V8 Land Rover + Espace + a big grinder. Losing the will

you'll get there...eventually. close now!

Unfortunately the later V8's do have block issues due to poor castings amd machining sometimes leaving the cylinder walls (outside of the liners) at 1mm or less.
No wonder the things crack blocks.

From where in sitting you've got a few reasonable options.

1. Irontite ceramic sealer. I've heard of a few good results using this stuff on Rover V8's with cracked blocks, ypu do nees to.deal.with other underlying issues such as head gaskets -whuch youbhave already- but have a read on it and see what you think. Has to be worth a try at £35 for a bottle though.

2. Find and fit another Rover V8. Perhaps it the best of ideas unless you can pick up a good example from someone you know and trust.
Spending £500 on a 'good' engine from a breaker at the other end of the country is a good way to seriously demotivated yourself on a project.
I have a couple of friends who have done similar in the past, installed the engine and found them to be worse than what came out.
The best way to buy a good Rover V8 these days is a guarunteed recon from a reputable reconditioned, but you're looking at £3k upwards.

3. Swop the V8 out for something else.
There's plenty of other engines that very been dropped into Land Rover chassis over the years, many with conversion kits allowing them to bolt in where a V8 came out, many being removed in favour of diesel engines from the mid 70's onwards.
There's a few kits for Small Block Chevvys (not the cheapest option) whilst keeping an eye on ebay will often see odd engines with conversion kits turn up at reasonable money.
Something like a Mazda SL35, or Daihatsu or Isuzu 2.8's would fit the bill fairly well, for example, here's a Nissan one on ebay at the moment.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282257835203.

The only hang up there, they wouldn't be V8's.

Hope that's of some use to you.

That is looking really, really good. You definitely can't give up on it...

I know how you feel, when I put the v8 in my TR it had a knock which started when it got warm, fitted new cam and followers, no oil pressure (turned out kit was fora 3.9 and had extra hole in front cover gasket) so took it all apart again, put it all back together, great we have oil pressure. Took it out for a drive all was well for 10 miles or so then knocking started again, Took the engine out, stripped it down completely, had everything measured, found one con rod slightly twisted, got hold of a new one balanced it to match the rest, built it all up again, put it back in, lasted a whole week this time before the knocking returned, borrowed a stethoscope and the noise seemed to be coming from around cylinder 2 on the lh bank the same one the bent rod had come out of,

At this point I gave up assuming the block or liner were in some way damaged by whatever had caused the rod to be bent, bought another engine and used the bottom end with my existing heads and sold the block to a guy I work with for a tenner to make a coffee table.

When I stripped the last of the ancillaries and found one of the engine mount bolts adjacent to cyl 2 on the LH bank was loose.......

Painful at the time but it's been great for the last 8 years and never missed a beat since.

Wow, you really did get close then if you were at the point of MOTing it!

I think we can all relate to the huge demotivation a project often brings when it gets like this. I'm relieved to see that you just parked it up and are waiting for the mojo to return.

It seems as if all the hard work is done, it's just decided to be a pain and hit you in the wallet instead!

Have a break.. have a Kit Kat :-)

Park it somewhere nice and take a photo. Put photo on fridge door and keep motivated. When you can get around to/afford to fixing it you are going to have one of the coolest cars Ive seen. It looks choice at the garage forscourt.. all pumped up and workhorse like. I love the whole concept of this and I reckon it looks like such a beast. I look forward to when you do finally sort it out.

My vote goes to a diesel conversion so then you can spend more time driving it and less time filling it with petrol.

Ah, thanks everyone. I knew I could rely on you all to perk me up 😁

Daslandroverman, did you eat a LR Haynes manual? You know too much.
I did try some block weld stuff, but it required running the engine for 4 hours! Not going to happen when it overheats after 5 minutes.

The biggest hurdle that is really unavoidable, if I'm to carry on with this build, is taking off the body AGAIN! I just hate the thought of it. But I don't think the engine will come out otherwise.
Of course, with the body off i'll want to make a better job of some stuff that I previously had rushed.... If I'm going to finish this, I'm going to do it proper. It's got to be a usable 'go anywhere' vehicle... not just a freak show that always needs fixing.

Engine wise... the v8 was originally the whole point of this build. But I'm not totally averse to other options. Although I do have an lpg conversation kit for this engine which would help economy.

Again, thanks everyone for the encouragement.

Buy something like this and break it = a free / negative cost known quantity lump?

But feel your pain re the body off bit. You've got to get this on the road though - it's every shade of awesome!

Cheers

Matt

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1994-Land-Rover-Range-Rover-4-0-Auto-V8-SE-NOT-RECORDED-NOT-SALVAGE-/262724322099?hash=item3d2b970333:g:jnwAAOSwi0RX0wPo

Keep at it. It is already awesome and you've done it all already so it will be easier the second time. (or a least keep telling yourself that)