Nightmere! (gear box blown) 2.5 Turbos engines any good?

[Greenlanekit]

In 6 weeks I'm off round France for 3 weeks, on the way to work this morning my LT77 box has given up the ghost, well 5th gear and holding it, plus its sticky in 1st and second, has been for ages.......so Ive been frantically phoning about, Ashcroft in Luton £730 new recon fitted gear box, Autoland making some calls for me (Ashcroft use them for all their work) and I've just been offered a gearbox and a 2.5 Turbo for £350 out of a defender so straight swap, apparently its been Turner recond'. Does anyone know the deal with 2.5 Turbos, are they a solid engine I heard they can crack, they have heard it running and its fine but until I can find a 200 tdi it might solve alot of my problems, esp as the 2.5 N/A is a bit on the slow side...

So any advice would be spot on...and very much needed

(BTW I may have a good 2.5 N/A Military Recon engine for sale very soon;)

[Porny]

2.5Td are quite good.... untill they go bang  :roll:

Well serviced and looked after they are quite a good engine, but at the same time they do get a bad reputation because of the number of bad'uns around.
You might run one without any problems at all... or you may suffer the usual cracked pistons, head etc etc.

As you're touring around France, spares are slightly harder to obtain than over here...

Personally, there are two routes I'd go down (this is just my opinion):

Keep your current engine, and fit a replacement gearbox.  
Although the 2.5 NA can be slow, they don't tend to go wrong and will plod on forever, they are also easy to fix (or bodge) and will cope well with any condition - their only fault is low power.  
Also, your current engine is the 'devil you know'... so you will in theory know if it's a good'un or bad'un.

The other route I'd follow is a 200Tdi.... but I'd fit a proper Defender version, not a Disco engine.  And do 'an as factory' conversion - this means that the all the bit used are standard parts - so spares are easy to get!!
The 200tdi again is a very reliable engine, and is easy to work on... although there is probably slightly more to go wrong with it, than say a 2.5 NA.  But make sure you get a good'un, and look after it!!

Both run on a LT77 (or an LT77s) so you will only need to change your gearbox once!!!



Ian

[Greenlanekit]

I think you might be right you know, just go for the replaceemnt gear box, if Ive got my family with me and I dont know this engine, plus what you sat re repairs it maybe safer 7 more reliable, so maybe best to hold out for a good known 200tdi.

Hmm anything from a Disco will need work, as does a 300 TDI swap, cheers, I'm having a panic as you can imagine, i;d be guitted not being able to take the Landy, defeats the whole object of the trip...

[Porny]

I think you might be right you know, just go for the replaceemnt gear box, if Ive got my family with me and I dont know this engine, plus what you sat re repairs it maybe safer 7 more reliable, so maybe best to hold out for a good known 200tdi.

Hmm anything from a Disco will need work, as does a 300 TDI swap, cheers, I'm having a panic as you can imagine, i;d be guitted not being able to take the Landy, defeats the whole object of the trip...

I wouldn't bother with a 200Tdi from a Disco... IMHO the conversion looks like a mess... although I admit it is a lot cheaper.  It also means things like water pipe work etc etc are not off the shelf items, as they need to modified to fit.  If your abroad, I'd imagine it's often hard enough trying to get Land Rover parts, let alone ones that need to be modified.

However, I did miss the 300Tdi...

The 300Tdi is an excellent engine, and one I would fully recommend.. however, again if I was doing this for the useage you have have planned, I would do an 'as factory' conversion, using standard Land Rover parts!... whilst not that difficult, it can work out quite an expensive conversion - just in parts to get a good 300Tdi engine and box (and all the other bits) you'll be looking at between £1500 and £2000 - then there's the fitting if you can't do it yourself - A 300tdi needs different engine (weld on)and gearbox mounts.


Ian

[Greenlanekit]

1st can be sticky to get in from stand still, but she doesnt stay in 5th atall, 4th to 5th clutch in OK but take the clutch out and she jumps out of 5th, no idea what that is, its also a bit noisey when the clutch pedal is depressed about and inch to the resistance point. Is it knackered ? or can that be fixed...