congrats on the kiddies!
how are you sleeping
nice rig, curious, how did you trash the engine?
Regarding sleeping, I'm happy to say that both of our kids are great sleepers. Our baby usually sleeps non-stop from around 20:00-07:00. Lucky us.
As to how I damaged the engine, see photo. It was due to a moment of unbridled stupidity, compounded by some very bad luck. I'm normally a very careful driver, espousing the "as slow as possible, as fast as necessary" approach. However, I occasionally go momentarily insane and do something stupid, and this was an example. I decided to make a nice splash for a photo. Well, I got the photo. This happened during the Ottawa Valley Land Rover (OVLR) birthday party in 2008.
As you can see, the water is not particularly deep at all. I'd certainly been through deeper. However, as it turns out I'd lost the nipple from the bottom of my air intake, and the water just happened to splash up into my engine compartment the wrong way. I didn't have the raised air intake on at the time. That addition was a case of shutting the stable door before the horse bolts again.
Since then, I've added the snorkel, put in a new crankshaft, pistons, conrods, some valve rollers & bearings (don't remember exactly what any more), welded a crack in the head, and rebuilt the transmission. While it was apart anyway I also added a stainless exhaust, welded a rust hole in the footwell, and had some rewiring done.
My friends and I attempted a first fix of the engine, but that involved only a new conrod and some other changes. Other than the learning experience (I'd never taken apart an engine), that ended up being a waste of time and money so when it was clear that was insufficient, I paid a professional to do it.