"200Di" diesel conversion - how to do itDeveloped for Series Land Rovers by Glencoyne Engineering...Yep did it again... :-*
This is not intended to be a comprehensive step by step instruction manual, but a guide which will help you with some of the trickier parts of the conversion. To attempt this conversion you need a reasonable degree of mechanical ability and some common sense. Working on old Land Rovers can be dangerous, especially if you use incorrect tools and unsafe working methods. Make sure you carry out your own assessment of the risks at every stage of the conversion, and take whatever steps are necessary to minimise those risks. I cannot carry out your risk assessment for you, and I cannot be held responsible if it all goes wrong and you end up in hospital or worse.
So, the first stage is to remove the battery, drain the cooling system and then remove the old engine as per the workshop manual. You will find it helpful to remove the nearside front wing, although it is not strictly necessary. Once the engine bay is nice and clear, remove the air cleaner bracket and then cut the battery tray off the chassis as in the photo below. The battery will be relocated under the passenger seat.
Now you need to turn your attention to preparing the engine. Firstly you need to strip any un-needed ancillaries - cooling fan, power steering pump, alternator, engine mounting brackets (keep the four large bolts to fit the new engine mounts), clutch and of course the turbocharger. The turbo is held on with four nuts and studs which may be very tight - try heating them with a blowlamp if they will not undo. There are also two oil lines (feed and return) from the turbo to the engine block which need to be undone before the turbo can be removed. You should end up with something that looks like this:
The turbo oil feed and return lines need to be blanked off. If you have access to welding equipment, you can just unscrew them from the block, weld a bolt inside the end to seal them, then refit them. Otherwise you will have to hunt around for some suitably sized blanking plugs.
Round the other side of the engine, the oil filter housing has connections for an oil cooler. We don't need that, so the filter housing has to be converted to 2.5 non-turbo spec. Undo the two bolts in the end plate, withdraw the plate and remove the thermostat and spring. Replace the plate, and then blank off the oil cooler connections with two Rover V8/200 TDi sump plugs (part number 603659) and copper sealing washers.
Now you can fit the clutch. The 200 TDi flywheel will take the 9.5 inch Series clutch plate, with either the Series 2A (diesel) or Series 3 cover, so if the clutch from your old engine is in good condition you can probably swap it straight over. If you are replacing a petrol engine in a Series 2/2A with the 9 inch coil spring clutch, you will need to upgrade to the 9.5 inch clutch. Make sure the clutch plate is perfectly centred - I use an old gearbox input shaft for this job - worth paying a few quid for a scrap Series gearbox just to get this bit. While you are in this area, there is a stud in the flywheel housing which needs to be removed (see photo below) and there may also be two steel dowels in the rear face of the flywheel housing. These must be removed if present. One of the dowels can be seen next to my thumb in the photo. To remove studs, simply run two nuts onto the stud, then turn them against each other to lock them together. If you turn the innermost nut anti-clockwise with a spanner, the stud should now unscrew from the flywheel housing.
Last job before fitting the engine is to sort out some engine mounts. Assuming you have just removed a standard 2 1/4 petrol or diesel engine from your Landie, simply unbolt the mounts from this and bolt them to the 200 TDi block. On the nearside there are two sets of threaded holes - use the front set. Now you can fit the new engine (as per the workshop manual) using Series diesel engine mounting rubbers, or Defender 200TDi items.
Plumbing in your new engine will be fairly straightforward, provided you do things in a sensible and methodical fashion. Starting with the alternator, you have several options. If your old engine has a good alternator, simply remove the 200TDi alternator mounting bracket, and transfer the alternator complete with mounting bracket from your old engine. You will need to substitute M8 metric bolts for the two which bolt the front face of the cast alternator bracket onto the engine block. Alternatively you can bolt a Lucas 16ACR alternator straight onto the 200TDi bracket as shown below, but if you are using your Series alternator, the front plate will need to be rotated to put the adjuster lug in the right place. In both cases you will need a military type double pulley (part 574870) to align the alternator belt with the water pump pulley, as in the photo below. The final option is to use the Disco 200TDi alternator with a pulley from a VW Golf or similar. You need to measure the distance around the pulleys to find out what length fan belt you need. The installation below uses a belt from a series 3 109 V8.
You can now go on to wire up the rest of the electrics. How you do this will depend on the year and model of vehicle, and if I were to provide detailed instructions for every variant of Series Land Rover I would never find the time to get this page finished. In all cases you will need to relocate the battery under the passenger seat and make up a clamp to hold it securely in place. If you have the positive battery lead from the donor Discovery, this should comfortably reach from the starter solenoid to the battery in its new location. The battery negative lead should be bolted direct to the engine/gearbox assembly, with an earth strap from the engine/gearbox to the chassis. All the fixing points for this leads need to be nice and clean, and securely bolted. Series 2/2A Landies had a battery tray under the passenger seat which should take an 069 battery, but if you do not have the battery tray, you will find an 073 will fit in the front LH corner of the underseat tool locker and will have plenty enough power to fire up the engine.
The alternator can be connected as per the Series 3 diesel wiring diagram (using the original wiring if you are converting a Series 3). The starter solenoid wire (red/white) should connect straight to the solenoid on a diesel vehicle, but for petrol vehicles with a separate starter solenoid you will have to extend this wire. For pre 1967 vehicles with a starter button, you can still use this to actuate the starter solenoid - just connect a positive supply to one side, and connect the other side to the spade terminal on the starter solenoid.
Being a fairly modern diesel, the 200TDi has an electrically operated stop solenoid, rather than a cable operated system. If converting a petrol vehicle, simply extend the + wire which previously fed the ignition coil, and connect it to the stop solenoid. If you are converting a diesel Land Rover with late series 2A or series 3 combined starter and glowplug switch, you will find that when the starter is operated it disconnects all the switched electrical circuits. So you will need a 4 pin relay, which when actuated connects the glowplug feed to the stop solenoid (glowplugs are powered while the starter is operating). The actuating feed for this relay should be from the red/white wire to the starter solenoid. You will also need to identify a live switched feed (the + feed to the brake light switch is ideal) and connect this to the stop solenoid also.
Finally on the electrical front, you need to do something about the glowplugs. Easy if you are converting a diesel as you already have a switch and wiring, but for a petrol vehicle you will need some kind of switch (a heavy duty push button will do fine). You will find that, except in very cold weather, this engine should fire up easily without any need for glowplugs, but it makes sense to wire them up just in case they are needed.
Now on to fueling, cooling and exhaust systems:
The fuel system is pretty simple. If you are converting a diesel vehicle you already have almost everything you need. For a petrol vehicle you will need to add a fuel return line - your fuel tank should already have a hole for this (blanked off) so it is just a case of obtaining the correct tank fittings and fuel return line. You will also need a diesel filter. The plumbing is simplicity itself - the feed line goes from the tank to the lift pump on the side of the engine. From the lift pump fuel flows into the filter, and then to the injection pump. The return line goes from the injection pump back to the tank. The arm on the end of the accelerator pedal rod can be connected direct to the injection pump via a plain pushrod or, more elegantly, a ball-jointed rod, as per the photo below.
Cooling system - the heater can be connected up using 19mm diameter rubber cooling hose. The 200TDi engine does not have a heater control valve, but this is no big deal. Unless the heater fan is running, a Series heater will put out very little heat into the cabin. You can use the standard Series radiator, but will need to make up some hoses. One problem is that the diameter of the hose stubs on the engine is about 38mm, whereas on the radiator it is 32mm. Halfords sell 'universal' flexible radiator hoses, some of which are 32mm ID at one end and 38mm at the other. They are available in various lengths, but the only time I have used them so far was on a vehicle with a 6 cylinder radiator, so I cannot advise on what lengths are needed for a straightforward 4 cylinder conversion. Alternatively you can make your own hoses using Series top and bottom hoses cut up and joined together with steel tube and jubilee clips. This is how I did my first testbed vehicle, and that has now covered 6,000 miles with no problems.
Cooling fan - the Disco fan is in entirely the wrong place and will not fit. In fact, you might as well cut the threaded stub off the end of the water pump and gain a bit more clearance between engine and radiator. There is then plenty of room to fit an electric fan, BUT... I have never once had to use mine. Not even in a 3 mile traffic jam, in hot weather, towing a trailer. So unless you live in central London or are planning to use your vehicle to tow heavy trailers up long steep hills, you probably don't need a cooling fan at all. These engines, connected to a Series radiator, run very cool - almost too cool. In winter, a radiator muff would probably be a good idea, although I haven't yet tried one on mine.
Finally, the exhaust. You can use the standard Series centre and rear sections, but you will need to fabricate a front pipe. For this you definitely need welding skills. I use an early, side-exit diesel exhaust, chopped up and connected using steel tube. I make the system up on the vehicle, tack weld the joints, then take it off and seam weld it. Note that you need to cut a hole in the LH inner wing to clear the exhaust pipe - it is easiest to make up the pipe before refitting the wing.
I clamp the square exhaust flange to the 200TDi manifold with the holes at 45 degrees to the turbo mounting studs, and use Series manifold clamps or thick washers to hold it in place, It looks scruffy but seems to work well. I also fit an extra support to the rear end of the front pipe - Halfords sell a universal exhaust hanger which does the job and bolts to the redundant left hand drive handbrake mounting bracket.
Finally there is the air filter to deal with. On my first conversion I used a 90/110 filter housing bolted to the top of the timing cover, with a carb elbow and flexi hose from a Series 3 petrol engine to connect the filter to the air intake. I connected the crankcase breather hose direct to the manifold, using a hole which is normally blanked off by a bolt (see photo below). This worked well, but 90/110 filter housings are hard to find, as the bottom half is welded to the chassis.
My second conversion used the Discovery air filter, connected to the air intake using a V8 carb elbow, with a stub connector for the crankcase breather hose, and a strap to tie down the air filter on top of the sound deadening pad. There is just enough clearance under the bonnet for this to work, and it looks nice and neat.
In both cases I first cut off the end of the air intake, as it narrows at the outer end and I thought it might be a bit restrictive. Make sure you stuff the intake with rag before doing this, otherwise you risk filling the engine with metal filings. It is also a good idea to cover the alternator with a cloth to prevent bits of metal from falling into it and shorting it out.
I think that's about it. You should now have your very own 200Di. I will add to these notes from time to time, and I would be very pleased to hear from anyone who attempts this conversion, and will try to incorporate feedback into these pages.
If on reading this you like the idea of this conversion but feel it is beyond your own abilities, I will be happy to quote you for the work. A straightforward conversion, including second hand 200TDi engine fitted with a new timing belt and tensioners, plus all the other bits required, will probably be around £1,250 including VAT.
Further reading: Teri-Ann from the Series 2 Club is putting together some information on 200TDi conversions. Her pages can be found at
http://www.expeditionlandrover.info/200tdiconversionIntro.htm. The article by Glen Anderson (also Series 2 Club member), hosted by Teri-Ann, is especially useful - although it deals with a turbocharged installation, it covers some areas such as bellhousing, engine mounts etc in more detail than I have given above.
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I just hope that you have had the time to read all this.....I know it's long but I think it will be of interest to a few here!
Kaci
