You'd be a magician if you got an ELECTRONIC fuel injected engine running on a stand without big bucks in extra equipment. About the best you'll get is if you've got an air compressor handy, you could use a differential cylinder leakage tester and make sure you've got a reasonably well sealed combustion chamber. Of course this won't tell you if you have oil pressure, good bearings or no leaks in the rest of the engine.

Cylinder Leak-Down Tester

 

To pull up a dead thread:

I forget if I mentioned but I ended up buying the $300 engine. I built a bracket so I could pressurize the block from the coolant jackets and pressure tested the block sucessfully (making me feel ok that it does not have a slipped liner or other issue like that). The only weird thing was that I found two valve cover bolts in the oil pan - abit scarry. One looked like it passed through without hitting things while the other had about half the head torn off (found the broken piece in the pan as well). Worrying that the cam/crank etc might be damaged from somehow smashing into a bolt, I brought the bottom end to a local engine building shop that said they would look at it with trained eyes for an hour or so of labor - figured it can't hurt and hear back tommorow.

Providing it checks out okay, I am planning on pulling my engine tommorow, and replacing it with the one I bought - I will use my current heads as they were rebuilt and therefore will be replacing most of the gaskets before putting the "new" engine in ...

I have pulled engines before in old Chevy's etc, but was wondering if there is a rover specific guide somewhere or any tips or ticks anyone has? Is it easy enough to do wiht leaving the tranny in? Or you recommend pulling it as well? I heard the trick of dropping it a few inches on a jack after the engine mounts are of to make disconnecting the engine from the tranny easier? Any other suggestions?

All I can say from the last time I hid a HG job in the truck is that I am looking forward to building the top end of it on a stand and dropping in instead of the pain of trying to torque bolts in tight spaces.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!