New 2.8 oiler

[Alfie]

I have just purchased a 1996 lwb from Crabman. I am new to this type of engine Is there anything I need to watch out for. She drives like a dream and has been very well looked after so I have no real concerns just need a few pointers of things to do and check

[andysd1]

yes you need a 3.2 v6 preferably in yellow

[Alfie]

I can't afford to put petrol in one hence the oil burner instead of my swb. Plus need the room as grandaughter is getting bigger

[RatCav]

Only thing to really watch out for is everything falling apart around it. The 2.8 is a true workhorse and recognised as one of the best diesel engines out there. Isuzu really got their stuff right when they designed it almost 30 years ago.

Apart from the usual Frontera Series A issues, engine wise don't bother using the quick warm-up button. One of the flaps is n the exhaust under the car. It often gets covered in crud and sticks shut blocking the exhaust. Let the turbo wind down and cool down before turning off. Its probabaly getting on a bit and a bit of TLC is always good. A good mod is EGR blanking as it guarantees nice clean air in your cylinders for a better burn. Sometimes it is noticable, sometimes not. I have done it and its much much better. In fact I have removed mine altogether and an using one as a paperweight.

ermm thats about it. A well maintained and clean running 2.8 should be returning above 30mpg. If I drive carefully doing all the right things I return 36mpg in my LWB Mk.I Trooper 2.8 and thats on A/T 31x10.5 R15's. Normal sized road wheels should give better results. There is talk of the 2.8 Isuzu Mu's getting over 40mpg out of theirs.

[Retro Pedro]

Doing the oil changes at the specified time is the pointer that comes up alot on here. Seen it mentioned every 3,000 miles but I guess that is relative to the mileage you do. Would have thought 3k miles for short journeys is the must.

As regards mileage, when I first got mine and running unmoded on normal road tyres, I reckoned on just about 530 miles per tank full (80 litres) mixed motoring. Now it's modded and runs on more extreme Insa Special tracks, with the short runs and playing down the woods and limited laning, reckon 400 miles is the limit.

[awdriver96]

The minute you go off road using low gears and 4wd all bets are off, the fuel consumption can drop to 15-16 mpg as you would expect. Both mine did around 33 -34 mpg on a run on the roada couple of miles less in town. These are an excellent engine good for over 400k miles if used sensibly and the oil changed at 3-4k as you say doing short journeys means sooner rather than later on the oil and filter changes. There is real animosity from some on the quick warm up system, but both mine still have it on ( just new owners) and it still works fine, you only need it when temps get down to freezing anyway and it does work then, it only works at small throttle openings, once you start pressing the loud pedal it cancels it out then.
Ratty if yours stuck you must have been wallowing in mud and then not used the power wash on it, never had one stick yet!
The best thing for any diesel is a good long journey at motorway speeds, it clears out the engine and exhaust and you can feel the difference when driving and the engine goes quieter too.
Really a diesel engine comes into its own on long reasonably fast journeys, for round town and pottering the petrol is still king, we buy these because they do a little more mpg and so keep the cost of owning a 4x4 down, but loads of short slow journeys just bungs a diesel engine up. I try to go a decent run once month at least,which isnt hard as my son and grand children are 30mls away up the M6 so it gets more than one a month and 6-7 times a year I go down to Norfolk which is 250 motorway miles ech way, it really does go better after one of those trips.
Mike

[RatCav]

Mine worked fine awdriver96. Besides the Mk.I Trooper has the exhaust flap in the elbow coming out of the turbo. Its nice and high and doesn't get covered in crud. The only reason I have disabled it was I ripped all the vacuum pipes out for the EGR's and couldn't be bothered to figure out what was what. I found I never needed to use it. When we had the extreme cold snap with the snow I just started her up, tweaked the hand throttle a bit to raise the revs by a couple of hundred rpm and turned it down once I had driven for a minute or so. I will at some point be actually taking the gubbins off the inlet and exhaust and blanking the holes just for completeness sake.

As you say if you do a lot of wading in muddy waters the Frontera (and Mk.II/III Trooper for that fact) exhaust flap will soon start to give trouble unless you powerwash and scrub it clean. The Trooper boys often call it the "Do Not Touch Button"

Just to confirm that an oil change every 3-4000 miles is the recommended interval. Though to be honest these engines are tough old beasts and if you lapse its no big deal. I reckon I do mine every 6000 miles as that falls within my 3 month check-up schedule, but I tend to do long easy journeys with little town driving. Another thing your looking at 10W/40 semi-synthetic for oil in both the engine (4.3 litres) and gearbox (3 litres) (if manual gearbox, Automatic Transmission Fluid if an automatic). Front diff takes 75W/90 (1 litre) and the rear diff takes 75W/90 (1 litre) or LSD oil if you have an LSD (G80 on the VIN plate or if you jack the rear end off the ground and find that by spinning one wheel the other turns the same direction)

Don't be concerned if your temp guage doesn't rise much. These are cool running engines. Mine barely makes it past the 1/8 mark, and I can put my hand on the rocker cover after a 300 mile journey. I have found it will rise no more than the 1/4 mark when towing a 2 ton trailer up and down hills.

[awdriver96]

Yes as you say a seriously laid back motor the 2.8 and will last longer than the car particularly with the nasty egr disabled.
Mike

[Alfie]

Cheers Guys for the pointers. oil change and egr off then