I have just finished the install of a Leyland 4.4 into my 89 RR. For those who don't know, the 4.4 is essentially a bored 3.5 block which was fitted to road cars here in Oz.

The following issues still need to be sorted out and have me a bit stumped:

1. Irratic idle when in Drive/Reverse - the idle is fine when in neutral and can be altered up/down without a problem. It seems though that when the car is in Drive/Reverse it doesn't idle so well. It drops down to about 400rpm and is very close to stalling but then (mostly) increases back up to the idle speed after a couple of seconds;

2. The first time we fired it up, we believed it had an airlock in the cooling system. We think that it still may be there or alternatively something else is not quite right. I've been cautious about this motor overheating, as 4.4's tend to do. After going for a drive, a fair bit of water escapes from the expansion pipe and you can still here it bubbling away afterwards. Could it not be an airlock and perhaps something wrong with the radiator? The temperature gauge is sitting under half so it doesn't look like its actually overheating.

3. At the moment it only runs on petrol, but the gas wont work. We can get the tank to switch over to gas but after about 3 seconds it runs out of gas (there is still plenty in the tank).

4. We have one plug left over on the passenger side near the coil. It is similar to an injector plug in appearance but we have no idea wtf it is for. It runs from the coil and is earthed, but doesn't seem to go anywhere. Maybe this mystery plug will solve all my problems?

BTW, its still running the 3.5 injection and airflow meter which may have something to do with it (although i hope not).

TIA.

1: Most likely a base idle issue. May be a vacuum leak, but I'd start with the Idle Air Control Valve and base idle.

2: Don't trust the gauge. Many different theories on how to vent air. Did it run hot before this engine was installed? That vintage Rangie has a marginal cooling system (my 88 appears to only be 2 row) and it may be clogged by now.

3: You're on your own with this one:flipoff2:

4: I'll go look...

The motor did run a bit hot with the 3.5 in it, so it may be worth my while upgrading to the 3.9 radiator. This way I'll have a better trans oil cooler as well.

Cut and pasted from another board:

Geeze, what a shitty weekend!!!!!

Got half way to Ballarat and the temperature gauge was saying everything was fine. A knocking sound started under load on the hills which mostly went away on the flat. About this stage, I noticed that it smelt a bit hot so I got out to have a look.

Oil and coolant were everywhere underneath and the cooling system was bubbling away. My battery was now dead (another issue i have to look into) so i couldn't get the thing running properly again. I had an early appointment in Ballarat so Dad came and got me in his 130 and took me into town.

Ended up getting a trailer to tow the car back (RACV would have cost more). Picked up the trailer with Dad's 130 and was driving away when the clutch on the 130 wouldn't disengage. The 130's only done 55,000kms so another example of fine land rover reliability.

MickRangie came over yesterday to help pull the phucker apart. First thing we noticed when we got the thing running was cooland and oil pissing out the from under the passenger side heads.
First problem - blown head gasket. Also noticed plenty of oil and smoke on the spark plugs which would explain the smoke/steam.

Unbolting the heads, we noticed that where the gasket had failed, the head bolts around that area had come quite loose. We were also finding little plastic parts of o-rings in the rocker covers which we later found had come from the heads. We think these are the valve stem seals?

So these are the symptoms, but whats the actual cause? My theory at the moment is that the radiator is the cause of the problem. I think this would explain the original problem in the cooling system, and the blown head gasket happened as a result of overheating. But would the overheating cause the o-rings/seals from the heads to disintegrate or is this a warranty issue i should take up with the place that reco'd them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, there were a couple of things i learnt from all this:
1. Extra care with the RACV is of little value. They wanted to charge me $3kms for everything beyond the first 20kms leaving about 50kms for me to pay for ($150). Much cheaper to hire a trailer!!!!
2. Exide/Marshall Batteries have excellent warranty service - They replaced my Exide Extreme battery which was a year and a half old for free. Cheers to Repco for coming to the party.
3. Shit like this always happens before a long weekend to stuff up your plans!!!

At this stage, I've ordered a 3.9 radiator which is an upgrade from my current one, and I'll put it all back together over the next while.

Does the board think that the radiator is the problem or could something else present the same symptoms?

TIA.

What parts from the original engine did you reuse?

Reused the following:

Radiator - gave it a quick clean out with hose. Was full of mud and apparently only had two working cores.
Ancillaries - Air-con, power steering etc.
Heads - had them reconditioned.
Rocker arms - cleaned these up and reused.

Other than these items, the motor itself is all new or reconditioned. We replaced most hoses and belts as well.