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[Roverscotty]

Where to begin, 

My name is Scotty, I was the owner of (becmdoctor.com) my world at the time revolved around the P38, I also owned (socalusedroverparts.com) The P38 was fun for several years.

However, my real passion is for the Series Land Rovers. Unfortunately even though I have been looking for one, for several years, I struggled finding the Series truck I wanted. I'm not that picky I just wanted an unmolested Series 2 88 all original located here in California and of course I wanted it for under thousand dollars. Is that asking too much?

Well for several years it appeared it was, and then I got the call!! I have a friend who restores Corvette's, apparently he had heard there was a guy who had an old Corvette in his back yard, he was trying to sell it to buy some Solar panels. My friend went over to look at it, while there, he saw what he thought was an old Land Rover he gave me a call, I went over to look at it. There it was, the Series truck I had been looking for!!! I have goose bumps telling the story hehehe.

The story go's like this:

The 1963 Series 2 88 truck, was the family vehicle for as long as the owner could remember. He told me of some family travels in the truck. His father loved the truck but unfortunately was not much of a mechanic. Back in 1971 the Land Rover blew a head gasket and was rendered unusable it was parked in the back yard. Some years later his father past away. The son held on to the truck with the intentions of restoring it. But unfortunately there was never enough time. As the years went by the son started to collect old cars and store them in the back yard. Fast forward a lot of years later, and what you have is 20 old cars in the back yard to restore. Where do you start. Time just ran out, the son is now in his 60's..

I looked at the truck, it was exactly what I wanted! Here's the cool thing. I told my buddy I wanted it, he said he would take care of it. A week later, the owner called me and said " I have an old Land Rover here that belongs to you, when can you pick it up " I called my buddy it turns out he traded a stack of solar panels for the old Corvette & the old Land Rover!!! I asked what I owed, and was told " Nothing " Of course that day I made the arrangement and went over and Picked it up!

Oh did I tell you it was on the next block over from my house where I have lived for 20 years!! LOL Less then a mile away.

So I now am the PROUD owner of a 1963 Series 2 88 Land Rover. Oh here's something else that's cool. It was born in Feb. 1963 so was my beautiful wife. It was meant to be..

Now for the photo's

[diffwhine]

Welcome to the madhouse...!

That looks like a great find. To track down anything in that sort of condition in the US for nothing is an absolute bargain! Well done!

We are here and happy to help. There are club members on both sides of the pond and more than happy to help offer advice or just tea and sympathy.

If you haven't already found them, we have all the relevant shop manuals in the club technical section on the website, so you won't be wanting for technical information. How to interpret that is another matter and that's where this forum comes into its own. Feel free to ask - as I always say, there is no such thing as a stupid question. Not asking the question and then messing it up is stupid!

Enjoy the ride... Its all downhill from now on.

[Roverscotty]

Ok, so moving on, I have now had the Series 2A for a hand full of years and I'm doing a nut & bolt restoration.

I have good news & bad news regarding this build. The good news, I have a rolling chassis. Now for the bad news, I gave the head to a buddy of mine to rebuild he charged me $450.00 and after receiving the head back, I found out it had several cracks in it. Interestingly enough I haven't heard from him since. Which is probably a good thing. Next bad news, I dropped the block off at the machine shop, I asked the owner to MAGNAFLEX the block prior to completing the machine work.
He stated he would and wrote it on the ticket. The shop stated the block was good. He hot tank it, installed cam bearings, bored it, hone it, decked it.
How excited am I.. Well not so much!! After receiving the block back I took it home started cleaning it up with soap and water and guess what??
The block had a huge crack in it! 

I spoke to the shop owner he was in disbelief that his team missed the cracked. He owned up to it and is making right by it. He's actually a really good guy.

On with more good news. I found a complete engine which I was able to purchase for a great price. It is a bit different though from the original block.
This is what brings me to the Series 2 Club. I could really use some help identifying this engine. I picked it up on Friday and tore it down this morning, its really nice inside, I'm going to completely rebuild it but its pretty nice.

Photos:

[Wittsend]

    &  to the Forum.

[Roverscotty]

Hmmmm Not sure why my other photos are posting. HOLD please..

[109+1]

What's the spare engine number. Will help narrow down the year. 

[Tom]

Other photos may need compressing a bit to be under 1mb.


Welcome along. Really enjoyed that story! Keep us updated
Tom

[GHOBHW]

welcome, looks like a solid land rover to build from.

wish we had some californian weather for more than 5 days of the year...

[Roverscotty]

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

My original block number is 25136125C, the replacement block number is PDE10A. Hmmm,
The story goes that this was a prototype block from Land Rover. I have a hard time believing that.. The replacement block has the word BELCHROME casted in the side of the block and the oil filter housing is smaller then my original.

Thank you

Scotty

[diffwhine]

Best get some photos so we can decipher what's going on here. I wouldn't worry about the block number too much. In those days, replacement blocks were often supplied without an engine number. The dealer was then required to stamp the old number on the new casting. Sounds daft now, but that's what they did. You may just have a made up number.
The only odd coincidence  might be that that looks like a UK 1963 registration number (A Suffix). Probably just a coincidence, but you never know.

[Roverscotty]

Lets try some photos again, In the phots you will find the cracked block and then the other phots are of the replacement block.

Again thank you

Scott

[GHOBHW]

well it certainly looks like a 2.25 engine.

diffwhines guess is pretty good, maybe the PDE10A is the reg of the vehicle it came off.

on one of mine I have an engine that was rebuilt with a NOS block, therefor has no numbers on it. maybe the vehicle that engine came from got imported into the USA with no engine number, so got that stamped onto it?

[Roverscotty]

The engine was really clean inside the bearings has little to no wear them, the cam looks new. I feel it was freshened up not to long ago. 

[autorover1]

BILCHROME was cast by Beans Industries , who did cast Cylinder Blocks for Rover in the early 1970's  .  I went round the factory back in about 1971/2 and watched them cast. The Iron had a little more tin content than was normal for Grey Iron
Extract from write up on the web:-  In 1956 the company ( Beans Industries) was taken over by Standard-Triumph to produce castings for their vehicles, including cylinders made from "Bilchrome" a special cylinder iron developed in-house.

[genocache]

Welcome to the forum Scott.   I always resize my pics in Paint to 1000 x 750(?) pixels to post up.