Almost since buying my Disco 2 a couple of years ago, I have wanted a Range Rover Classic. I have toyed with the idea on and off, but it never made sense to shell out $8-$10K for one in reasonable shape. I had finally set the idea aside when my wife called me over to her computer, saying 'I shouldn't even show you this...'. It was a non running 87 RRC, asking $2000. There were only two photos, but it looked ok. I figured the interior was trashed. The next morning, I found myself thinking about it, so I texted the guy and asked for interior pictures and more info. The interior actually looked really good, minus a couple of center console issues and broken door seals. It supposedly broke the timing gear and the chain slipped off, and had been sitting for a year since. We went and checked it out, offered the guy $1000, and he accepted. I showed up the next morning with a tow truck and brought her home.


Pre-purchase

headed home


After getting it towed to the house, I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning change, ants, and gum wrappers out of it, and gave it a quick wash. The body has just one big ding on the driver's door. The tailgate could use some touch up, and the roof and hood cowl panel need repainting entirely. Otherwise the body and paint look terrific, the headliner is perfect, the seats have been recovered and look great, the dash is almost perfect.... Cosmetically, a really nice truck. I've ordered some parts (timing chain and sprockets and the timing cover gasket) and hope to tear into it soon. On the not so good side, it does have rust in the floorboards. A small spot at each of the rear seats next to the fender well, the front passenger has some dispersed but not too bad rust, and the drivers front has rusted completely through at the fender well and has bad rust throughout. The frame and other components look fine, as does the tailgate. I'll either find someone in town who can weld in some new panels, or I may pick that up as a new skill in the next year or two - it has been on my list anyway.



Clean except for the center console area




Even came with the covers for the sides, a cargo cover, rubber loadspace mat, and original tool roll and jack.


This thread will be less of a 'build' and more of a mild restoration. The goal is to have this be my daily driver, as my Disco has some cosmetic issues that are too involved to be worth fixing at this point. It needs to be 'professional', as I will likely have clients riding along sometimes and I'm in architecture / residential design and need to have a certain level of professionalism.


Freshly washed

 

Looks good, glad to see another that appreciates the classic's fantastic looks

 

Lucky man. Looking forward to watching this truck come back to life.

 

Sweet!

A RRC is on my list of dream vehicles

Looking forward to seeing this get fixed up!

 

You did good! That looks like a great platform for a restoration. Will be following along, for sure. Congratulations.

​​​​​​​ Brian.

 

When I did my initial cleaning, I pulled all of the floor mats / sound deadening to let everything dry out and to see how bad the rust is. I'm going to check in with the body shop that painted our P38 to see if they do anything like patching rusty floorboards.

Drivers front - entire thing needs replacing

Drivers rear, worst of it seems to carry through from the front by the B pillar

Passenger rear, just one small spot

Passenger front, need to look into it more to see if it's surface or deeper
The worst of the rust is the driver's floorboard, and it actually has rusted through completely in a 1"x4" section by the wheel well. Any suggestions for what kind of shop would do rust repair? Anything I should do in the meantime to stop the spread of rust? Rear loadspace seems to be in great shape, rear tailgate looks good, and under the truck seems fine for the most part. Would love to get some Waxoyl or similar on everything I can reach, but that will be a lower priority for now.

Meanwhile, my parts are coming today and I did a little preliminary work. Pulled the radiator and fan shroud, drained the oil. The oil drain plug is on the side of the pan, so it shoots all over the exhaust when you drain the oil. The battery is completely dead, to the point that Advance couldn't even use their charger on it, so I'll have to pick up a new one when I'm close to done. Reinstalled the water pump pulleys so I can pick up the fan removal tool and use that - the previous owner had pulled them. I also picked up some Seafoam penetrating lubricant to spray into the cylinders before firing it up, as it has sat for about a year. Anything else I should do before I try to crank this thing?

I'm getting antsy to take care of this particular job so I can fire it up, put a battery in it, basically see if anything at all is functioning. Trying to be patient though, as this one is going to take quite a while before I'll consider it 'done'.

 

Was able to set aside a nice block of time (3 PM to 1 AM) to finish pulling everything apart and get the new timing parts installed. Got it all buttoned up and refilled fluids around midnight. Threw the battery from my Disco in it and.... no start. It makes a loud whining / whirring sound and turns everything over, but doesn't have a nice high speed crank like a normal startup. I pulled the distributor out and did some research, and got it put back in where I think it should work. The timing mark is at about 10 BTDC and the rotor in the distributor is pointed right at the number one wire. I pulled the number 1 spark plug and the piston was way up at the top - maybe 1/2" from the edge of the spark plug hole. I'm assuming this means it was in its compression stroke and everything should be correct?? This is my first time with a car with a distributor instead of coil packs.

Other than replacing the timing chain and gears, I have only drained and replaced the coolant and engine oil, and added two bottles of fuel stabilizer to the gas tank. I also pulled the spark plugs this morning and sprayed some Seafoam penetrating oil to help lubricate the cylinders. The spark plugs smelled like fuel. I don't know if the gas is bad? Something internal is problematic? The starter is weak and is going out? I goofed the timing install? All suggestions welcome... I feel like I'm really close to getting this thing fired up and heading out on its maiden voyage.

New timing parts prior to putting everything else back on

 

If new timing chain and gears were installed correctly, pull number one plug, pull coil wire (so engine doesn't start by accident), stick your finger in the hole and have someone bump the starter over, until you get a sense of compression in the cylinder, once you've sensed compression, turn the crank manually until the piston is at the top of its stroke (stick a pencil in the hole and turn crank slowly until it comes to highest point, then starts downward stroke). Then you know you are on number one compression stroke. You could remove valve cover to verify, watching for both valves to be closed on upward stroke, but this saves you the issue of doing that.

So, once you have it at top dead center...look at the crank now and see if timing marks line up...then pull distributor cap and see if rotor is pointing at number one position on cap.

If it is, then reassemble and shoot a short blast of ether in the carb and see if see fires (you do have spark, right?). This will verify if it is a fuel issue, if it fires up for a second.

If it isn't, then pull distributor and install correctly. Reassemble see what happens.

​​​​​​​ Brian.

 

Have tried a couple of things this week, still no start. I checked the timing to ensure the rotor was pointing at the number one wire when cylinder number one was in compression stroke, according to Brian's advice. It was in the correct position. I checked for spark, which I have. I checked for fuel, which I have at the fuel line to fuel rail connection. I also drained the gas tank (these things have a drain plug, messy but very convenient), put in two gallons of fresh 93 octane, and ran the fuel pump a few times to get old fuel out of the lines. I also changed the old fouled up spark plugs. I have also tried started fluid on the air filter and directly into the intake manifold, no change. Attached is a video of what it is doing (or not doing). It doesn't sound like an engine usually does when it's trying to crank. It's slower and has more of a whine. Any thoughts???

 

sounds really sluggish, wonder if the starter is even spinning it up enough to kick over. If you are bored pull the starter and drop in the one from the D2 or p38 same starter and you know that they are good