It's new to us, and it's built by the "Rover Car Company"

[MG Mal]

The Other halfs new ride!

While her Tdi 90 is off the road, and she is using the 827i to commute etc, I have been "commissioned" (LOL) to get this ready for her.

1981 Early 4 door Range Rover Classic in Masai Red.
Was originally a V8, but has a period Conversion to Perkins/Mazda 4.182 TD 3.0 fitted.

It needs some cosmetic work doing, as well asa few bits and peices replacing, but nothing serious, as it has had pretty much all the usual rust issues sorted with replacement panels by the last long term owner.

[dollysprint]

That is superb Mal, wonder how many L322 and P38's will make it to 35 years young. I fitted those exact same seats to my 95 Discovery!

Dave

[MG Mal]

Thanks Dave,

WHile Im recovering from a hernia op, theres not much I can do with it.
But I did manage to give it a good scrub and a quick polish before it got too warm today.

[rovercoup]

Looks very nice indeed Mal, funny Dave and I were only this last weekend talking of the classic and then your beauty pops up.

I fear Dave's fleet may be on the increase again having seen yours.

[MG Mal]

Problem for us was finding the right one at a fair price.

Classic range rovers are shooting up in value, and even owners with basket case 90's examples are asking stupid prices for them.

This one has it's issue's as do all older motors, but the biggest issue for most buyers was the period engine conversion.

This didn't bother us, as it's a period pro install, which means if the time ever comes around, it should be straight forward to return to V8 power.

So we were lucky enough to get an "Almost factory" 81 model with a possibly genuine 55k miles thats had all the hard work done to make it solid.

One of my Lightweight Landy projects has the correct year V8 fitted, which I'm swopping back to 2.25 petrol once I have rebuilt it, so will be ideal for rebuild if needed later.

[midnite]

I've never seen a red one mal, looks good.

[n1tr0_9]

Reminds me of the one in the Top Gear Bolivia challenge.

[scoobyh123]

Nice one Mal - looks very smart with the red paintwork, black grille/trim etc. I seem to recall many Fire Brigades had V8 rangies in red about the time it was new, it has an Ipswich (DX) registration so could be worth contacting the relevant historical department in Ipswich and/or Suffolk Fire Brigade to see if it was ever used as an emergency vehicle - might have an interesting history!

Bit dubious about the diseasel conversion though, i know they were quite popular during the 80s (i even knew of a Series II Jag 4.2 that was converted to diseasel power!) but the trend seemed to die out fairly quickly. Not questioning the validity or professionalism of the conversion, just the fact it was done in the first place - why not just buy a diesel Rangie to start with?

[MG Mal]

"Factory Diesel" rangeys even when virtual wrecks are comanding daft prices.
We bought this one, because besides the obvious in regards to condition etc, it's the age she wanted (youngest 4 door model you can get) and the spec she wanted.

The engine change was in our favour as it limited interest from so called "Purist's", and it can still be used to tow heavy stuff without having a fuel tanker following us around!

Also, the conversion being a pro job, gives us the option later on to return it to V8 if we wanted, as apart from a few Aux Gauges, it's fairly straight forward to achieve.

Had this one been 100% factory, it would likely have cost twice as much if not more. And we have already had several people offer us more than we paid for it! (and we've only had it since Tuesday.)

[scoobyh123]

Fair comment Mal and if it does what you need it to then who's worried? My confusion with the diesel conversion is more of a general thing than aimed specifically at your Rangie.
I know the cost of factory-diesels is high and as you say, the purists wouldn't want it, they'd rather spend twice as much on a factory-diesel but that's the beauty of running classic cars - if the mods are done properly and it does what you need/want it to do then you have a unique vehicle that while it doesn't appeal to the purists would be almost impossible to replace at any cost.
Of course as a general thing the purists exist for a very good purpose, that of preserving vehicles exactly as the factory intended. However i'm more of the belief that running a classic is something that continually evolves and other things are found to fit/work/do the job when unobtainable parts fail to keep another example of motoring history on the road. I daresay if we all had bottomless pits of money we would all be purists but that isn't practical for most.

[MG Mal]

Very true Scoobs,

IIRC they didn't introduce a Factory Diesel option until the VM Engine (86/?)

So period conversions like this one were very popular, especially with more "Rural" owners.

[scoobyh123]

I've been wracking my brains Mal and i've always thought it was 1984 when they launched the diesel Rangie, about the same time or just after the SD1 got the VM 2400 turbo diesel to make the 2400SD but i could well be wrong.
Rural owners loved them as they could often get away using the same fuel as their tractors especially in the early days before the ruse became more widely known.

Just hit on the idea of Wikipedia and it was 1986 - you were spot-on! They had been trying to "dieselise" the V8 engine but it failed :

From 1979 onwards, Land Rover collaborated with Perkins on Project Iceberg, an effort to develop a diesel version of the Range Rover's 3.5 litre V8 engine.[12] Both naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions were built, but the all-alloy engine blocks failed under the much greater pressures involved in diesel operation. The project was, therefore, abandoned. The effort to strengthen the Rover V8 for diesel operation was not, however, completely wasted; the 4.2 litre petrol variant of the engine used crankshaft castings developed in the Iceberg project.[13]

Because of the Iceberg failure, it was not until 1986 that Range Rovers gained diesel engines from the factory. The more efficient 2,393 cc (2.4 L; 146.0 cu in) inline-four VM diesel from Italy was made available as an option for the heavily taxed European market as the 'Turbo D' model,[6] and were increased to 2,499 cc (2.5 L; 152.5 cu in) in 1989.[10] The VM engines were highly advanced and refined diesel engines for their time but were received poorly by the UK press, who tended to compare their performance to the V8 models. To counter these criticisms Land Rover used a Turbo D Range Rover to set several speed and endurance records for diesel vehicles during 1987, including a continuous run over 24 hours at over 100 mph (160 km/h). The VM were replaced by Land Rover's own 200Tdi turbocharged diesel engine in 1992.[6] and 300Tdi at the end of 1994.

From : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_Rover_Classic

A diesel-fuelled 4.2V8 would have been quite an animal!!!