Discussion
Okay to start with I will include a bit of history for my Land Rover Defender Project that would ultimately evolve into the Frankenrover.
It started when I spotted a 1985 110 with galvanised chassis on a classified ad's site only 30 miles away. At this point I had owned two Land Rover Discoveries which had had found great for exploring my native Northumberland but both had ultimately succumbed to the inevitable rust.
At the time they were a throwaway car. You could pick up a decent 200tdi discovery with MOT for a few hundred quid.
After pulling them apart and deciding my bank account could not accommodate the massive amount of welding involved, I removed the relatively low mileage drive train and stored them in the anticipation that what I really wanted was a nuts and bolts Defender.
The Rusty shell's were weighed in for scrap and I bought a Jeep to tide me over.
After spotting the Defender I contacted the owner and made arrangements to come and see it.
It was unfinished as it turned out, it being his fathers project who sadly passed away. He simply wanted rid of it to get the space in his barn back for his boat.
His asking price was £900, but I cheekily bid him down to £700 on the condition I towed it away in the next day. What followed was a frantic evening of phone call's before I found someone who would tow the thing home for £50.
Did I mention it wasn't 100% finished?
Mechanically though she was in perfect condition. Not bad for £700 beans.
And home sitting on the driveway. The van body in the photo background is what it came with, but I had the truck cab and light-bar sitting around so I figured I would see how it looked with them bolted on.
So after getting it home I decided what's the first thing i'm going to do? Will I finish it off or tear it apart and start again?
Take it to bits of course, with my mechanics advice that 90% of Land Rover projects never get finished still ringing in my ears I set to work
Broke out my tool kit
Time to remove the Daihatsu Fourtrak engine which the previous owner had adapted to the Land Rover gearbox. Thankfully he had managed to use the original chassis mounts and was apparently a common "upgrade" in the late 1990's.
With the engine sold to the bloke who loaned me the engine hoist, the chassis was beginning to look pretty bare.
you can see the Discovery 200tdi drivetrain on a pallet ready to go in
I decided to get my own engine hoist and after a peruse on ebay managed to score this ancient 1930's garage crane from a railway yard in the Scottish borders. Worm gear winch and no hydraulics to worry about, this thing will probably still be earning it's keep somewhere long after i'm gone.
Chassis painted with Hammerite straight to galv
Front axle ready for restoration
Shiny new parts arrived
Axle rebuilt and offered up to the chassis
Can you spot the mistake?
New poly-bushes installed and both axles fitted with new wheels and tyres, new springs all round, fuel tank installed and discovery 200tdi engine dropped in
I then decided if I was to replace the Jeep I needed something with 4 door and a back seat. So a station wagon with a blown engine and rotten chassis was purchased for the doors, panels and interior parts.
More new parts arrived and painted
Assembling the rear tub floor with YRM panels
Test fitting
Repairing and reinforcing the rear arches from the donor Defender with 4mm thick aluminium chequer plate.
Tub quarter panels assembled with new aluminium panels and galvanised plus painted cappings
By this point I have been driving the jeep for a while now and also spent quite a bit of time in another family member's Defender with a 200tdi in it. A slow, but inescapable conclusion was dawning on me.
I much preferred the petrol inline 6 in the jeep to the slow, noisy, rough diesel 4 cylinder that land rover had burdened the Defender with. I was finding myself not particularly relishing the idea of giving up the jeep, but after driving a petrol powered Defender and realizing how much more refined it would be I decided there was only one thing for it.
Put the jeep engine in the Defender.
The Jeep 4.0 makes roughly the same horsepower and torque as the 4.0 rover V8, but in a far more durable package without any of the slipped liner issues that the rover's are known for.
This of course threw up a whole heap more challenges.
Initially I thought about just putting the whole jeep drive-train into the Rover, but this had it's own issues. Firstly the jeep automatic gearbox isn't the best in the world and mine in particular was slipping quite badly.
Secondly the land rover transfer case is braked on the transmission, whereas the jeep handbrake uses the rear disks.
My conclusion after some research was to use a proven automatic gearbox using an off the shelf transfer case adaptor from Marks 4x4 in Australia and I wanted a modern computer controlled automatic with overdrive and lockup function so opted for the 4l80e which is found in heavy duty GM pickup trucks.
This had the added benefit of offering an easy upgrade to an LS motor in the future should I so desire.
Novak Conversions in the USA offer kits to bolt the Jeep 4.0 to any GM automatic gearbox, so the order was placed and a couple of weeks later everything had arrived.
The Compushift computer required to run the gearbox
The Discovery 200tdi was removed and sold to a teacher who was rebuilding a Series 3 land rover as a class project. (Wish my teachers were this cool)
I then set about trying to find 4l80e which turns out to be very difficult in the UK. They may be a dime a dozen in the USA, but rare as hens teeth on our unfortunate little isle, despite being fitted to jaguars, rolls roye and bentley's the bellhousing's are different and not removable.
I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to bite the bullet and make the costly decision to order one from the states with all the risks and expense that entails when low and behold, by chance I spotted on on gumtree and it was less than 100 miles away too. Brilliant.
A quick phone call later and I was on the way to collect it.
Spot on.
Unfortunately it was a 2wd version which was only partially splined on the output shaft so not suitable for my needs. I needed the correct output shaft which unfortunately requires that the entire box be dismantled in order to change it out. This is not a job for the faint hearted and after watching a few youtube video's of the procedure I decided to hand the box over to a specialist.
Jon at American Automatics gave me a very reasonable price and did a full inspection on the box and confirmed it to be in excellent condition.
This is how it arrived back to me. Much better
So now we are ready to bolt everything together and see just how long this assembly really is before finding a way to mount it into the Land Rover Chassis
It started when I spotted a 1985 110 with galvanised chassis on a classified ad's site only 30 miles away. At this point I had owned two Land Rover Discoveries which had had found great for exploring my native Northumberland but both had ultimately succumbed to the inevitable rust.
At the time they were a throwaway car. You could pick up a decent 200tdi discovery with MOT for a few hundred quid.
After pulling them apart and deciding my bank account could not accommodate the massive amount of welding involved, I removed the relatively low mileage drive train and stored them in the anticipation that what I really wanted was a nuts and bolts Defender.
The Rusty shell's were weighed in for scrap and I bought a Jeep to tide me over.
After spotting the Defender I contacted the owner and made arrangements to come and see it.
It was unfinished as it turned out, it being his fathers project who sadly passed away. He simply wanted rid of it to get the space in his barn back for his boat.
His asking price was £900, but I cheekily bid him down to £700 on the condition I towed it away in the next day. What followed was a frantic evening of phone call's before I found someone who would tow the thing home for £50.
Did I mention it wasn't 100% finished?
Mechanically though she was in perfect condition. Not bad for £700 beans.
And home sitting on the driveway. The van body in the photo background is what it came with, but I had the truck cab and light-bar sitting around so I figured I would see how it looked with them bolted on.
So after getting it home I decided what's the first thing i'm going to do? Will I finish it off or tear it apart and start again?
Take it to bits of course, with my mechanics advice that 90% of Land Rover projects never get finished still ringing in my ears I set to work
Broke out my tool kit
Time to remove the Daihatsu Fourtrak engine which the previous owner had adapted to the Land Rover gearbox. Thankfully he had managed to use the original chassis mounts and was apparently a common "upgrade" in the late 1990's.
With the engine sold to the bloke who loaned me the engine hoist, the chassis was beginning to look pretty bare.
you can see the Discovery 200tdi drivetrain on a pallet ready to go in
I decided to get my own engine hoist and after a peruse on ebay managed to score this ancient 1930's garage crane from a railway yard in the Scottish borders. Worm gear winch and no hydraulics to worry about, this thing will probably still be earning it's keep somewhere long after i'm gone.
Chassis painted with Hammerite straight to galv
Front axle ready for restoration
Shiny new parts arrived
Axle rebuilt and offered up to the chassis
Can you spot the mistake?
New poly-bushes installed and both axles fitted with new wheels and tyres, new springs all round, fuel tank installed and discovery 200tdi engine dropped in
I then decided if I was to replace the Jeep I needed something with 4 door and a back seat. So a station wagon with a blown engine and rotten chassis was purchased for the doors, panels and interior parts.
More new parts arrived and painted
Assembling the rear tub floor with YRM panels
Test fitting
Repairing and reinforcing the rear arches from the donor Defender with 4mm thick aluminium chequer plate.
Tub quarter panels assembled with new aluminium panels and galvanised plus painted cappings
By this point I have been driving the jeep for a while now and also spent quite a bit of time in another family member's Defender with a 200tdi in it. A slow, but inescapable conclusion was dawning on me.
I much preferred the petrol inline 6 in the jeep to the slow, noisy, rough diesel 4 cylinder that land rover had burdened the Defender with. I was finding myself not particularly relishing the idea of giving up the jeep, but after driving a petrol powered Defender and realizing how much more refined it would be I decided there was only one thing for it.
Put the jeep engine in the Defender.
The Jeep 4.0 makes roughly the same horsepower and torque as the 4.0 rover V8, but in a far more durable package without any of the slipped liner issues that the rover's are known for.
This of course threw up a whole heap more challenges.
Initially I thought about just putting the whole jeep drive-train into the Rover, but this had it's own issues. Firstly the jeep automatic gearbox isn't the best in the world and mine in particular was slipping quite badly.
Secondly the land rover transfer case is braked on the transmission, whereas the jeep handbrake uses the rear disks.
My conclusion after some research was to use a proven automatic gearbox using an off the shelf transfer case adaptor from Marks 4x4 in Australia and I wanted a modern computer controlled automatic with overdrive and lockup function so opted for the 4l80e which is found in heavy duty GM pickup trucks.
This had the added benefit of offering an easy upgrade to an LS motor in the future should I so desire.
Novak Conversions in the USA offer kits to bolt the Jeep 4.0 to any GM automatic gearbox, so the order was placed and a couple of weeks later everything had arrived.
The Compushift computer required to run the gearbox
The Discovery 200tdi was removed and sold to a teacher who was rebuilding a Series 3 land rover as a class project. (Wish my teachers were this cool)
I then set about trying to find 4l80e which turns out to be very difficult in the UK. They may be a dime a dozen in the USA, but rare as hens teeth on our unfortunate little isle, despite being fitted to jaguars, rolls roye and bentley's the bellhousing's are different and not removable.
I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to bite the bullet and make the costly decision to order one from the states with all the risks and expense that entails when low and behold, by chance I spotted on on gumtree and it was less than 100 miles away too. Brilliant.
A quick phone call later and I was on the way to collect it.
Spot on.
Unfortunately it was a 2wd version which was only partially splined on the output shaft so not suitable for my needs. I needed the correct output shaft which unfortunately requires that the entire box be dismantled in order to change it out. This is not a job for the faint hearted and after watching a few youtube video's of the procedure I decided to hand the box over to a specialist.
Jon at American Automatics gave me a very reasonable price and did a full inspection on the box and confirmed it to be in excellent condition.
This is how it arrived back to me. Much better
So now we are ready to bolt everything together and see just how long this assembly really is before finding a way to mount it into the Land Rover Chassis
Edited by skyrover on Wednesday 18th November 13:54
jamiebae said:
Cool project, and a nice left-field engine choice too. There are loads around and Jeeps are so cheap now that there shouldn't be an issue with spares for the next few years too.
That's entirely my thinking.Jeep 4.0's can be picked up for nothing and are very similar in size to the original tdi.
I'm also attracted by the simplicity of the engine and it's tolerance to LPG fuel.
Edited by skyrover on Wednesday 18th November 17:16
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