“Spares” car – 4.4 v8 L322 Range Rover
Discussion
Sort of inspired by Rich12’s post, I thought I would do something similar.
Facebook…I cant stand it. however it has something that most of us on here discovered a little while ago that is causing a bit of an addiction. Yes, the marketplace. Where all people’s crap are laid out bare for the pickings, including vehicles mostly in the sub 1500 quid bracket that you just cant help but look at.
About 2 months ago, I happened to be on said marketplace and an ad for a Discovery 2 Metropolis v8 pops up, needing work. I’m not that much of an expert mechanically or electrically, but like having a go and recent projects include discs and pads, diesel injectors, canbus repairs etc on our cars. I’ve got the diagnostics tools for a disco 2 we once had as well as a hawkeye for our current td6 l322, and as the metropolis was fairly rare, I thought I would be able to fix it right up and blast off into the distance in the first v8 I’d ever owned.
Unfortunately, by the time I’d pontificated and sent the message to the garage that were flogging it off, it had been snapped up. However, they did mention they had another couple of land rovers that needed disposed of, and one they mentioned that caught my attention was a 88k 2003 L322 4.4 v8 range rover vogue in dull blue over parchment leather – I’ve subsequently uncovered the thick dirt on the vin plate to reveal its Adriatic blue.
We didn’t need this car. Between the missus and I we have a c320e Mercedes company car, a l322 td6 range rover, a mini cooper s and and a 1973 series 3 landy, plus a kawasaki zzr1100 in bits. Besides all of which we’ve got more jobs on the go than Boris Johnson has at the minute with our house and work. Pointless purchase, but I kind of sold the idea to the missus of it being a spares car to “her” TD6…she just rolls her eyes when I mention it now.
However, purchase it I did - at shed money.
And…its lovely. Not without its faults mind, but one major one it had was a non-functioning dash. This was rectified within 48hrs as being a faulty PDC ecu taking the canbus down, so that was cleaned and resoldered and now all the electronics work fine, bar a missing navigation computer (minor detail). Under the decades of dirt and unloved-ness its in nice condition paint and leather wise. It has a cracked rear bumper, but 100 quid has this replaced with the same colour one, and I’ve spent about 50 quid on more polishing and cleaning gear.
I can’t fault the way it drives – no knocks or bangs and the bmw derived v8 engine is beautifully smooth. It takes me back to my younger days driving 6 cylinder bmw’s. Its interesting to directly compare it with our td6 we’ve owned for about 5 or 6 years – and to drive I’d prefer the v8, but not the economy…low fuel warning light is permanently on.
Irritatingly, I had to replace the coolant expansion tank as it literally split down the side one evening and then as a preventative measure put a lower temp thermostat and lower pressure cap on it – fortunately, this has really helped things and the engine is running like a dream.
The pictures, pre clean here make it look better than it is – but it is just about the cleaning now.
The cleaning process is coming together – started with the engine bay:
Things have recently taken a back seat as its developed a problem with the inhibitor switch/neutral selection switch and is throwing a code on my hawkeye which I believe to be that part, so that’s another job.
The todo list isn’t very long, so once I’ve sorted the switch, and clean-up, I’ll be doing a service and checking the pcv hoses etc. It looks like its been looked after from a mechanical point of view, but I’m contacting the garages it was at for some records. Whilst legal, the tyres are cheap landsail items or somesuch, which is odd because the previous one owner doesn’t look like he scrimped on items in life – this was only languishing in a garage because he couldn’t be bothered to spend the money on hours of labour, so he bought. a new l405 instead.
I managed to get the original build/spec list from LR – nothing unusual on the vogue spec, but it’s the only one I’ve seen with body coloured door handles from factory – a nice option, I reckon.
Anyway, I’ll keep this thread updated with any updates – fingers crossed its not going to turn into a complete scrapper any time soon!
edited to add - I'll add the pics soon, when I figure out how to do it.
Facebook…I cant stand it. however it has something that most of us on here discovered a little while ago that is causing a bit of an addiction. Yes, the marketplace. Where all people’s crap are laid out bare for the pickings, including vehicles mostly in the sub 1500 quid bracket that you just cant help but look at.
About 2 months ago, I happened to be on said marketplace and an ad for a Discovery 2 Metropolis v8 pops up, needing work. I’m not that much of an expert mechanically or electrically, but like having a go and recent projects include discs and pads, diesel injectors, canbus repairs etc on our cars. I’ve got the diagnostics tools for a disco 2 we once had as well as a hawkeye for our current td6 l322, and as the metropolis was fairly rare, I thought I would be able to fix it right up and blast off into the distance in the first v8 I’d ever owned.
Unfortunately, by the time I’d pontificated and sent the message to the garage that were flogging it off, it had been snapped up. However, they did mention they had another couple of land rovers that needed disposed of, and one they mentioned that caught my attention was a 88k 2003 L322 4.4 v8 range rover vogue in dull blue over parchment leather – I’ve subsequently uncovered the thick dirt on the vin plate to reveal its Adriatic blue.
We didn’t need this car. Between the missus and I we have a c320e Mercedes company car, a l322 td6 range rover, a mini cooper s and and a 1973 series 3 landy, plus a kawasaki zzr1100 in bits. Besides all of which we’ve got more jobs on the go than Boris Johnson has at the minute with our house and work. Pointless purchase, but I kind of sold the idea to the missus of it being a spares car to “her” TD6…she just rolls her eyes when I mention it now.
However, purchase it I did - at shed money.
And…its lovely. Not without its faults mind, but one major one it had was a non-functioning dash. This was rectified within 48hrs as being a faulty PDC ecu taking the canbus down, so that was cleaned and resoldered and now all the electronics work fine, bar a missing navigation computer (minor detail). Under the decades of dirt and unloved-ness its in nice condition paint and leather wise. It has a cracked rear bumper, but 100 quid has this replaced with the same colour one, and I’ve spent about 50 quid on more polishing and cleaning gear.
I can’t fault the way it drives – no knocks or bangs and the bmw derived v8 engine is beautifully smooth. It takes me back to my younger days driving 6 cylinder bmw’s. Its interesting to directly compare it with our td6 we’ve owned for about 5 or 6 years – and to drive I’d prefer the v8, but not the economy…low fuel warning light is permanently on.
Irritatingly, I had to replace the coolant expansion tank as it literally split down the side one evening and then as a preventative measure put a lower temp thermostat and lower pressure cap on it – fortunately, this has really helped things and the engine is running like a dream.
The pictures, pre clean here make it look better than it is – but it is just about the cleaning now.
The cleaning process is coming together – started with the engine bay:
Things have recently taken a back seat as its developed a problem with the inhibitor switch/neutral selection switch and is throwing a code on my hawkeye which I believe to be that part, so that’s another job.
The todo list isn’t very long, so once I’ve sorted the switch, and clean-up, I’ll be doing a service and checking the pcv hoses etc. It looks like its been looked after from a mechanical point of view, but I’m contacting the garages it was at for some records. Whilst legal, the tyres are cheap landsail items or somesuch, which is odd because the previous one owner doesn’t look like he scrimped on items in life – this was only languishing in a garage because he couldn’t be bothered to spend the money on hours of labour, so he bought. a new l405 instead.
I managed to get the original build/spec list from LR – nothing unusual on the vogue spec, but it’s the only one I’ve seen with body coloured door handles from factory – a nice option, I reckon.
Anyway, I’ll keep this thread updated with any updates – fingers crossed its not going to turn into a complete scrapper any time soon!
edited to add - I'll add the pics soon, when I figure out how to do it.
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