Navara Terrano 2.7TD conversion

Hello, my Navara has blown up one too many times and now I am going to do what I should have done in the first place. That is fit a Terrano II  2.7TD engine.

I bought this truck knowing they had a sword of Damocles hanging over them, but this one had a recently reconditioned engine which I assumed would last over 100,000 miles that the original engine had. 3 months later the engine started making a dreadful noise, so we stopped and were recovered home. I removed the engine and stripped it down but could find no obvious fault, just a bit of wear on the big ends. Nowhere near enough to cause so much noise.

I had been researching these trucks for a while and the consensus of opinion seemed to be that upgrading the YD engine would be the better option over a conversion. £500 later I had fitted the upgrade parts from Billcar. Shells, con rod bolts, oil pipe conversion and a new oil pump.

A couple of thousand miles later more noise this time definitely from the top of the engine. On inspection all I could find wrong was a tooth missing on the timing chain sprocket which caused the chain to tighten and go slack. So two new sprockets and its running quite and smooth loads of power, great...

Now a month later its gone bang again,this time I haven't the will or energy to look but there is no compression so I suspect there are some nice round holes in the pistons. I am not wasting any more time or money on this engine, when I have finished the conversion I will strip it and sell the good parts in as many different places I can so there is no way it could ever get back together again.

I have been looking allover the internet for advice or information about this conversion I know it can be done because everything  is possible with a bit of determination. The advice that I could find was contradictory and dispersed, a bit here a bit there and not always relevant. So I am going to record how I get on, maybe that will help someone.