Jake's Story

After checking out my ‘Bargain’ 3.5 motor, things weren’t looking too hot. A pre 76 10.5 CR engine, so no rear crank seal, and small valve heads. Eventually figured the front is from a Ranger Rover, with a high water pump. (same as RV8). Was still hoping to run with this engine, at least to start with. However, when I took the rocker covers off when installing the headers, found to rocker assemblies. Bugger! May still be able to salvage the motor, but started looking for something more useable. Eventually came across a ’95 LR discovery with rotten body. Bought the old girl, ran it around for a week or 2. The 3.9 injected motor seems sweet enough, the only snag is the intermediate serpentine front end. I had thought the serpentine front was introduced with the renaming to 4 litre. Poor research on my part. Love the idea of the new oil pump set up but not sure how we’ll do for room around the oil filter/steering rack. Would prefer to keep the new timing cover/oil pump set up if possible rather than converting back to the old cover & oil pump
Took the engine out of the disco, then managed to sell the remnants on to a local 4x4 enthusiast

Since taking the engine out, I've scraped/cleaned the crusty coating of leaked engine oil & crud from the motor, mostly from a leaking valley gasket I think. I’ve taken the inlet/plenum off, pulled out the trumpets, & had the plenum & base machine to reduce the height, as per the book