If you have the space to park it; a 2003 Disco is a gold mine if you part it out piece by piece. Buy another 2003 and have your own parts supply; or pick up a wrecked one that has a good motor. There are a ton of better options than flushing $12K down a crooked shops toilet.

As for okdiscoguy; be careful where you point that thing, most repair shops are just waiting for someone to come in and bend over with their pants down.

 

http://car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.c...erPage=1&iKey=

$500 for a siezed long block. $1500 rebuild, $300 in gaskets and other crap, and you will have a 5.4 liter monster that will probably give you better gas mileage in addition to the far greater power.

 

Hello, all, and thanks for all the replies:

I would have responded sooner but didn't realize that I had your responses; I thought I'd receive mail updates.

At any rate, the shop has provided a couple more options: a 1500 mile engine (story is dealer pulled it at direction of LRNA, but it ended up needing only coil packs) installed for $8k, or another engine with 75k miles for $5700, which will have a parts guarantee for six months. Both of those options include some $800 of exploratory work that I have to pay for regardless.

I think my best options are one of the following three: 1) go with the cheapest engine and sell the bugger before anything happens again. 2) Take it to another shop (I spoke with Gord'n at Lamorna, and it sounds as things would be slightly cheaper, offset somewhat by 80 miles of towing) and start again, or 3) Sell the car as a rolling hulk.

I live in the city (if a small city) and don't have a garage or storage, so I can't practically part out the vehicle myself, and I definitely don't have the skills, facility, time, or tools to do an engine swap myself.

I need to research now how much I can get for the car as it stands. I'm WAG that I might get 3k. (It's a black/black '03 SE7, and everything works aside from the cruise and rear sunroof. It has five perfect wheels, newish tires, and the factory bull bar.) If that's too optimistic, then I'm better off getting the engine replace by someone.

Unfortunately, I can't see keeping the vehicle under any circumstances; it's back to German wagons for me. Short of getting a top-hatted block, the risk of another catastrophic failure seem too great.

Again, your input is gratefully received.

Kris Hicks-Green
Olympia, WA
2003 Disco II (in limbo)

 

That's a tough spot you're in, but if you're not going to keep it under ANY circumstances, then there isn't much sense in dropping $6-$8K into a vehicle that you'll likely sell for maybe a thousand more

Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

If you are not going to keep it, sell it now. You will dump the $$ into it and not get anything back>

 

this sounds fun.

 

Those particular engines because the Rover engine is Buick based as well? Is there commonality?

 

No Buick based.
GM designed and built this engine as a cast iron block and heads back in the '60's.
They toyed with a all aluminum version.
Then Mercury bought the blueprints and made it out of aluminum for inboard boat engines.
Then Rover needed a V8, they bought the plans from Mercury.
The engine has not changed much in that time.
It is a very light engine, it weights only something like 400lbs dry and fully assembled.

Now some of my info may not be 100% correct but the basic's are there.
GM designed and used for a couple of years in Pontiac's and Buicks, Mercury used it then Rover started using it in the 70's.

And it is the Chevy small block of Europe, meaning the prefferd engine for building a hot rod.

 

Yeah, no, I meant the 340cid's that were on that pricelist page.

At least, I *assume* that's what the 340 means; I'm not a big Buick engines guy.

 

Spike is close. Buick came out with the 215 in 1961. It was aluminum. Oldsmobile used it as well in a turbocharged version. Mercury marine used a marinized version, but they don't "buy the engine design". they just upgrade existing engines. I have a GM 181 4 cyl in my boat. The pistons, water pump, and oil pan are different. (side note- we installed twin 350 Chevy engines in a fishing boat. Each turned a different way. The only difference is the direction of the starter motor and firing order.)

GM finally sold the tooling in January of 1965.