a standby. A few years ago, second-
hand Maestro or Montego engines
were easy to find on eBay. They were
sought after by off-road Land Rover
enthusiasts because they were so
cheap, fuel-efficient and reliable.
(The Prima was a surprise to everyone
when it first came out. With its direct
injection system, with the combustion
space in the piston, it rapidly became
a favourite of the fleet managers of
the day. It actually came close to saving
British Leyland: a pity about the styling
and rustproofing of the cars!) However,
I digress. Nowadays, finding a second-
hand example is more difficult.
I tried looking on eBay for weeks:
some real dogs came along, and a
complete van at one point, but none
of the offerings were good enough.
Then I struck gold: a turbo Maestro
engine turned up in a scrapyard at
Bagillt, not too far away from me.
I went to have a look. It had been
described as a low-mileage example
that had been driven from Caernarfon,
and it turned over – just! The fact that
it was a turbo wasn’t a problem: the
only difference was in the injector pump
and a slight change in the compression
ratio. I took a punt on it, and £150
Once I had got the head off, I could
see that there was some light
corrosion on the cylinder walls
Cylinder head removal
I started the job by stripping off all the
vehicle stuff. It was interesting to note that
at the back of the engine, where our raw
water pump is, they used the take-off for
the power steering pump – and there
was a thing driven by the camshaft that
I found out was a vacuum pump for the
brakes on the car. There is no vacuum
on the manifold of an open throttle diesel:
I hadn’t thought of that!
The cylinder head was the first thing
to come off. It was made of aluminium,
another innovation from the design
team, and consequently the head bolts
were very tight. They were 15mm across
flats, an unusual size. (I had found
reference to them on a Maestro forum:
six-point sockets are preferable to use,
the ordinary ones break.) I have a 2ft,(^1) ⁄ 2 in drive breaker bar in my toolkit, and
it took my 15 stone bouncing on the
bar to get the bolts undone. There was
no corrosion, they were just tight! The
torque for reassembling is 90Nm plus
a quarter of a turn, done up in stages.
(The manual is available online: Google
is your friend.)
Once I had got the head off I could see
that there was some light corrosion on
the cylinder walls from where the engine
had been standing, but nothing too
serious. The overhead cam is integral in
the cylinder head, and by undoing the
10mm socket bolts the upper half of the
cam carrier comes off: the cam can then
be removed, giving access to the valve
buckets. I used a magnet to lift these
out, exposing the valves and springs.
The important bit here is to line them in
By undoing the 10mm socket bolts, the upper half of the
cam carrier comes off... revealing the camshaft (below)
changed hands. It was a rusting, oily
mess, but it had the same injectors
that were fitted to my engine (not all
of them are, with some having the
later dual injection point ones), plus
a turbo that I could flog on eBay to
help defray my costs. I got it home
with the help of a friend and his sturdy
trailer. I had forgotten how heavy the
older diesels are!
During my search for spares I also
discovered http://www.parts4engines.co.uk,
based in Birmingham: the proprietor
is a yachtie, and sources spares for
the older VP and Perkins engines.
Where they can, they are actually
getting parts such as gasket sets and
bearings made, plus water pumps for
the MD22 if there is enough demand.
Check out the website: there are
lots of bits for our engines there.
It’s important to line up the valve buckets in a numbered row
I used my trusty valve spring compressor to compress
the valve springs one by one
Car engine as boat spare
➜