Uplifted
IT is nearly a quarter of a century since I started working on Land Rovers for a living, and one of the first pieces of equipment I bought was an engine crane. Remarkably, this red-painted old beast still works as well as it ever did, and I cannot even begin to guess how many engines and gearboxes it has lifted in its time. I have used it for moving chassis around the yard, hung bulkheads on it for spray painting and on one occasion used it as an engine test stand. It is arguably the best investment I ever made.
Engine removal on older Land Rovers presents a few challenges, of which the first is that in most four-cylinder vehicles up to 1993 the engine sits a long way back in the engine bay. For this reason, I bought a long-reach crane: even so, I have just had to remove the winch bumper on a One Ten before I could take the engine out. The 300Tdi Defenders and V8s have the engine a lot closer to the front panel. Another advantage of the long-reach crane is that it allows the engine to be lifted high enough to clear the radiator panel, which on a Series vehicle saves all kinds of grief with decaying headlight wiring and rusty wing-to-panel bolts.
These engines are heavy – getting on for a quarter of a ton fully dressed. That deserves some respect: it is more than 30 years now since my near-death experience when I was lowering an engine into place using a chain block slung from a wooden beam, and the beam broke. I was standing in the engine bay at the time and can still remember the absolute silence after the
