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1971 Series IIa 88" Overhaul

Grandmother and egg sucking...... make sure the bottom of the holes the head bolts go into are clean and dry at the bottom, no oil or water. This will prevent any possibilty of hydraulic lock when you fit the head. Also, to help line the head and head gasket up I got a couple of old head bolts, cut the tops off and cut a slot into the top of the bolt. Before I put the head on I screwed in the modified bolts and this allowed the gasket and head to line up perfectly, fit a couple of the proper blots, then just unscrew the temporary bolts with a screwdriver and replace with the proper ones.
 
Guitar Mick said:
Grandmother and egg sucking...... make sure the bottom of the holes the head bolts go into are clean and dry at the bottom, no oil or water. This will prevent any possibilty of hydraulic lock when you fit the head. Also, to help line the head and head gasket up I got a couple of old head bolts, cut the tops off and cut a slot into the top of the bolt. Before I put the head on I screwed in the modified bolts and this allowed the gasket and head to line up perfectly, fit a couple of the proper blots, then just unscrew the temporary bolts with a screwdriver and replace with the proper ones.
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That's an excellent idea - thanks! I don't have any extra head bolts but I can certainly come up with some 1/2unf bolts to do the same thing. This crazy-a$$ project has cost me a lot of money so far but the tips and advice I've recievied from this forum has saved me a significant amount of both time and $$$. Guess it's about time I donate to the cause... 😁
 
Tonight I took a run at the cylinder head. The original valves were quite rusty and pitted so I ordered some new ones.
20240409_005006.jpg

The guides are just "ok" and the seats weren't that great either but I think I can make them work for now. An "Ultimate Head Rebuild" is something I can do next winter - right now I need to get on the road.
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As I mentioned in a previous post I do have a few old-skool seat cutters and I was happy to find that I actually had the right ones, or mostly so anyway. Ultimately one wants the correct angle cutter for the valve seat plus one slightly less and one slightly more so that one may adjust the width and location of the contact surface. This is what they man when they say "three angle valve job". I found both 45 degree and 30 degree cutters for both valve sizes which allowed me to cut the seats fairly well but I would have been nice to have a 55 or 60 degree cutter too. It's no racetrack job but I think it'll do for this summer at least.
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Once the seats were cut I numbered the valves and lapped them into the seats with grinding compound by hand. Everything looks pretty good and I'm sure the valves will seal nicely. New springs should be here in a day or two whereupon I can put the head back together and set it aside for engine assembly. One more thing out of the way!
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SeriesG said:
Tonight I took a run at the cylinder head. The original valves were quite rusty and pitted so I ordered some new ones.
View attachment 528188
The guides are just "ok" and the seats weren't that great either but I think I can make them work for now. An "Ultimate Head Rebuild" is something I can do next winter - right now I need to get on the road.
View attachment 528189
As I mentioned in a previous post I do have a few old-skool seat cutters and I was happy to find that I actually had the right ones, or mostly so anyway. Ultimately one wants the correct angle cutter for the valve seat plus one slightly less and one slightly more so that one may adjust the width and location of the contact surface. This is what they man when they say "three angle valve job". I found both 45 degree and 30 degree cutters for both valve sizes which allowed me to cut the seats fairly well but I would have been nice to have a 55 or 60 degree cutter too. It's no racetrack job but I think it'll do for this summer at least.
View attachment 528190
View attachment 528191
View attachment 528192
View attachment 528193
Once the seats were cut I numbered the valves and lapped them into the seats with grinding compound by hand. Everything looks pretty good and I'm sure the valves will seal nicely. New springs should be here in a day or two whereupon I can put the head back together and set it aside for engine assembly. One more thing out of the way!
View attachment 528194
Click to expand...
Lovely job 🤞🤞.

I has to skip the valve recut for financial reasons so just ground them after a decoke.

In due course I’d like hardened seats so I can use unleaded petrol without the lead additive.
 
Fulltimedad said:
Lovely job 🤞🤞.

I has to skip the valve recut for financial reasons so just ground them after a decoke.

In due course I’d like hardened seats so I can use unleaded petrol without the lead additive.
Click to expand...
Thanks! I plan to install hardened valve seats too but it'll have to wait for now. To tell you the truth I've not had any trouble running modern gas through old valve seats myself but I don't usually put that many miles on these types of projects. I guess if I was going to expect to get 100k out of it I would be more worried but with just putzing around town and the odd trip up north I don't expect to put more than 20,000km on it before it moves on to the next owner. If I have to pull the head once every five or ten years for valve work I think I can live with that. 😁

As to grinding the seats I'd say that's the real way to do it. Cutters only really work on old engines that don't have hardened seats. I did actually have a complete B&D seat grinding set left to me by my Dad but I sold it years ago due to its infrequent use. I've only regretted doing so twice in the last ten years so that's not bad. One must continually balance storage space with frequency of use of oddball items and tools.
 
I'm excited to have received my parts from Turners Engineering including a new set of supposedly better pistons, head gasket, valve springs, and Pioneer Weston rear crankshaft seal. Let the assembly games begin!
20240409_150113.jpg

Those of you who've been following along will remember that I was apprehensive about using Britpart pistons with their "C of O - CHINA" label so I broke down and ordered another complete set from Turners. They state quite specifically on their website that their pistons are "not Britpart" which made opening the box somewhat of a disappointment as the new pistons are most definitely exactly the same manufacturer as Britpart uses. The only difference is the Britpart label pasted over top of the original. In the pictures the Turners supplied piston is on the left and the Britpart is on the right:
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Turners claims that these parts are the same ones they use in their own rebuilds and as by all accounts are a reputable company so I suppose that means that at this particular time, Britpart is using a good supplier for their pistons. How bout' that. Like everyone seems to say, blue-box parts really are a roll of the dice. It's a bit of a bummer that I wasted several weeks waiting for the same parts as I already had but at least I'm more confident that they'll be alright.
20240409_150632.jpg

So now I've got eight new pistons to choose from. I know one of the original four I bought was 0.0015" big so I'll sort through the lot for the closest matching four in size and weight and go with those. The remaining pieces will go up for sale I guess.
 
Cliff4WD said:
Britpart supply pattern parts that they have manufactured for them, they also supply OEM parts. It's not always the case that the BP 'supplied' part is their own cheap pattern version. I presume you will challenge Turners on this one as I'd be fuming if it were me in your shoes.
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At this point I just want to get my engine back together. I've heard Turners is a reputable supplier from lots of folks on this forum so if these are the pistons they're using in their rebuilds then I guess that's about as good as I can do. I tried looking for genuine LR parts but couldn't find what I needed.
As for Britpart replacements I have found (so far) that generally speaking their major mechanical components seem to be fairly reasonable but their plastic, rubber, and electrical stuff is junk. These pistons seem alright as did their camshaft and gearbox primary input shaft but their bearings are iffy. The Britpart cam gear I ordered was a bloody joke and their seals look poor too. I've been trying to stay away from them but sometimes I just can't.
 
Neil said:
It is still possible to buy genuine Land Rover listings but the price might give you pause for thought.

RTC418830 | PISTON ASSY +0.030 3 BEARING 2.25 - PETROL - SERIES 111 | Land Rover | | Britcar (Global) Ltd

Looking for RTC418830 PISTON ASSY +0.030 3 BEARING 2.25 - PETROL - SERIES 111? Britcar can help you. View all details of this part here
britcar.com britcar.com
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Awe c'mon! Haha! If I'd have known of these and had an ounce of gray matter I'd have done just that and gone that route but alas it was not to be. I've got that much tied up now in eight new pistons so I'm going to go with what I have. Thanks for the effort though!


I figure if Turners uses these pistons for their rebuilds I'll probably be okay. They look pretty good actually and I can't see any obvious bad manufacture so I'm going for it. I might be wise to use a name-brand set of rings like Hastings or something but what the hell... I'm going all Britpart! 😅
 
With all of my engine parts here (I think... hopefully...) it's almost time for reassembly. I say almost as I still had one more obstacle to overcome: one of my connecting rods had a bit of a pounded out wrist pin bushing. On inspection the bushing fell out of the rod with no pressure at all and upon measuring the bore in the rod itself, showed to be about 0.005" elongated. I considered using Loctite to fix it in there but decided that with the heat and pressure involved in such a place I'd better do it right. I couldn't find oversize wrist pin bushings so with some online research I decided that I'd cut the errant bore oversize and press in a custom made steel bushing. It's not ideal but if what I read online is true racing folk often use steel for these bushings so I figure if I'm carefull and size it right it might work out.
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I went up to work after supper to check things out and yes, the machine I needed (the same one I used to bore my block) was open with no current job running in it. Yes! I clamped the rod down to a precision ground 2-3-6 block, located the bore center, and manually bored the wrist pin bushing bore about ten thou oversize with a Kennametal Mod-Bore boring bar and head. Everything went smoothly and it's clean as a whistle so now all I have to do is turn a custom bushing, press it in, and hone it to size. So far so good!
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With the latest parts shipment I can begin to assemble the engine and to keep things simple with the limited time I had this evening I started with the head. I still have to make the one wrist pin bushing and get it fit to the rod but I decided to move forward on the head first. I wasn't totally happy with a few of the valve seats which were still showing some pitting so I re-cut two intakes and one exhaust then re-lapped their respective valves into place. Okay... that's better.
20240409_000802.jpg

My valve original valve guides have o-ring seals in the bores and aren't properly cut on the spring side to accept the top-hat style seals that came with the gasket set so I set about picking the old seals out and replacing them with o-rings from a generic kit I had on hand. I think they'll work alright.
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I took a gamble and bought an inexpensive valve spring compressor from Amazon and surprisingly it worked flawlessly.
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In no time I had the new valves installed with new OEM Santana spring retainers and keepers. I'd bought new spring retainers as four of the the originals were the two-piece design and one of them was split. Now I've got all one-piece retainers.
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The Turners website says that the single springs I ordered from them supersede the old dual springs which is fine by me but without the original extra smaller inside spring the singles seem a bit loose on their seats in the head. I feel like some kind of locator washer should be used to keep them in place where they seat in the head but I'll try them as-is and see what happens. I'm sure they'll be fine it's just that the Industrial Mechanic in me says they should probably be located centrally so they can't wander around, if that makes any sense.
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Anyway there it is - the head is assembled such as it is and I'm ready to check the rod and main bearings for fit. With luck I should be able to assemble the whole thing tomorrow! 😀
 
SeriesG said:
Awe c'mon! Haha! If I'd have known of these and had an ounce of gray matter I'd have done just that and gone that route but alas it was not to be. I've got that much tied up now in eight new pistons so I'm going to go with what I have. Thanks for the effort though!


I figure if Turners uses these pistons for their rebuilds I'll probably be okay. They look pretty good actually and I can't see any obvious bad manufacture so I'm going for it. I might be wise to use a name-brand set of rings like Hastings or something but what the hell... I'm going all Britpart! 😅
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They only have 2 in stock though.
For future parts searches you might find this site useful
www.thepart.com
trouble is you need the current part number and Land Rover have changed their part number systems at least 3 times that I am aware of
 
SeriesG said:
With the latest parts shipment I can begin to assemble the engine and to keep things simple with the limited time I had this evening I started with the head. I still have to make the one wrist pin bushing and get it fit to the rod but I decided to move forward on the head first. I wasn't totally happy with a few of the valve seats which were still showing some pitting so I re-cut two intakes and one exhaust then re-lapped their respective valves into place. Okay... that's better.
View attachment 528321
My valve original valve guides have o-ring seals in the bores and aren't properly cut on the spring side to accept the top-hat style seals that came with the gasket set so I set about picking the old seals out and replacing them with o-rings from a generic kit I had on hand. I think they'll work alright.
View attachment 528322
I took a gamble and bought an inexpensive valve spring compressor from Amazon and surprisingly it worked flawlessly.
View attachment 528323
View attachment 528326
In no time I had the new valves installed with new OEM Santana spring retainers and keepers. I'd bought new spring retainers as four of the the originals were the two-piece design and one of them was split. Now I've got all one-piece retainers.
View attachment 528324
The Turners website says that the single springs I ordered from them supersede the old dual springs which is fine by me but without the original extra smaller inside spring the singles seem a bit loose on their seats in the head. I feel like some kind of locator washer should be used to keep them in place where they seat in the head but I'll try them as-is and see what happens. I'm sure they'll be fine it's just that the Industrial Mechanic in me says they should probably be located centrally so they can't wander around, if that makes any sense.
View attachment 528328
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Anyway there it is - the head is assembled such as it is and I'm ready to check the rod and main bearings for fit. With luck I should be able to assemble the whole thing tomorrow! 😀
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Wow . You certainly don’t hang around . Great progress.
Like the conrod modification .
Enjoying reading the thread . 👍
 
After measuring everything up I sorted out which pistons I was going to use and removed their rings so I could fit them to their bores. Cylinders 1 & 2 were still a touch small so I contacted my buddy with the hone and got him to drop it off after he got off work. An hour or so of final sizing got the blocks piston-to-bore clearances right on factory specs. Block work done - thanks Terry!
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After that was the tedious job of checking each and every piston rings gap in its respective bore. It's a relatively easy job but it does take time and care.
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Because when I did the boring I'd left a little too much on the bores for honing, and because honing that extra material took a huge amount of work to do, one can understand why I only opened them up to the minimum piston-to-bore clearance I figured I could get away with: 0.002". I chose the smallest pistons to facilitate this. The manual says I should have 0.0017-0.0022" so I should be okay. While it's fairly easy to measure piston diameters to that kind of accuracy it's relatively tricky to measure bores to a similar level of confidence without very expensive tools. I do have a nice bore micrometer but it's a bit of a mind game when using it as any machinist will tell you: you can make it read what you want (need) if you try hard enough. Lol! Like a golf score one must be honest with oneself to do a good job to be at peace, regardless of the work one needs to do to get proper results. Funny analogy that - golf and machining. You can lie to yourself if you want but it's not to your advantage. Final fit testing throughout the bore with a 0.002" feeler gauge tells me I should be good to go. Fine then - I'm a 95 handicap golfer and an honest machinist! Haha! 🤣
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The point of mentioning all that lame-a$$ bore size and ring gap stuff is that because I'd chosen the smallest pistons in order to keep the honing work to a minimum my nominal 30 thou over bores are (at least in cylinders 1 & 2) about 0.0015" under "normal". Using our friend the rule of Pi makes for a 0.005" closing of gap on the rings. Due to this I had to file my rings a bit whereas if I'd opened the bores up a tad more I might not have had to. Surprisingly the Britpart rings were gap-sized pretty close if normal standards had been held. Who'd a figured that? 😁
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The finish that the hone put on my cylinder bores was really very fine. Maybe too fine. I'm no engine building expert but I do know that bore finish is a science and that ring type and material is an important factor in that science. I don't know for sure what these Chinese rings are made of but I'm guessing they are cast (the least expensive possible) which according to the interweb calls for a bit rougher finish to get them to seat properly. Apparently the fancy moly "performance" rings require a finer finish but I doubt these rings are of that level of quality. In the end I ran my deglazing hone through the bores to roughen them up a bit and get that 60 degree cross-hatch they say is key to good ring seating. This thing is basically a tractor engine and pretty far from what I'd call "Hi-perfomance" so I'm confident things will work out in the end.
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So all in all a long but satisfying day of engine prep. Tomorrow I'll see about making that one wrist pin bushing and if that comes together like I expect it will it's on to actual final engine assembly. It's about bloody time! 😆
 
This is all making a lovely reference post on engine internals and measuring this and that. Nice.

I do not like gapping piston rings. The first piston's set are ok, but then somewhere between the middle ring on the second piston and the last piston you enter a time vortex where nothing really seems real anymore and you can't quite put your mind to the moment...it's like you're thinking underwater or something.

Then you do the last piston and it's all ok again, except it's time to go home and you're already late for everything.

For settling in the rings, I think a healthy running in process will sort it all out, then you're good to go.
 
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