Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

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Finn1
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:47 pm

Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Finn1 »

Hi Everyone,
I recently acquired a 1982 Stage 1 Station Wagon in Marine blue - well the bits which have paint on them are mainly blue. It has a 300TDi with an R380 gearbox fitted. My plan is to back to a V8 with LPG & a 5 speed box, but that is realistically a year or so off.
I ran a very early series 3 when I was Living in NZ and have always missed it. The timing wasn’t quite right on this one but it came up and seemed like a reasonable deal so I took the plunge. Plunge indeed.
I’ve had it about 6 weeks & I’m busy Un-upgradeing it! Actually it’s been a bit of a saga to be honest :roll: I took the train to pick it up in Solihull and drive back to Surrey, only covering about 7 miles before Smoke started pouring out of the dash to fill the cabin. After a bit of road side inspection it seems that some extraneous cables had be left after the engine conversion and shorted on the chassis, burning the insulation off a number of cables and their neighbours. And, as I found out later, the contacts in the ignition switch. With limited tools I had to concede defeat and it made the trip home on the low loader.
I’ve removed half a shopping bag worth of wiring, replaced the starter motor as the solenoid had shorted, a new battery for good measure and swapped the fuse box for more modern blade fuse item with fuses for every circuit! I have a little wiring to tidy up but its all working now.
I’ve made a fibreglass transmission tunnel, bought some sound deadening and rubber matting to tidy up the interior.

I’d attach a photo or two but getting the file size small enough seems to be a challenge.
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Geoff
Posts: 599
Joined: Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:21 am
Location: Leicester UK

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Geoff »

Hi and welcome. Good luck with it (I saw it listed on ebay)- nice to see an abused Stage One to be returned to a proper V8. If you open a free flickr account and upload your photos there, you can choose the size of photo you post on here when you copy and paste the BB Code for the photo from there to here - you can't post any size of photo here directly - they have to be posted via a photo sharing account such as flickr, which is the one I use.
2 1981 Stage One 109 V8 SWs
Image
Cliff4WD
Posts: 303
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 2:39 pm
Location: Rye, East Sussex, UK

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Cliff4WD »

I use postimage.org for my photo uploads. A stage 1 with a 300tdi and an R380 is no longer a stage 1! It needs a V8 in it.
Cliff

1981 109 V8 Stage 1
2000 Discovery 2 Td5

109 V8: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2161
My Disco Thread: http://www.thed2boysclub.co.uk/viewtopi ... =3&t=58130

LAND ROVER. TURNING OWNERS INTO PAUPERS FOR 70 YEARS
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by disco2hse »

Hi welcome aboard.

Depending on what you want to do with it, you might want to think going back to LT95 too. Changing the hi-ratio to RRC gives you a higher top speed.
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
Finn1
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:47 pm

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Finn1 »

I'm pretty much going to use it as a car 99% of the time. There will be some motorway driving involved so something like a 0.8 top gear makes sense. The previous owner said it felt really under geared with the V8 & LT95. I'll also have to see what the availability of a LT95 is like. I have the cross members for the V8/LT95.
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by disco2hse »

The RRC gearing does provide what you are asking for and frankly, I think it is a better box than the R380.
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
Alicerover
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:34 pm
Location: Leicestershire

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Alicerover »

Hi and welcome.
You'll find lots of things to do if you have a look through the pages on this forum and lots of help. Alice is currently running an R380 mated to a RR classic transfer box, gives you a viscous diff in the centre and ups the gearing still. You have to stir the stick a bit when towing, but makes for a very relaxed drive and reasonable economy if your gentle with the right foot!!!
Glen
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:45 pm
Location: Sheffield, UK

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Glen »

Image

Wouldn't be this one by chance would it? If so its changed quite a lot since I went to look it it in 2015 (this photos from 2017 when it still had the winch but it was quite different again in 2015), the guy selling it had had it for decades and used it as a rally recovery vehicle.
Finn1
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:47 pm

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Finn1 »

Hi Glen,
That’s it. In 2015 I’m guessing it had a Perkins Diesel engine? It changed hands in 2015 & 2017 it would seem (by the names on the receipts). The guy I bought it from put it back to a V8 & LT95 but the engine expired in short order so he fitted the 300TDI & R380 that he had spare.
The winch had been replaced with a bump bar and spot lights. It also had wheel arch extensions & wheel spacers, All of which have now gone & hopefully I’ll fit the new sills in the next week or so. It’s slowly going back to standard trim.
Finn
Glen
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:45 pm
Location: Sheffield, UK

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Glen »

Thats right, was a P4236 turbo (from a Dodge 50 bus) rather than the usual P4203 from a tractor/combine/forkift/generator. Obveously being mated to the LT95 ment it wasn't prone to the usual gearbox issues normal series box would suffer even on the lesser output engine and by using a 0.996:1 high range gear and overdrive it was aparently able to cruse at a sensible speed (though I very much doubt it would outrun my stage 1, I suspect it might still have not outrun the speed limit!) I think he said he'd killed a set of 996 gears though so at the time of sale it was running something lower making it 'a bit slow', though as a bonus aparently 4th gear was all you really needed - Those old Perkins engines were not known for their ability to rev as the high speed versions (they came with vareous different goveners depending on aplication) wouldn't reach 3000 rpm whilst the low speed versions would stop around 2000 rpm. I did hear it running and it sounded okay (fairly noisy but not by Tdi standards) but it was a bit smokey and for some reason the heater tank was relocated to the roof for reasons I never really understood (no reason they need extra head unless somethings leaking somewhere).

Photos of how it was when I saw it with the long term owner which might be quite interesting if you've not seen them before - its changed a little bit over the years!

Image

Image

It looks a bit rough and to be fair it was. Having been registered as a recovery vehicle it was MOT exempt and the holes in the chassis and footwells showed this hadn't done it too well. Other than that, whilst it looked pritty messed with it actully wasn't so much. The owner had made the roofrack and the winch bumper. The winch had had the drum lengthened to take a 60 m cable. The harvy frost craine had been modifited to make it fold so it could be used through the catflap tailgate or stowed inside, in eather case whilst using the second row seating. Perhaps its best feature was the power steering which he'd got from a Northern Ireland armoured LR - seems the tidyest PAS setup I'd ever seen just replacing the factory steering box and using what looked like a colapsable steering colum like a 110, the steering relay and chassis looked un messed with.

I contemplated buying it as I thought the spec was pritty interesting though of course in reality the crane would have been anoying and not very useful (I've heard people with classic restored LR recovery vehicles aren't aloud to use the crane as the insurance companies flip out) and whilst the diesel may have worked okay it'd be a parts issue if something needed work - I would have probubly tried to keep it with the Perkins diesel if I could as that once sort of common conversion (at least in smaller non turbo form) is now really rare and examples of them seem to be lost to history (all the ones I knew of were scrapped or Tdi converted), this would have been even rarer being the big turbo versions which may have actully made it bearable, though if that wasn't practicable the V8 would be the obveous choice - yes compaired to other modern diesels they are thursty but compaired to a 2.25 petrol a V8 in good shape is in the same ball park fuel whilst offering far more pace for less stress and a far better sound track.

As for the best gearbox I don't think theres really much in it unless you go for a ZF auto which is obveously a different beast. All the long stick manuals (and the ZF) with the long V8 bell houseing can fit in a stage 1 fairly easilly, if you use apropreate 110 bits like floor, seatbox and mountings it can be really tidy. My LT95 is a whiny clunky slow shifting thing with epic backlash (I'm sure its not the best example), and given it seems to be the 1st question other stage 1 owners ask me about it its a pritty common theme thats a charictoristic of the type to some degree. Thats said the R380's with some miles on that I've driven aren't that nice to drive eather (though they should be quieter) and the LT77 is even worse - none of them compair favorably to a well exicuted shift on a series 2A. I'd therefore say if what you've got is working okay I'd probubly leave it be. If its nackered and you don't want an auto then the LT95 gets points for originality where as the R380 is probubly the easyest to get bits for. The standard 1.34:1 gearing on a stage 1 is way too short of long comfortable highway use (its actully shorter than a series with overdrive) but by fiddleing with the transferbox gears you can basicly gear them where you want, though its basicly the same story with the LT230 transferbox. Only real difference when the top gear ratio has been chosen is that the 5 speeds are closer ratio (useful on a diesel but the V8 doesn't really care and its a good excuse to hear it) and a slightly lower 1st for the same top (again the V8 doesn't really mind but you can always get it rolling in low range if its perticularly steep and heavyly loaded - as a plus the transfer leaver is much easier to reach on an LT95 on the rare ocasions you'd want to).
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by disco2hse »

Very interesting read. Thank you. Over here, the typical engines are Nissan or Isuzu.
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
Finn1
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:47 pm

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Finn1 »

Blimey! :shock: :shock: :shock:
Thanks for taking the time to post all that.
I picked up a load of parts yesterday including an LT95 with over drive. The gears are out of the transfer case at the moment so I’ll try and get an understanding of what I have and need to get, then save some pennies and send it off for a rebuild.
It needs to have a reasonable motorway gear (The current set up is actually quite good gearing wise) but I’d like to keep it reasonably original-ish. So, an LT95 with O/D & appropriate transfer gears.
I’d quite like to get hold of a 10.5:1 CR engine as I’ll run it on lpg, but these seem to be the earlier engines with rope crank seals.
disco2hse
Posts: 1637
Joined: Sun Apr 27, 2008 3:51 am
Location: Auckland NZ

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by disco2hse »

If you are going to run an overdrive, then use the standard lower ratio gearing. Don't use the RRC gearing otherwise you won't have enough power with both 4th gear and overdrive. Either overdrive or higher ratio gears. Not both.

Why not put a 3.9 Disco1 in? Stick the strommies, etc. on, and current water pump, etc on the front. You won't see any difference but it gives a bit more power and is a lot newer.
Alan

1983 ex-army FFR 109 Stage 1
2005 Disco 2 HSE TD5
Finn1
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:47 pm

Re: Stage 1 TDi Station Wagon

Post by Finn1 »

Hi Alan,
That sounds like a good plan.
I have a couple of sets of carbs now, and some other ancillaries.
Finn.
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