46 LANDROVER MONTHLYservo, replacing the utterly hopeless
Heath Robinson-inspired arrangement
of flapvalves, cranks andtanks which
somehowfound itsway into theSeries
III. And the 2.5 has a belt-drivencam-
shaft and injection pump.Thesedays
weare encouragedto think that chains
are better than belts as they never need
changing. However, thecamchain on the
2.25 diesel stretches like knicker elastic,
the injection pump is drivenoffa skew
gear with plenty of slop in it, andso
the pump timingwanders around and
makes the annual MoT smoke emis-
sionstest somethingto be dreaded.The
2.5 does not suffer anyof these prob-
lems.The timing belt isvery strong, has
a 60,000 mile change interval, and if it
does break you’ll usuallyget awaywith
just afew bent pushrods.
The 2.5 diesel boltsstraight onto the
Seriesgearbox using theSeries clutch.
The Series manifolds bolt onto the 2.5
head.The radiator and heater hoses
need a bitof fiddling around, and the
coolingfan hasto comeoffas it isa
little close to theradiator. Use theSeries
fan with the holes drilled outto 8 mm,
M8 Allen bolts, and theearlier(fixed
fan) 12Jwater pump.The onlyreal
obstacleto dropping a 12J into a Series
vehicle is that the injection pumpfouls
theoffside engine mount on the chas-
sis. Iget asked quiteoften howto solve
this problem: thefollowing advice also
applies ifyou are dropping a 19J engine
into a Series, or a Defender 200Tdi
engine(type 11L)for those lucky enough
to be ableto find agood one.
On the nearside, use thestandard
Series engine mounting bracket. You
will find there aretwo pairs of bolt holes
in the block.For fitting the engine into a
Series, bolt the bracket to the frontpair.
On theoffsideyou needto cut thecom-plete mounting bracket offthe chassis,
along with thebattery tray, whichgets in
theway of the timingcase. You can either
relocate thebattery elsewhere(under the
passengerseat, for example) orfabricate
a removable tray whichcan be bolted in
after the engine has been fitted. The new
engine shouldcome with a long mounting
bracket whichcurves under the injection
pump:keep this. Now allyou need isa
bracket to weld to the chassis, andyou
already have one: the mounting bracket
boltedto theoffsideof your old engine.
Turned upside-down andweldedto the
chassis, this allowsthe engine mounting
rubberto sit at exactly the right angle
and distance from the chassisrail. Allyou
needto do isweld it in thecorrect place.That is easiersaid than done. What
you needto do isget the new engine
on a crane, slide it into the enginepay
and bolt it upto thegearbox (leave
the clutchofffor nowto make fitting
easier), thencarefully lower the engine
until the nearside isresting on its rub-
ber mount and the engine is sitting all
square and level in the enginebay. The
starting handle hole in the front pump
should line up with the front crank pul-
ley bolt: ifyou have this bit right, your
engine positioningcan’t befar off. Now
offer up theoffside chassis mount, and
whenyou are happy that it iscorrectly
positioned, clamp it in place andtack
weld it.Remove the engine andweld all
round:you might just be ableto weld it
with the engine in place but Iwouldn’t
advise it. Apart from anything else the
heat won’t do the rubber mount a lot
of good.
I recently had aSeries III in thework-
shopto fit a niceex-military 12J engine
which had justcome outof a OneTe n.
(And when Isay “justcome out”, itwas
still warm when Istarted fitting itto the
Series.) Beingeven more shortof space
than usual I didn’twant the new engine
to be sitting on theworkshop floorfor
too long,so I came up with the kindof
cunning plan thatresults from having
far too many engine bits lying around.
At theback of myworkshopwas abare
12J engine block and in theparts storeI
had a smallstack of flywheel housings.
I bolted oneto theother.Result: one
dummy engine, mucheasierto get in
and outof the enginebay than a fully
dressed one.
It has now beenreturnedto the en-
gine dumpat theback of theworkshop,
where it will sit until either I am asked
to fit another 12J into a Series, or I run
outof usable engine blocksfor rebuild-
The ‘dummy’ engine in position,offside mounttack-welded onto the chassis ing.That mighttake a while.NORFOLK GARAGE
Offside chassis bracket – simply aSeries engine bracket turned upside-down