Anyone want to take the Land Rover plunge?

http://austin.craigslist.org/cto/5384648787.html

NMNA.

Has anyone ever come up with a motor swap?

-Rob

Some folks put SBFs in the Series trucks, so you should be able to do it here as well. But I gotta think another used Rover lump would be cheap and easy.

You'd have to beef up the transfer case for anything with more torque than the Rover engines, at least if you want it to last. That's one of the reasons there aren't a lot of swaps around. Not sure if Overfinch used the OEM transfer case or not when they dropped the SBC into the Range Rover...

I thought the LT230 was supposed to be a tough transfer case. Much stronger than the stuff found in Series trucks.

I picked up a 2001 range rover with the 4.6 a couple of weeks ago for $1000. Runs and looks great, just needed an exhaust($260), and will probably need a battery soon. Interior and body are mint, and it came with brand new tires. So yeah, at that price, I took the plunge.

tr8todd wrote: I picked up a 2001 range rover with the 4.6 a couple of weeks ago for $1000. Runs and looks great, just needed an exhaust($260), and will probably need a battery soon. Interior and body are mint, and it came with brand new tires. So yeah, at that price, I took the plunge.

I would be really curious to find out about your experience, if you drive it much. My only Range Rover experience was before I was servicing my cars myself so I paid through the nose for anything and they broke a lot so I was broke all the time. That was a 1988 and a 1990. What's a 2001 like, in 2016, for cost of running?

My wife has had a 2001 as her main vehicle for a couple of years now. Running costs have been OK so far - it did need new head gaskets when we got it (head gaskets are a consumable on these and last about 100k) but so far it's been nothing major otherwise.

It does have a perpetual leak from the heater core that drives me nuts, though. It's on its second set of O-rings in 7k miles and if they don't stop the leak, it's time for a new heater core. Unfortunately the whole vehicle is built around it.

It drinks like a fish (16mpg-ish) and doesn't have a lot of power, but even I as a non-SUV person likes to drive it. They're pretty simple to work on for the basic stuff, plus we have a good independent Land Rover mechanic locally for the big stuff.

Keith Tanner wrote: I thought the LT230 was supposed to be a tough transfer case. Much stronger than the stuff found in Series trucks.

It's stronger than the earlier ones, but at least according to some LR nuts I know in the UK, the drivetrain isn't quite up to the torque. As in, "it'll work, but at the expense of a shortened lifespan".

That said, this thread seems to suggest that the problem might be further back in the drive train (diffs and such).

I'm probably not the best person for an objective look at Rovers. I'm a Rover V8 guy even thou I've never had a Land Rover for more than a couple of days. There's probably 15 Rover V8s in my garage now between cores, rebuilt engines on stands and the ones in the many TR8s around here. I bought this truck just for the engine, but when I went to pick it up, wow! Figure I'd let the wife drive it until something expensive goes, then chop it up. Lately there have been tons of these 4.0 and 4.6 Rovers for sale in running condition for under $2K around here. Lots of them are in the 200,000 mile range, so they can't be that bad. If she decides she really likes it, I'll just go get another one and keep it on hand as a parts car/engine donor for another little british car. I am GRM and always find the cheap way of owning vehicles.