Landrover footwell replacement

[Mikes]

The 4.6 are getting a bit thin on the ground (at least good ones). A mate with a 4.6 in a RR classic had a failure due to top hat liner moving and couldn't find a decent replacement so ended up buying a whole Disco with a 3.9 just for the engine. Cheap swap compared with the rebuild cost for a 4.6

 

[Cobbler]

The 4.6 are getting a bit thin on the ground (at least good ones). A mate with a 4.6 in a RR classic had a failure due to top hat liner moving and couldn't find a decent replacement so ended up buying a whole Disco with a 3.9 just for the engine. Cheap swap compared with the rebuild cost for a 4.6

The first 4.6 my son got, supposedly came from a rear end shunt & was good. I stripped it & found the sump full of water/oil mix, it had been run dry so the heads had warped so far as to pull the threads out of the block, the bores were 30thou out of round & it had got hot enough to melt the white metal out of the cam bearings, a complete scrapper. As it turned out, all wasn’t lost as we could salvage enough bits & ancillaries to make it worth while. Someone knew what the state was. & was telling porkies.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Just had a look at my son’s 110 V8, looks like we’ve either got to repair the footwell on the angled bit, or to make a decent job, replace it. Looking at it, it looks like to replace it requires the wing & inner wing removed, is this the case? If so how much of a job is it to remove, a couple of hours or all day. I know there are a lot of you on here that have done these & thank you in advance. On a different note, the Landy is a 4.6, converted to LPG, the gas supplies have virtually dried up, all the local places to him have given up, not sure what the answer is to that, diesel conversion maybe, frightening running on petrol.

You *can* do it without removing the inner wing, but it's substantially easier to just remove the whole wing than to separate inner and outer wing.

Assuming that your tunnel isn't corroded, then replacement is straightforward and is just drilling some plug welds out and then a direct fit of the replacement panel (the YRM 2-part is easiest.

I would allow a couple of hours if it's all in good condition, all day if there's lots of fastener corrosion to deal with, (and at least a week if you're talking about corrosion in the upper driver's footwell and you haven't been able to assess what's behind the dash beforehand).

Inspect thoroughly for signs of hidden corrosion in surrounding components before you start though, if it's more than just the footwell that needs repairing, you would be well advised to leave the footwell to last (doing it the other way round will take much longer).

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

I’m hoping that with the footwell, I can make a repair panel, depends how far it’s gone.

Honestly for how straightforward it is to replace the whole footwell, and how cheap the Galv replacements are, not worth it for anything but a tiny hole.

Based on my experience with a previous owners repair panels in a footwell, anything other than letting in a patch with fully butt-welded edges, fully ground back on the outside will make for faster, more destructive corrosion that damages more of the bulkhead and makes it harder to repair fully in the long run.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Sell the Landy to North America. Often see the V8s advertised as USA exportable.

The defender never came as a 4.6, only a 3.9 and a 5.0 (and a 3.5 in the Ninety/One-Ten), so it wouldn't be eligible to export to the US unless you can get the original block back in.

Has to be 100% original to meet the 25 year rule, otherwise it will be crushed on arrival by US customs.

This is of course ridiculous as often the American buyer has already paid for someone that side of the pond to immediately gut it of the engine and gearbox to fit a modern one as soon as it clears customs.


There's a couple of people in the Landrover industry with horror stories of being sued by America buyers who didn't realise how strict the import regulations were, and then tried to make it the seller's responsibility when their vehicle was seized or destroyed.

With various outcomes, including people having to fold their business over the cashflow issues fighting the court case caused.

 

[jmp49]

The 4.6 are getting a bit thin on the ground (at least good ones). A mate with a 4.6 in a RR classic had a failure due to top hat liner moving and couldn't find a decent replacement so ended up buying a whole Disco with a 3.9 just for the engine. Cheap swap compared with the rebuild cost for a 4.6

Must have been a late 3.9 gemini engine... I got sold a "4.6" and it had the right heads for the later engine, a 4.6 plenum but the cross drillings on the crankcase were there but undrilled. I stripped it down to measure things properly and the stroke was shorter, and to make things worse, the journal diameter on the 4.6 and 3.9 is different, so you cant even take a 3.9 casting, cross drill it and fit the 4.6 innards. Ever since then I've asked for engine number photos in advance before considering getting burnt again and its shocking the amount of faked up 3.9's on the market. I personally believe if you fix the liner slippage issue properly with top hat liners, then the 4.6 is a stronger engine than the 3.9.

Just to be extra weird, Rover also made the engine in a 4.5, but only in proto stage. I have in my shed a 4.5 unground rover crank with Rover casting numbers on it from the batch of pre-production test motors. Boost engineering told me he'd seen entire 4.5's out on the wild that escaped too. The reason it never made it to production is the crank whip from the small diameter journals same as in the 3.9 and 3.5's caused vibrations and premature crank failure under long term test.

Cobbler, I'm in no rush, but I want to find a engine that I can rebuild myself and do some mods I want done while Im at it, the pre-requisite being its actually a 4.6. I have the facilities to do the liners myself etc. I'm not suggesting yours isnt a 4.6, but it sounds like a nice running complete proposition that would be more valuable to someone as a put in replacement without touching it.
Currently the 101 looks like this so not in a huge rush

 

[Smallfry]

Having had 22 LRs and on my 23rd, which has sat on the drive for 10 years and been nowhere, its a genuine factory 90 V8 station wagon. Must get rid of it, as I am fed up with people knocking on the door and offering £500 for the scrap Landie, but I digress.

Footwells are easy, but you do need to do some stripping. Wing, inner wing, and door. In theory, in shouldnt take any more than half an hour, but if the bolts are seized, then it can take a lot longer.

The footwells are double skinned from the factory to give them strength and spread the mounting load, but I have not seen any repair panels that have the ribs pressed in, or the double skinning, so I always made my own. Never overlap any patches, as this will rust quickly, butt weld only. I would replace whole panels and butt weld on the flanges to replicate original as much as possible.

As for a diesel conversion, BMW M57 is really the only one worth considering IMO. V8 performance with twice the MPG.

I have a low mileage one here, along with a low mileage early type Lexus 1UZ plus a couple of Thor V8s, that I must get rid of sometime. I am running short of life, and really cannot be bothered any more. Doesn't help having to do everything outside now.

 

[owas]

Om605/6 >

 

[Bobtail4x4]

I have a 4.6 plenum and injection sat here
it came from a friends garage clearance, after his death

do we have an idea of value?

 

[jmp49]

Check on ebay, there's usually loads of them for varying prices as that is the easiest bit of a 4.6 to find for sale, as the bits that go wrong is usually the block/liners or the camshaft has gone flat imho.
They come in two variants too depending on which injection system it had, the thor which look like a bunch of banana's doubling back on themselves with a plenum tube and throttle body one end, and the GEMS which look like a chamber on top with the throttle body off to one side with 4.6 cast into the cover.

 

[Bobtail4x4]

its a gems one with 4.6 on