land rover series – Page 2

Carburetor SU HS6 Set up for Land rover series Part 1.

In search for the best replacement of original Zenith carb, I found few alternatives, again Internet is helping me a lot. In the spirit of sharing, I would like to share my carburetor set up. I have written: possibly the best carburetor for land rover series few days ago, so I will not cover why I choose SU (skinner union) carb. Here I will explain about the set up, lets start…

Installation is the most complicated one

It requires you to fabricate the manifold / bracket to attach SU carb to your inlet manifold
It needs us to alter the current linkage (to pedal) set up
SU HS6 comes with many type: Left fuel bowl, right fuel bowl, 90* (up right position) and 30* (slightly tilted like in V8 rover)

Those three combination of complexity need us to think, the best placement for the carb. Is it facing to engine, is facing the bulk head or is it facing the radiator fan etc.. Undeterred by this complexity, I go ahead and by second hand SU HS6 and hell broke loose.. :)

Installation: The relatively easy part is buying… I am lucky to get New Old Stock SU HS6 quite cheaply, so that is good..

Now lets make the manifold / bracket or anything you called to attach the carb to inlet manifold. The easiest way is go to a garage that have access on lathe and ask them to set it up for you. for my case I have to go to two different special garage, one is to make the base (two bases as you can see here: one goes to carb and one goes to manifold) the the other garage (exhaust specialist) to make the connection pipe and set it up in the landy. Here is the manifold ready to be installed.

And finally here is the installed carb… Picture explain better than word.. :)

With this set up I still retain part on the throttle linkage, just in case if I want to change it to zenith again, I still have the parts in there… Hence it installed away from bulkhead and closer to radiator fan. The oil bath filter is still there, although currently it is redundant… but yes you can use the oil bath filter again if you will cross Sahara desert… :)

So that’s all folks… if you have question please ask down below… stay tuned for part two I will talk about setting up the needle, jetting and spring and how it different with Zenith… see you later..

Possibly the best Carburetor for Land Rover Series

The original carburetor is Zenith, and from what I read is the best suited for land rover series. But the Zenith now is on the phase of extinction, the old one is mostly beyond repair, and it will be lucky if you can get new one at decent price. I am trying to order new Zenith from the manufacturer and they said that they produce no more…

So what is the 2nd best option for our pet..? Landy lovers around the world have tried many things with various success, the following brands are frequently mentioned as the best replacement for Zenith and Solex, not in particular order:

Rochester BV : for those who live in US seems prefer this option.. you can read it here: http://www.expeditionlandrover.info/landRoverFAQ/FAQ_rochester.htm from Terry Ann Wakeman one of the land rover guru.
Weber : There are few types of Webers: usually 34ICH and 3236 again you can read it here: http://www.expeditionlandrover.info/LRpartNumbers.htm#carbs from terry wakeman site.
Skinner Union (SU): The other side of continent, Europe, they seems prefer this option (using SU HS6), a lot of Land rover forum is talking about this type of Carb to replace Zenith or Solex
Various Japanesse carbs : I’ve seen few landy in Indonesia use japaness carbs and it si going OK..

All in all, I think land rover will take any Carb for its heart transplant, but the question is… what is the best carburetor for her.

I have no means of testing each of the brand, but what I can do is searching online, and read comments about it and asking around in few forums. Now I will give few rating on each of the brand with few attributes (NOTE: this is personal opinion based on reading some online articles or user comments in forums)

	Rochester BV	Weber 34ICH	SU HS6
Availability	Difficult	Very easy	Easy
Easier to install	Easy	Very easy	Difficult
Easier to set up	Easy	Difficult	Very easy
Fuel Economy	Good	good	Very Good
Reliability	Very Reliable	Reliable	Very Reliable

So which one is the best for our landy…

Weber 34ICH, is a good all round carburetor, its plenty and easily available, easy to install etc. But it is more more susceptible to dirt and water in the fuel and can frequently cause problems if the fuel is not clean and well filtered. Not easy to set up and a bit more sensitive to altitude change.

Rochester BV will be more reliable and easier to set up than Weber, but availability is difficult to obtain and expensive… I was quoted US$ 300 for NOS Rochester BV and the second hand is also quite expensive.

SU HS6, it is very reliable and very simple design, less moving parts hence the reliability. Availability is equal if not better than Rochester BV. Used in many British cars hence second hand are plenty and easier to get… the tricky part is, we need to make some kind of adapter to fit in landy series.

Simple test on the availability, go to ebay and type each type of the carburetor and which one is more readily available.

All in all, if I have access to those threebrands easily, I will say that my choice for the best carburetor for land rover series is SU HS6… I know I simplify a lot of things but that is my conclusion, if you have other opinion.. please write down below.

Will post the set up later

Cheers

Which spark plug for land rover series

Go to : http://www.richer-engineering.com/Series/spark_plugs.php for more lengthy explanation

In a nut shell:

For the land Rover 2.25, the required spark plug is:

14 MM plug thread
3/4″ reach (length of the threaded portion of the plug)
Gasketed seat
13/16″ hex
Resistor (optional – see above)
Copper core
Medium heat range (range from hot to cold)

In looking at this I hear you ask, “What about platinum plugs? Iridium? Multiple electrode?”

In short, don’t bother. Not worth the effort for an engine as lightly stressed as the old 2.25. Personally, I don’t even like them in my Rover V8s. If the engine isn’t designed to use them it’s not worth the effort.

For the Rover 2.25:

Champion RN11YC4
AC Delco R44XL
Autolite 64
NGK BPR5ES
NipponDenso W16EPR-U
Bosch WR8DS

Me: I am using Bosch platinum+4, works ok…. One more thing, while you are at it… checking the condition of spark pug may be a good indication how healthy is your engine and electrical system in general

Land rover series Upgrade, alloy wheel or Steel

Part I. http://vidinur.com/2013/04/08/introducing-the-new-pet-of-mine-land-rover-109/ (US$ 5000)

What can you do to upgrade your land rover series..? the answer is… a Lot…! I will start with (rim) wheel… We have the option of alloy, carbon, and steel… the stock land rover series comes with steel rim wheel, nothing wrong with it…

It is strong, Easy to repair and cheap to make… if you are in remote area, and your wheel broke, you can easily weld it with acetylene.

On the down side, they are heavier, and can not use tubeless ( yes you can, but one will tell you there are risk using tubeless in tubed rim).

So all in all, I do not think that the upgrade to Alloy wheel is necessary, it is more of nice to have, which fortunately I have spare of Tubeless rim from my old landy. Without hesitation I change the steel wheel with the alloy one, here is the picts

The good thing about this particular alloy wheel is (other than looks good), it can significantly reduce the turn radius. I am not measure it though, but may be equal to short chassis landy, very nice, and shaving few kgs from land rover series is always welcome.

Now, something is not quite right… it seems too low for a land rover, my tire now is around 31 inch diameter, while my steel rim, will have around 32 inch diameter, hence now my Landy is a seems a bit cute.. :)

Which one do you like… the one with stock (steel) rim like this one

or The one with alloy rim below…

Cost of upgrade US$ 600 (for rim only exclude tire)

Cheers for now… :)