Running in
Ed enjoys piling on the miles in his recently rebuilt Ninety V8 but regretting the time it’s taken away from the rest of the fleet
MY Ninety V8, whose rebuild was featured in our tech section and was completed earlier this year, is proving to be the ace in my pack of Land Rovers. The final episode of that rebuild appeared in our May issue, which seems a long time back, but I still feel as if the V8 has only just arrived here. After the rebuild, the Ninety’s first journey was from Britpart’s workshop in Shropshire up to my place in Cumbria. So the trip included a good mix of roads, though mainly motorway where the wagon cruised comfortably, and relatively quietly for an old Ninety, at a steady 60-ish mph. On the more testing Cumbrian B-roads the ride and handling proved to be spot on. And despite getting as many miles on the clock as soon as possible during this engine running-in period, reliability has been perfect. It’s been a novel experience to put a Land Rover back in its garage every day without making a mental note of things that need fixing.
I’m still driving the Ninety fairly gently, ensuring there’s always a good load on
the engine for running-in purposes without letting the revs stray too high. But as the engine beds in, I’m letting it off the leash more and more, and finding it cruises effortlessly at 70 mph, and that the performance can be a lot of fun on the right roads – though when it comes to the twisty bits I have to respect that it’s still a 30-year-old Land Rover built to an even more archaic design.
Towing my boat behind the Ninety has been a useful way of applying gentle, steady load to the engine. The handling and braking with a boat trailer on the back is just totally competent. And there’s stacks of rearward visibility for manoeuvring, thanks to the rear side windows and the rear end quarter lights – a feature which should never have been deleted from the TDCI Defenders. Engine control and tractability is good when launching and retrieving the boat, which is just as well because I certainly don’t want seawater getting in the rear axle bearings or any bodywork.
Aside from the Ninety, there’s trouble ahead. Time spent on the Ninety over the past year or more, together with the rest of life, has meant the remainder of the Evans fleet has been a tad neglected, and jobs have been mounting up. My wife, Jules’ Freelander I is all but off the road waiting for me to release the jammed passenger door, sort a jammed window and generally scrub up the whole vehicle into a presentable state again. The Range Rover Sport continues to be the daily workhorse despite a whirring rear propshaft, and a couple of weeks ago the Series III decided to self-disintegrate its rear axle bearings.
I’ve since refurbished the Series III’S axle and it’s all running sweetly again, just in time to be pressed into service as a mobile fruit stall. This is an annual event when we load the SIII with plums, apples, pears, damsons and greengages from our garden to deliver them to friends who want them, and some who don’t, and Jules sells a few out of the back of the truck. While Jules is doing that, I guess I’d better get her Freelander nailed back together