place, just pull the spark plugs to try it for oil, don't let it start up though!

Peter

ok peter
thank you for your help.

sorry peter you said i could leave the pistons in. didi you mean con rods?

Has the SD1 engine got a remote oil filter fitted? Somtimes when taken offroad the front axle comes up and hits the oil filter crushing it and either damaging it or possibly causing a restriction. Very unlikley but worth a look

thanks mate i will have a look for that

chrisj1220 said:

sorry peter you said i could leave the pistons in. did you mean con rods?

Click to expand...

The conrods and pistons can stay, no need to take them out unless you need to for other reasons.

Peter