turbo 90 rebuild

Hi there.

I am thinking of doing a complete nut & bolt rebuild of an early turbo 90,
this will consist of new galv chassis. The axles, brake system, suspension & steering will all be re-furbed, all new panels will be fitted along with new glass, seals, rubbers, & interior trim. a new paint scheme will complete
the project.
Obviously the chassis, body & trim is straightforward for me, but I can`t
decide what is the best route to take with the engine & drive train.

Do I keep it all original & stick to a re built early 2.5td engine & gearbox etc, or is the 200tdi / 300tdi & LT77 combo the better option, and what
about a 2.5n/a diesel.

I know this project will cost a small fortune ( I have already done a full series 111 88` diesel ) but I like to do full re-builds as the results are always very worthwhile.

Any ideas or pointers will be gratefully received.

jph1386

Majority of people will tell you to put the 200 or 300 TDi in, but it all depends on wot your using it for an wether you can get hold of a decent one at a reasonable price compared to the cost of doing up the 2.5 turbo. I don't think theres owt wrong with the 2.5turbo mesen.

id buy a 300 tdi chassis and stick with the 300

chris_mack said:

id buy you a 300 tdi chassis and stick with the 300

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Well thas a mighty fine offer, Great Xmas spirit there

A refurbished 2.5 Turbo (19J) will be a good reliable engine for you, and it does have its advantages over a 200 or 300 tdi engine. The engine block its self is tolerant with vegetable oil use because of the simplicity of the engine and it's robust build, but the old lucas CAV pumps don't really like it unless it's thinned right down. It's not direct injection which means that it isn't as quick as a 200 or 300 tdi but if your timing belt snaps it'll be a lot cheaper to fix because nothing gets buggered up (like valves etc.), only the push rods bend (they're about £3 each).

The 200 and 300 tdi engines are supposedly the best engines that you can get because they will handle vegetable oil and they have a stronger injection pump to cope with the added viscosity. There is a little bit more to them, but not that much, and they are still relatively easy to get at to work on.

The 2.5 N/A (12J) is a very good, rock solid engine but it's not that good on hills. I have this engine in my 1986 90 and I can't fault it, you might just find yourself shouting and swearing when you come across a slight incline in your tracks. As for the "things going wrong" side of things, the 2.5 N/A doesn't really seem to give up! It's a very reliable solid workhorse (156,000 miles still going strong) and because it doesn't have a turbo, nothing is put under strain which means that it's generally an all round good runner.

It's really up to you to be honest. The 2.5 N/A, 2.5 Turbo, 200 & 300 tdi engines are the last of the "proper" gadgety free engines that land rover built and used, so in summary:

2.5 N/A: Good, solid reliable, keeps up with traffic, slow up hills
2.5 Turbo: Later models were good, solid, reliable and relatively quick
200 tdi: Good solid runner, simple to work on, reliable, fairly quick
300 tdi: Good solid runner, slightly harder to work on, slightly quicker!

-Pos

Hi there.

Thanks to you all for the replies on my enquiry of which engine to opt for,
looks like a 2.5 n/a or 2.5 td in good cond/rebuilt is the route to go, so will keep an eye out for either of these choices.

Thanks
jph1386

You'll probably appreciate the turbo on a 2.5 Turbo (19J), I know I'd appreciate a turbo on my 2.5 N/A up hills!

I'm about half way through doing exactly the same as you on an 1989 90 and I kept with the 2.5TD. As well as a full rebuild I also fitted a 2nd fuel tank primarily for expedition long range, but took the opportunity to fit a twin-tank heated vegetable oil system which is excellent and perfectly suited to the fragile CAV injector.

To keep everthing original and "factory" I've fitted the plastic TD5 fuel tank at the rear (using a military 300tdi sender)(bugger - I've just realised it may be 24 volt) and to do this I had a special galv chassis made by Richards - front 3/4 is 2.5TD, rear is TD5. It's great and I'd really recommend doing sommat like this whilst you're doing your full rebuild.

The richards chassis is very heavy duty, along with a 2nd fuel tank so I've also used heavy duty springs.

Should all come together soon - final bits (plus tub) are away getting painted just now.

Giz sum pics then goowon pics pics pics we want pics.

I'll get a card reader for me comp - following the UFO-breaks-camera incident.

muddythelandy said:

I also fitted a 2nd fuel tank primarily for expedition long range, but took the opportunity to fit a twin-tank heated vegetable oil system which is excellent and perfectly suited to the fragile CAV injector.

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which heater did you use? - I’ve experimented with most of the more commonly available ones, while they are are pretty good at heating the veg oil they are all poorly designed as they do tend to suffer from excessive heat loss and therefore the output from the cabin heater is much reduced.

wrapping them in insulation does help

a finned ally heat exchanger running off t-pieces next to the heater matrix, wrapped in some heat resist insulation (metal foil bubble wrap equivelant to 50mm expanded polystyrene sewn double thickness into an exact fitting "box" by my wife), with all water pipes similarly wrapped, coupled with an in-line oil heater at the switchover valve, and with the veg oil recirculating injector - valve - injector - valve directly rather than wastefully heading back to the cold veg oil tank.... Also considering a heat exchanger to take waste heat from the turbo but that may be getting a bit overly-engineered!

Not running yet (or indeed even fully plumbed) but that should stop veg oil clagging problems as well as heatloss from the "heater"

i've found that this exchanger is the most effective, but does need to be wrapped in plenty of insulation - i've also been down the twin tank road, along with 6 port pollak values etc etc and it's worked very well - however now that the price of veg oil will (at this rate of increase) soon be on parity with standard fuel i'm not sure that i'd go to the expense again

i've just done another conversion that consists simply of a fuel filter (that replaces the usual one on the bulkhead) thats heated via the coolant and leccy - i've wired the leccy heater via a timer circuit that shuts off after 5 minutes so that cold oil isnt hitting a cold IP, once the engine warms the IP does tend to impart some usfull heat to the oil

my only concern with this is that the heating cannot be turned off at the filter therefore if you run on standard diesel that will also be heated - heating diesel isnt generally a good idea as it tends to loose a lot of it's lubrication properties, i'm yet to find any info of value on this plus many vehicle have a heater fuel filter as standard (but i dont know to what temp they are heated)

aye that's my exchanger - and I was also going to fit a heated fuel filter (cold country spec 200tdi) too, but haven't.

I've got two seperate fuel filters, with the original TD bulkhead mounted one servicing the original side mounted tank filled with veg oil and a 200tdi wing mounted one servicing the rear Td5 tank running on diesel. Yellow fuel lines for diesel, green for veg oil. When running each tank on diesel when on expedition, the electric system is disabled through the medium of fuse removal!

Obviously the heat exchanger will still be filled with hot coolant, so a bypass valve will er bypass it.

I didn't want to go down the route of the 6-way port as only want a supply pipe from my diesel tank, to stop small quantities of veg oil returning to the diesel tank and solidifying in cold weather, when switching back.

In fact both tanks only really have supply lines, the fuel on a short recirculation, with a single return line to the veg tank thats only used on purging the system on shut-down.

Still - 45p a litre versus 106p a litre makes it worthwhile. even if veg goes up, diesel isn't exactly going to come down - thats my long term thinking.

dont suppose you've got a part number for that heated fuel filter have you ?

where are you buying oil from at that price ? - 6 months ago it was that here but now Tesco is average of 80p/l and the local indian/makro bulk is about 70p/l

muddythelandy said:

aye that's my exchanger - and I was also going to fit a heated fuel filter (cold country spec 200tdi) too, but haven't.

I've got two seperate fuel filters, with the original TD bulkhead mounted one servicing the original side mounted tank filled with veg oil and a 200tdi wing mounted one servicing the rear Td5 tank running on diesel. Yellow fuel lines for diesel, green for veg oil. When running each tank on diesel when on expedition, the electric system is disabled through the medium of fuse removal!

Obviously the heat exchanger will still be filled with hot coolant, so a bypass valve will er bypass it.

I didn't want to go down the route of the 6-way port as only want a supply pipe from my diesel tank, to stop small quantities of veg oil returning to the diesel tank and solidifying in cold weather, when switching back.

In fact both tanks only really have supply lines, the fuel on a short recirculation, with a single return line to the veg tank thats only used on purging the system on shut-down.

Still - 45p a litre versus 106p a litre makes it worthwhile. even if veg goes up, diesel isn't exactly going to come down - thats my long term thinking.

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what sort/make of value are you using to switch from tank to tank?

is yer exchanger bypass a manual CH type lever valve ? - i'm yet to find a good 12v operated valve suitable for this use

I can't find the part number right now - but originally found it on an american site - it may have been expedition exchange... but it was fairly expensive and I just went for a standard job. Its not in my parts manual at first glance.

The switchover valve is german, big brass thing ATG - actually two seperate valves joined together, one for switching tanks, one for purging system to veg tank.

Heat exchange bypass is just a manual tap fitted on water supply side of exchanger - I figured that if I was going to run (like once a year) on two tanks of diesel it wouldn't be too big a bind to pop the bonnet and switch over by hand...

300tdi..by far the best..My old Td engine is noisy,rattly,slow and smokes..And its only done 18k sinnce being fully re-bulit by a specialist