How many miles...

[Roverdog]

can a maintained,and not abused 2 1/4 petrol reasonably last?

[thixon]

My first rover was an 88" import from the UK. It had been driven all its life regulary, and served as my daily driver for about 8 years.

After owning it for 3 years, the head gasket let go. The usual symptoms were there (white smoke from the tailpipe, loss of power, the whole deal). I pulled over, and started pulling plugs. #3 was wet. Just to be a jerk (and not really caring anyway...I had been wanting to rebuild) I cranked the car with the #3 plug out. It ran, blowing coolant from the cylinder through the empty spark plug hole. So instead of walking, and leaving the vehicle, I drove home.

When I got home I pulled the head. What I found was worse that I thought. The head and block had cracked between #3 and #4. They were boat anchors.

After inspecting things further, I found something pretty interesting though. The cylinder walls had ridges (big surprise) as wide as the thickness of a nickel in some spots.

There are two points I'm making here. One, that I drove the truck home, with a bad crack in the block and head, with one spark plug missing. Two, that it must have been driven many hundreds of thousands of miles to have ridges in the cylinder walls that wide. Allot of people knock the 2.25, but I don't anymore. If you take care of it, it will probably outlast you. I ended replacing with a new motor assembled from parts bought through DAP. In the five years I drove on the new engine, I probably put 80k on it. That was over 10 years ago. The guy who bought it has put at least as many miles on it since.

By the way, I kept the head gasket from the whammy. it hangs in my garage as a reminder of why not to push a motor with a problem. I'll take a picture of it, and post it tonight.

[1961 109 WAGON]

i have 96,700 miles on mine, it sat for ten years, uses no oil, has no oil leaks..

[greenmeanie]

300K or somewhere there abouts on mine. It's had a new cam, valve job and the usual stuff but it's still the original core of the engine. I thrashed it for tens of thousands of miles on the freeway and it's held together nicely.

I ditched the points for electronic ignition so now mine gets a new dizzy cap and rotor once a year, valves set about every 6K or so and oil slung at when required. It's about the easiest engine on the planet to run even if it occasionally gets abused.

Cheers
Gregor

[Jeff Aronson]

Engine Life

can a maintained,and not abused 2 1/4 petrol reasonably last?

You've captured the key issues - "maintained and not abused."

I bought my current '66 II-A in late 1990 with 111,000 on the original engine. It has not been really been abused, but it had not been maintained that well. The giveaway was the oil consumption at that mileage, about 700 miles per quart. I used it for several years, putting on 25,000-30,000 miles annually all over New England. During that time, it required new piston rings and pistons and a replacement head due to worn out valves.

While I was using the car, I was also learning about Land Rovers on the fly. So I ran it pretty rich for a while, and then quite advanced for a while, which did none of the above components any good.

At 167,000 miles, when the engine was finally getting only 80 miles per quart of oil, I realized it was due for a rebuild. After balancing time and prices of parts, I drove to Rovers North and learned about installing a rebuilt engine and new clutch in the car. Breaking this one in properly, changing the oil and filter religiously at 3,000 miles/3 months, keeping it in tune, etc., I now have an engine with over 300,000 miles that still has reasonable power and gets about 1,000 miles per quart of oil. So I have a little blowby but nothing excessive. I have a bit of white smoke sometimes at startup, which hints at valve guides and some loss of compression, but again, the car starts, runs and drives quite well from trails to interstates.

It seems to me that a well-maintained engine is the key. It's hard to abuse them unless you don't maintain them. They're really quite tough.

Jeff

[PH4]

How can you tell if you 2.25 is running too rich and/or advanced?

[jp-]

How can you tell if you 2.25 is running too rich and/or advanced?

Drive it a few hundred thousand miles, then check the condition of your spark plugs...

[Jeff Aronson]

How can you tell if you 2.25 is running too rich and/or advanced?

If it pings or knocks on acceleration, it might well be too advanced. If you timed it with a light and not just your ear, you probably have it right.

The spark plug test mentioned above is a good one. You can find a color chart of the plug tips in the Haynes manual. Basically, you are running the car nice and warm for a several hundred miles and then pulling the plugs, one by one.

A new plug should look slightly gray when you look at the tip. It should be dry, no gas [wet and stinky] or oil [black and slick]. If it is white, then you're running too hot, which probably means you're running the timing too advanced. And if you see crystalized particles, then you might have antifreeze in your combustion chambers [check to see if you're losing coolant but have no obvious leak].

Usually, if there's a problem, it will be with only one plug. Most of the time, the plug condition will look the same on all plugs.

One of the challenges of Series Rovers is that they will run absolutely appalling condition. I once had my II-A stumble on a Vermont road at night. I pulled into a rest area and took out the flashlight and ratchet/socket. All the spark plugs were totally fouled up; you could barely see any gap between the tip and the prong! Cleaning them up allowed the car to run again quite well.

Enjoy your Rover!

Jeff

[PH4]

Thanks Jeff, you save me a future post. I just had the head valve redone and it runs great but everytime I climb the one steep bridge we have it knocks like hell when under acceleration and going up hill. Sounds like this might be my problem. By the way, I enjoy reading your writings in RN.

[Jeff Aronson]

Thanks Jeff, you save me a future post. I just had the head valve redone and it runs great but everytime I climb the one steep bridge we have it knocks like hell when under acceleration and going up hill. Sounds like this might be my problem. By the way, I enjoy reading your writings in RN.

Wow - thanks very much! The magazine is great fun to edit and I certainly enjoy writing columns and articles.

You might be too advanced, but I have also found that I cannot run regular gas in my Rover at highway speeds, particularly under load. It will ping so I need to run the higher octane mid grade gas. This condition began when I installed the current engine back in 1994 or '95.

Lastly, I was fooled by pitted points for a while that caused the car to stumble under highway load. The points were pretty new and properly gapped, so I assumed they were fine. It was not until I replaced them that I realized how quickly they had pitted. Can't say why, either, but it made all the difference. Check the condition of your points, too.

Jeff

[friar mike]

Lastly, I was fooled by pitted points for a while that caused the car to stumble under highway load. The points were pretty new and properly gapped, so I assumed they were fine. It was not until I replaced them that I realized how quickly they had pitted. Can't say why, either, but it made all the difference. Check the condition of your points, too.

Jeff

Make sure you don't have 12 volts at the points if you do thay will not last long. You should be able to get 10-15000 miles out of a set.

[daveb]

say what?

Make sure you don't have 12 volts at the points

[friar mike]

say what?

If you have 12 volts at the points thay will burn up in short order. the points should be about 6 to 9 volts. Yes 12 volts to the coil )if the coil is a resistor type) and coming out to the points low voltage.