V8 BURBLE PLANNED
Ed’s plan to ‘out’ a Land Rover every time a new project rolls in takes a back seat
Ever get the feeling you have too many Land Rovers? I’m in the habit of buying projects that I think will make interesting reading in the magazine then, when all the jobs have been covered, swapping it for another feature-filled project. That’s the plan. The snag is that when the job’s complete I always think ‘this is a nice motor. I’ll hang onto it.’ I did bite the bullet a few weeks ago and decided to sell a couple, mainly to make some space. I haven’t sold them yet, but I did buy yet another, a nice old Ninety County Station Wagon that I intend to restore – that is, when I’ve finished rebuilding my Series III.
It’s sensible, too. Because once these vehicles have been fettled, nothing goes wrong with them. The most I can report on is a fuse that fell to bits on the 110 and stopped the air conditioning from working, a temperature sender packed up on the Discovery 1, and the Range Rover Sport continues its incredible reliability roll with only two faults in the last 15 months – a tail lamp bulb failed, and a front side lamp has just gone out. Who says Land Rover’s aren’t reliable? The next project is, hopefully, going to be a V8 conversion. A mate has a 3.5-litre Rover V8 with carbs waiting for me, but it’s been taken from a Series III and was originally in a 1960s Rover P5 saloon. That will cause a lot of headaches when planning to slip it into a vehicle that has power steering. I need a Range Rover type front timing cover, double vee crank pulley and the bracketry to fit a Rangey power steering pump. Oh, and a Range Rover flywheel would be nice, and then there’s a lot of jiggery pokery with the transmission to deal with. Actually, it’s not really a good idea, but I know this particular V8 to be a good-un, and I long to hear something special burbling out of an exhaust pipe. The sensible option would be to find a good carburettor 3.5 V8 (or even Efi) from a Range Rover or Defender. If anyone has any of the parts, or an engine, I’m in the market.