BMW Defender Early 90 with the increasingly popular M57 diesel engine

A CHANGE OF HEART

Everywhere you look, people are turning to the BMW M57 diesel engine for repowering old Land Rovers. It’s a conversion that’s existed for a long time – but it’s suddenly starting to become popular. And it’s the reason why the 90 you’re looking at here packs more of a punch than you’d ever imagine

Words and pictures: Dan Fenn

Ihave had more than 140 cars in my motoring career,’ says Mark Burley. ‘If something doesn’t interest me, I wont keep it.’

When we met him, Mark was in the process of coming round to the decision that he didn’t want to sell his 1987 Land Rover 90 after all. He’d had it advertised, but then the realisation began to dawn on him that actually, it was pretty spot-on. ‘I don’t do millions of miles,’ he explained. ‘It’s good fun and has bags of power when you want it.’

Bags of power? That’s not something you hear people saying about early 90s very often. But that’s because they’re not often talking about early 90s powered by the M57 engine from a

BMW 330d.

In recent times, the M57 has started to become something of a go-to engine for repowering old

Land Rovers. Land Rover itself went there for the

L322 Range Rover, which sounds like a vote of confi dence, and the appearance of BMW engines in this and the earlier P38 means there’s no shortage of parts in the Solihull bin to make the conversion work.

Even if there hadn’t been, we’re pretty certain that Mark would have gone ahead and made a success of it anyway. He’s an engineer by trade who used to run a motorsport garage and he’s restored, modifi ed, raced, laned, owned and sold more cars than you’ve had hot dinners. Which means that this job didn’t scare him – and also that if he did decide to sell it, it shouldn’t scare the buyer either. The world is littered with Land Rovers that have been ruined by horrendously done DIY work, but approximately fi ve seconds in Mark’s company would be enough to confi rm to you that his has been put together as professionally as they come.

It wasn’t just a case of fi nding a nice 90 and swapping its engine, though. The BMW unit went in as part of a comprehensive chassis-up rebuild that also saw the vehicle renewed and improved in almost every area.

‘Initially, the BMW swap was done into my pal Tom’s Land Rover,’ Mark explains. ‘I did the wiring and helped him with the tricky technical stuff. I liked the conversion, however I wanted a cleaner truck – so I bought his tatty one, took the parts I wanted and built mine up.

‘I think my 90 was a farmer special, but sadly that’s about all I know of its history. It was my lockdown project – I decided I wanted to do the build so I bought piles and piles of parts and just worked through it.

We mentioned the chassis, and this needed a bit of welding – which Mark farmed out to Landy specialist Rob Cowley in Salisbury. ‘He also helped out with fi nding the odd part I was missing and so on,’ he says, which goes to show the value of having The Knowledge on your side.

Mark’s intention was always to create a nice, honest, clean looking 90 rather than either an

Here’s where the real magic happens. Or where the real magic has already happened, depending on how you look at it. Mark installed a BMW M57 184bhp engine from a 2002 model 330d, deleting the EGR valve and catalytic convertor in the process. The engine’s original exhaust manifold runs into the vehicle’s exhaust via a custom down pipe, and there’s a custom line for the PAS as well as an additional external fuel pump Above right: Up front, the engine is cooled by the radiator from a Td5. The intercooler came from the same source, and air is drawn through both by the biggest electric fan it’s possible to fi t behind them Right: The engine breathes in through a Safari Snorkel – not because Mark has any intention of giving the 90 that level of stick off-road, though he lives near enough to Salisbury Plain to have had more than his share of moments in the deceptively deep water troughs you get there

‘My mate gave me his keys when he first got his Land Rover… I got back out afterwards and threw the keys back at him as it drove so badly!’

up-yours pavement princess or some sort of winch-til-ya-puke off-road battle chariot. Starting a project by stripping your vehicle right down to a bare chassis gives you lots of opportunities in this area, and in some ways he feels he didn’t make the most of them.

‘I would have had spent more effort on doing the bodywork while it was all apart,’ he says when we ask if there was anything he’d have done differently. ‘The paint on the bulkhead irritates me as when it was painted previously they didn’t strip it right down. I have a new screen seal so it may get sorted out. And I’d possibly have spent more time detailing parts – however when it’s covered in Waxoyl does it really matter?’ The answer may be in the question…

So, listen and learn. When your vehicle is in bits, take the chance to make those bits as good as

Above left: Both axles are late-spec 23-spline units. They’re turned by standard props but contain all new bearings and the front diff guard is painted in chrome. ‘Deffo makes it faster,’ says Mark… Above right: ’It’s designed to be a nice riding vehicle rather than for climbing mountains,’ says Mark of a 90 whose suspension remains largely standard. Well, standard but with Discovery springs at the back. The main causes for comment here are the new location components and polyurethane bushes Mark used throughout

Above: We don’t normally clap our hands in delight when we see chequer-plate cladding on a vehicle’s sills and door bottoms. But it’s somehow in keeping on this one’s black and grey theme. The latter, by the way, is what Mark describes as ‘not quite Audi Nardo grey…’ Right: Having had the 90 resprayed, Mark set about trying get his hands on an original sticker set. Easier said than done, as it turned out. ‘The turbo badge was almost impossible,’ he says. ‘However it’s my favourite bit!’

they can be. It’s possible that you’re intending to rebuild your Landy then sell it on, but don’t ignore that nagging itch that says you’d quite like to keep it, really, because it won’t go away.

You know the kind of cheap seal kits and so on that people say you should only use if you’re getting the truck ready to sell, because they’ll last about a fortnight? Just say no. Not that Mark would have countenanced using rubbish, but he does admit that if he’d known how much he was going to like the vehicle when it was fi nished, he might have done a few things differently.

‘I have previously restored a fast Ford and I’m doing another one. Everything was perfect on them, so I was trying to rein in the budget. I was unsure if the vehicle was for me long-term, so there are a few areas now that I would have upgraded. I’d have used a new wiring harness, for instance, rather than just putting the old one back in.’

He also says that in hindsight, he’d have used a BMW auto box rather than sticking with the manual. That’s because the engine has so much power, accelerating involves a somewhat breathless scramble through the ratios – defi nitely not what a Land Rover gearstick was designed for.

He’d also put a cab heater, central locking and rear seats on his wish list – which, given that all these things can indeed be achieved, makes you wonder whether it’s going to be all that long before this 90 gets rebuilt again. These few creature comforts are all he thinks it would take, and he’d have nailed the spec for his defi nitive 90.

Not bad for a man whose fi rst experience of a Defender was very much the opposite of this. ‘I hadn’t really driven a Land Rover before,’ Mark admits. ‘But my mate gave me his keys when he fi rst got his… I got back out afterwards and threw the keys back at him as it drove so badly! And now I have one myself…’

He’s a convert, see. Not the fi rst and he won’t be the last, but one of the more notable petrol heads to have fallen under the spell of the offroad magic. After 140 cars and counting, he’s fi nally found the one…