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Before I begin, I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself. I live in Utah – the Land Rover’s playground – with my ‘01 Discovery, my ‘93 RRC, and my husky. I study astronomy, but on the side I’m an old-school-cars-fanatic.
On February 7th, I became the happiest girl in the world by saving a 1993 Range Rover Classic LWB from life in a junkyard. A local shop was selling it for $500 because of a ‘blown head gasket’. Whether or not the head gaskets are the cause for the overheating problem is unknown.
Generally rust free except for some spots on the shocks and springs and chrome bumpers. The headliner is sagging badly. There is a minor dent in the left wing from what I assume was a car accident. The console looks like an elephant sat on it, and the rear left window is rolled down and stuck in that position. The shop (which, so far, has not been right about anything with this RRC) said that it had a bad regulator or motor. For $500, he looks pretty damn good.
It took me about three days to get the Pall Mall cartons, McDonalds wrappers, plastic spoons, dirt and dust out. The kid who owned it before me trashed the poor thing - but the more I clean, the more I realize Sid's situation isn't too bad.
A few days ago, I bought a small battery and jumped the two wires going to the window motor to get the window rolled up. Regulator and motor worked fine so that leads us to believe the problem lies in the ECU.
The battery is shot, so the plan is to get a new battery in there, new fluids, and determine where the overheating problem is coming from.
Pictures soon to come, I hope you all will enjoy seeing Sid grow as much as I will!
Awesome! Rather than post pix here (which can be a pain), might want to just post a couple and link to an online photo album (flickr, shutterfly, photobucket, etc).
Think hard about what you want to do about the engine. If you are eventually going to do a full restoration on the interior and exterior, you may think about dropping an LS motor into it. It ain't cheap, but a restored LWB with an LS is my personal dream.
Yeah! Sid finally gets his build thread! Isn't it amazing how the pain of figuring out how to transport a dead car and diagnosing a bad window ecu ends up only being a couple of sentences?
Heh Walt, on the LS front, Would you do the engine + transmission and break at the transfer case? The center console is already damaged so it might not be too bad to have to replace and customize some interior trim.
I've seen a couple of photos, the car looks solid and way nicer than the price would suggest. I think you scored!
There are are quite a few guys on here that have rebuilt their own engines and more than a few that have done their own headgasket jobs. Hopefully some of those will jump in with suggestions to help you get started on restoring the car on a limited budget. My thought would be to get the car's battery checked and replaced, check the fluids, then try to start him up and see if you can figure out why they thought the heads were bad. I wouldn't start the car if I saw evidence of coolant in the oil.
You may also be able to see evidence of coolant leaking externally down the back of the engine by the firewall.
The guy who sold me my white classic dumped it because of a "huge oil leak" which turned out to be the 8 dollar oil pressure switch so misdiagnosis does happen.
Hahaha, Robert, you're basically the co-owner of Sid with the amount of time you spend texting me about ideas for him.
Walt, that's the dream. An LS is the plan for this RRC anyway, whether it's sooner or later. First I want to see if the heads is even the problem, or if it's a simple fix, like Robert said. I'm just itching to get it on the road. Robert and I were talking about this swap a while ago, and I was curious, with all that power what kind of upgrades would the drivetrain need?
I'm pretty sure that I've read Nick's adapter and all the goodies will work in an RRC. He seems to have that pretty well sorted so I'd go that route after I'd confirmed a few things.
Did the '93 have the 4.2? or the 3.9? Not that it really matters.
Robert - you're practically Sid's co-owner, with all the time you spend texting me about him.
Walt - an LS is the plan for this RRC, whether it's sooner or later. :^) My disco is having a coolant issue (hopefully the head gaskets haven't finally given out on me) so this build is delayed slightly. Though I was curious about the LS, with all that power, what kind of upgrades would the drivetrain need?
He looks pretty good! I think that's the first time I've seen that many photos of the car. Paul Grant can probably find you a period correct radio when you're ready for one.
I'll take a look tonight and see if i have a spare window lift ECU.
The big thing with an LS swap is whether you're keeping the ZF auto transmission or adopting the matching GM 6 speed transmission. If its an LC9 + GM 6 speed, you may start snapping axles, which would be fun If it's the LS coupled to the ZF, it might cause transmission slip issues depending on which LS variant you run.
02-22-2017, 02:27 PM
'93 RRC Build Thread - "Sid"
If it's the LS coupled to the ZF, it might cause transmission slip issues depending on which LS variant you run.
