Hey guys-I have a 2001 SE with the 4.0, I have about 180,000 miles on the truck right now. Last week the head gasket blew and I started overheating and leaking a good amount of coolant. Took it to a shop and was told it was the headgasket. Got quoted about 3k from Rover and decided I don't want to go that route especially considering how old the engine already is...I've recently dumped LOTS of money into this truck(not on the engine) so don't just want to get rid of it. Ive been thinking about either getting the engine rebuilt by a local foreign shop or potentially engine swapping. I've seen online that there is a kit for swapping to a small block 350 chevy...most everything else seems that you have to replace the tranny. Pretty unsure at this point. What do you guys think? Any ideas are appreciated. Diesel swaps, used motors, rebuilding etc etc.

 

Doing the head gaskets yourself would be the cheapest option. However, that is often very tedious and you could possibly have a slipped liner. If that were mu truck, I would do head gaskets along with a pressure test.

If you think your motor is too high mileage for your taste or just might be worse for wear, get a used 4.0L from the junkyard. They will be complete with less miles than your truck. You can get them well under $2k. If you are willing to do the work yourself, this would be a great option.

Also check ebay for motors. If you buy one with a warranty from a reputable seller, then you are also in business.

Good luck.

 

For Chevy/other than LR engine swaps: You need $ and lots of it. There is an LS1 swap thread here for more info than you could hope for. Search for it.
Also, if you think its easy cause thats what you heard...be sure that source is refering to OBD II rovers like yours. That swap is easier on a 95 or older Rover

For diesel or replacement LR engine: Less $ than the first and easier by far. You will need all the computers for a diesel swap.

 

I've researched every possible engine swap. For gas, or diesel, assuming it is a non electronic engine, you have to buy or make an adapter and motor mounts and have a transmission controller. Plus the engine. And an adapter from the engine to the transmission. Or get rid of the transmission and get a non electronic one (no controller needed), including a manual, and unless it is a non electronic zf4hp22/4, you will also need to adapt to the transfer case. There are some adapters for nv4500 transmissions, for example. R380 manual Rover transmissions, with clutch etc., are as plentiful as hens teeth and as cheap as gold bars.
If is an electronic engine, start getting that electrical engineering and computer programming degree right now.

I think with all variations you will lose traction control, abs, and hill descent, but I haven't gotten that far.

The kits are great. I like those. But read the fine print, you have to buy a bunch of extra stuff for a Disco II.

Also that's just to get you moving. Sorting out the remaining electronics and ses codes is another chapter.

 

How about this engine information?
JE Robison Service - Bosch Car Service Specialists ? the blog: Should You Rebuild or Replace Your Land Rover V8?

 

I've read that. As a pessimist I read that as a catalog of the shortcomings of Disco 2 engines.

 

Did you read the part were his typical complete rebuild runs I'm the $12-15 k range.

 

Yes. That's nuts. Maybe if you order everything from the dealership.

 

I read all of the JE Robison blogs.

 

No. It's if you're paying for parts and labor to have someone else install it. There's several people on here that have had a mechanic install a top-hat or flanged liner rebuilt motor, and I'm sure their total cost was similar. If you buy the rebuilt motor and install it yourself, you probably save a few thousand dollars. Most people don't have the equipment to rebuild a motor, much less install flanged liners and blueprint it, but perhaps if you buy a flanged short-block and rebuilt heads and do some of the assembly yourself, you might save another thousand or so in labor.

I think JE Robinson's advice is spot on. If you need out of the Discovery II situation or you're only likely to keep it another year before you're ready to throw in the towel, then swap in a used motor and flip it so everything else is someone else's problem. If you're sure that you're dedicated to it, do it completely right, but plan on it costing you the price of a totally sorted motor, and the labor (yours or theirs) to install it, and figure that it won't stop there. The motor may be sorted at that point, but there's plenty more to be done. According to the OP, he's already spent a ton on other things, but even if I was him, I'd plan on more yet.

Robinson's comparison to a $50,000+ Defender is fair. If Discoverys had a resale value as high as that, none of us would be questioning whether or not to do this stuff. We'd just question whether we had the money. But over the long term, a Discovery is often a ~$50,000 proposition. People who have had them for 10 years or more are likely to have spent nearly that much or more. People who acquired them more recently may have done so for significantly less than $10,000, but are not likely to keep them for another 15 years or more without making it up. While the proposition to buy a depreciated vehicle seems thrifty in the short term, in the true long term (15 or 20 years), the TCO is closer to a wash. If the owner is less willing to accept decay, rust, interior wear and tear, then the maintaining a vehicle for the last 20 years of its life is probably a lot more expensive than maintaining it for the first 20.