I hope my bearings arn't shot! that would suck. So here is what i did. I bought a oil pressure guage from harbour freight (I think its a Piece of junk) adapter bolt, and ran the engine. At cold start it was reading 8-9 psi idle and up to 35-40 2000rpm. Once it got hot, zero reading at idel and 22-25 @200rmp. I figured the readings might be bogus. I then ordered a aftermarket oil pressure guage and sender unit. Hooked it all up. Cold start 10-12 psi, 40psie....BUT, once it got hot...zero at idle and 20-25 psi. Hence what prompted the tear down. I'm running Rotella 15w 40 with a mobile 1 filter ( 15$). I also used a quart of Lucas oil with that mix.

Should I go ahead and start inspecting the main and rod bearings? or do you think it was just the pump being the issue. ?

 

personally; I would not go after the bearings yet, I would throw it all back together and see what you get in the way of noise and preasures. Its not a big deal to drop the pan at a later time, the timing case cover and everything else you are putting back on can stay in place if you do drop the pan at a latter date.

 

Grab the end of the crank and pull it up and down - It should move up and down 20 thous if it moves up and down more than that, pull the front main off and check it out.

 

"Master" tech?

20 thous, as in 20 thou, as in 0.5mm ??? WTF!

I guess you are right though - if it moves 20 thou, you definately need to remove and check it, as it is 100% f*%$#d at that point...

Something more akin to 3.5, maybe as much as 4thou is the max running clearance you should be seeing for a reasonably healthy motor, perhaps 2.5-3 for a fresh build

Personally, I'd drop a rod cap and take a physical look, any "radial" reading on a live engine (one with oil film present on the journals) is hard to measure and not an accurate representation (including the measurements above)...

 

Just completing this pump renewal also. I am putting mine back together tomorrow...outer ring was cracked and some scoring was visible. I also changed out the timing chain as mine was very loose. The new one is much tighter. While the bottom end was open I changed the main and rod bearings. Main bearings looked ok while the rod bearings were badly worn out. My oil pressure was below 5 psi at hot idle.

What are the opinions on using gasket sealer with the paper timing cover gasket and paper water pump gasket?

Thanks

 

I wonder why so many of these oil pump gears crack? Its prevalent on the 03/04 but, shows up on any year and its probably not the cover being misaligned since most of those failed spectacularly at very low miles.

 

It has to be clearances / bad tolerancing / poor machining. Gerotors are basically 'catalog sizes' - rather like bearings. No company in their right mind would create a new gerotor design, and these things are sintered by companies who create many other components and know what they are doing.... Sure, things like the ID, width, and OD change, but the interaction elements between the two parts will be identical to many other vehicles in production.

You can go pull apart many other engines, rarely will you find a getoror in several pieces - they are simple and reliabile - unless you get it wrong. Clearly, Landrover, got it wrong.... If you look at other engines, usually there is a little more play in the system - either between the rotor or drive hub, or between the annulus and bore. The LR design has what I consider to be 'minimal' in both cases.

Due to the limited "running clearances", the pump is also less tolerant to small chunks of debris, the sintered parts are incredibly brittle, and will be easily broken.

If you want to be sure, you need to do a dry build and verify that your drive hub/ rotor slides easily on the crank nose - as I have described in other posts...

 

typo - 2 thous - lololololol 20 thou would require 90/140 gear lube.

"Main bearings
Main bearing diametrical clearance 0.010 to 0.048 mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.0004 to 0.002 in
Oversizes 0.254, 0.508 mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.01, 0.02 in"

 

Alright so I origianaly posted the thread. Replaced pump, water pump, timing chain, thermostat. Started it up......oil pressure still sucked!! So disappointing.
So I am guessing my bearings are shot. My question is.... Rebuilding the lower end, Will I have to do a top end as well? And if so is it worth putting the $$$ into it or should I just buy a new motor.....thanks!

 

Did it ever get smooth? Mine sounded like absolute crap for about 15 seconds before the oil pressure came back and it ran smooth again.