Dakar Rebuild - part 2

What to do about a dying engine?

A bit of rummaging on eBay provided results of engines of varying pedigree, going for anything between thirty and fifteen-hundred quid, although except for RPi, not one of them was provided with any kind of guarantee.

Another eBay search soon found that there were plenty of Range Rovers going for sensible money, and so I did a bit of head scratching.

There were quite a few things on the Dakar that were annoying me:

• Overheating problem (obviously!)
• The main gearbox occasionally seemed ponderous and really didn't like dropping into overdrive until it reached an indicated 57MPH
• Lots of backlash in the front diff
• Intermittent starter motor (solonoid would click, starter would not run, or would fail to engage properly)
• Cabin heater fan had packed up (bearing on the stator end had smashed itself to bits!)
• Seats could well do with re-trimming
• Damaged long-range fuel tank (all the baffles had parted company from the tank walls, allowing them to flex disturbingly! "Wing" seams have been sealed with epoxy putty)
• Plastic fuel lines that MOT testers always seemed to scowl at
• Bad battery placement
• Not a great fan of the Discovery dash
• Front brakes suffer quite badly from fade
• Bulkhead mounted fuel pump makes one hell of a racket!
• It could really do with a new coat of paint!

After considering this, I reckoned I could sort virtually every problem and annoyance by buying another donor car, stripping it, and fitting the offending items to the Dakar, not to mention having a barn full of spares to play with should the need arise.

A bit more rummaging on eBay found a 1990 Range Rover SE with cloth trim, ABS, auto box and a 3.9 V8 for £800. Further enquiries revealed it had a week or so of MOT left, so I decided to go and have a look.

It turned out that the vehicle had been extremely well looked after mechanically, but the body and chassis were swiss cheese! This ensured that the price was more than reasonable and I got a decent set of mechanics to tinker with. A couple of days later, we loaded up the Discovery with towing gear (just in case, you understand!) and did the deal.

The Range Rover drove exceptionally well on the three-and-a-half hour journey back from deepest, darkest Wales, didn't even give a hint of overheating (YAY!) and made me want to keep it as is! The following day, H366 DAS was parked in the yard:

Oh, but what evil lurked beneath:

It looked as if the whole thing had been soaked in salt water for the past ten years! However, nice shiny things were present up top: