Tired engine and gearbox - what would you do?

[Mon Ami Mate]

My old girl has been noticeably short of puff recently. Even more short of puff than usual that is. She also been suffering from a few gearbox gremlins - noticeably jumping out of first under load and getting a bit confused changing from low range to high range. I've had the situation checked out by the excellent http://stevehilllandrovers.co.uk/ and he reports that she's down on compression on all cylinders and he thinks I should replace the gearbox.

So, here's the dilemma. She's an ex army truck and I've spent quite a lot of money on her in the last few years, but being a pernickity type of anorak, I've sourced all the right army bits and pieces for her. Now I can't make up my mind whether I should stick to this and get her engine and gearbox rebuilt, which I think will be somewhat more than inexpensive, if I should just buy reconditioned civilian stuff and bolt it in or if I should just say sod it and go the whole hog and stick a V8 in there.

So, what would you do...and how would you do it?

[warch]

Depends what you use it for. 2.25 petrol engines should be cheap to recondition, not sure I'd fit a 2nd hand unit unless I knew the provenance. I wouldn't convert to diesel personally, a lot of work to do a decent job plus the difference in economy isn't that great with about 40p a gallon difference between the fuel types.

The gearbox is a simple change, your's must be pretty knackered to warrant replacement, they don't often pack in on this age of vehicle.

I'm sure this is no longer the case but don't you need to hack the bulkhead about to fit a V8? You might want better brakes as well with this conversion, plus it'll definitely bugger a tired gearbox...

Nice Land Rover, love these ex army ones, very very