17 reg disco engine kaput

Nearly

Member
Location
North of York
It was made of a down-specced something.
Narrower crank bearings or something.
Local green oval specialist has one on 200k miles but it is serviced on the dot and to exact oil spec.
Few others are as lucky.
 

cosmagedon

Member
Location
North Wales
If its a D4 it will be the 3.0V6, nothing to do with old essex V6, it was a new engine designed between Ford, Landrover and PSA (Peugeot, citroen etc) That's where they went wrong in having to design the same engine fit a Range rover and a front wheel drive Ford or Peugeot, the whole engine has been squashed to get it to fit. Here's a post off a engine builder on facebook I saw the other day, pretty interesting read.

Hopefully, this post will not be boring! I would like to state from the start, it is not my intention to worry owners regarding engine failures on the 3.0L V6. However, I would like to offer explanations and suggestions that might go some way to help the cars reliably stay on the road.
As a company, we strive to offer the best service, and advice, based on our experience to our clientele. We will never post actual tricks and mods that we do that are outside the scope of the original engine specification.
There is a debate on the crankshafts snapping and we have always been of the opinion that crankshaft breakage is limited to the earlier cars. Pre 2012 ish, this when the new bearings and machining processes were introduced by Ford (it’s not a LR engine, it was and is still built in the Ford , Dagenham Engine Plant). This is not to say that the cranks don’t break on the later engines, because they do, you can see from the pictures I’ve just posted. This is a GENII motor with all the latest and greatest Land Rover mods. So, the later engines are still breaking cranks, this is plain to see. But the cause of the breakage is really different from the earlier engine which had cranks made of chocolate.
If you look closely at the pictures, kindly shared by James Johnson, you will see the crank is broken, but the No2 main cap has spun the bearings. The engine must have run for some time before it seized and snapped the crank. Technically, speaking, this would not be considered a crank failure. The bearing failure caused a seizure which in turn snapped the crank. I have spoken to many engines builders today and the general consensus is, the later engines spin bearings and that causes the crank to break.
Based on the above, Fords modifications to the engine to stop crankshaft breakage seem to have been reasonably successful, if you look the the root cause, mainly being bearing failure in the later engines. This is not to say that later engines don’t snap cranks without bearing failure, they do.
You might ask, why do the bearings fail? This is a harder problem for the Ford engineers to solve. This is my take on the problem.
Why does the engine spin bearings? This is simple, metal to metal contact. The Two surfaces touch and the softer surface gets damaged, I.e. the bearing. Why do the surfaces touch, again, simple, not sufficient oil film to keep the bearings apart. This is very basic mechanical common sense.
Why does it happen? This is where it’s not so straightforward
The engine has a great big oil pump with loads of volume, so why bearing failure? Usually, the two centre main bearings fail. When you look at the design of the block you will notice there are only 4 main bearings and 6 con-rods to feed with oil. 4 cylinder engines normally have 5 mains and 4 rods to supply. How the lion engine delivers oil to the con-rods.
Main cap No1 feeds con-rod No1 with oil
Main cap No2 feeds con-rod No2 & 3 with oil
Main cap No3 feeds con-rod No4 & 5 with oil
Main cap No4 feeds con-rod No6 with oil
Generally speaking main caps No1 & 4 don’t spin bearings. It would make logical sense they have more oil because they feed only one con-rod each,
Main caps No 2 & 3 have a higher oil demand due to feeding an extra rod, they in fact feed two con rods. Under certain conditions the main bearings do not have sufficient oil to maintain a good oil film and metal to metal contact happens.
The design gets worse, the engineers must have been pulling their hair out! The engine makes lots of power, so you need wide bearings to spread the load and maintain an oil film. However, the engine is really compact, you can’t have wide bearings that hold a good oil film on such a short engine. Solution, fit a non groved plain bearing in the main cap and grove the bearing in the block which doesn’t take the major combustion load. What you end up with is a crankshaft that is only able to feed the bearings on the rods for about 250 degrees. Next issue, the oil supply to the con-rod is interrupted every revolution by the plain bearing in the main cap. Not an ideal solution at all. Engineer, scratches head! I know, we can invent a sputter bearing, a special type of bearing that doesn’t need a great oil film and metal to metal contact is permissible. All happy in the Ford camp now, problem solved!
Unfortunately, not solved. The main bearings have hardly enough oil supply to supply one con-rod, let alone two. So what happens? The two centre mains, under certain circumstances have insufficient oil to maintain a good quality oil film to avoid contact. Once contact happens, the metal particles are fed to the con-rods which in turn destroys the sputter bearings, as the sputter bearing deteriorates the oil supply to the main bearing is reduced even more and it’s game over!
The solution to the problem is to increase oil flow to the bearings. This is my take on the problem based on my personal experience. I might be talking rubbish, you choose
My background, I worked in engine R&D for several years, engine testing on dynos and calibration. Prototype engine building, and some time diagnosing engine failure in the strip bay. I have been in the industry since I was 16, I’m now 52, it has been my life for the last 36 years. I’ve run Ferrari and Maserati dealerships as a manager and worked for manufacturers in a technical support capacity. I’m no stranger to engines and engine design
 

kill

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South West
Saw one in a local garage this week
Too good to scrap
Too expensive to repair
Crank spun the bearings & twisted the block apparently
Talking to a guy a week ago had the same with a 3 year old Jaguar car and the replacement engine cost him 11k fitted which dealer reduced from 13.5k. Seamed a heck of a Bill to swallow. Would it be possible it was the same engine?
Told him that maybes he should have drove it in deep water with engine running!!!
 

cosmagedon

Member
Location
North Wales
We've done 3 discos at home now, cheap cars to buy with the engines gone. Body off is a 4 or 5 hour job, the guys doing it day in and out can have the body off in under a hour!

Engines serviced every 5k miles from now on.

2020-11-21 17.18.26.jpg
 

cosmagedon

Member
Location
North Wales
Guy I know has had a few v8 vogues and he reckons they are bullet proof.
The only real issues they have are turbos and egr's, we've done a few V8 sports over the years and they have been brilliant cars for what they cost!

Only ever done 1 Vouge but they are a nightmare to work on compared to a Sport or discovery, you can't lift the body off so it makes the job very awkward.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top