Ive had enough!

[Yoshi]

! week after i get the rangie back from having the gearbox done, the head gasket goes!

[AbyssDJ]

congratulations... its a little baby land rover! :lol:  :roll:

[Yoshi]

I know, am going to attempt a head gasket repair myself :-o lol, although need to check first, got white smoke out the exit and the rad is [!Expletive Deleted!] lol

[Range Rover Blues]

The only thing you need to watch is that the heads might need skimming.  None of the gaskets costs the earth, not that that;s any consolation to a guy with a massive hole in his pocket already but a head set should be under £40.

Add in some new anti-freeze and a bit of threadlock for the head bolts.

Skimming can cost from a few beers to  :shock: loads :shock: , ask around.

But a relatively easy DIY.

[Yoshi]

I dont know if there is any visual way to see if the heads need skimming or not, but i think i might be ok, as the engine cut out before the guage went up to the red, and there was no massive smoking from the engine when it went, so i am praying the heads arent warped!

[Range Rover Blues]

Lordy, we're up late mate.

When the heada are off, check them with a straight edge and shine a light on the from behind, any gaps will be evident.  Check how warped with a straight edge and feeler guages.

Your problem comes in that the heads won't just warp along their lenght but side to side and this cannot be pulled out.

if you think they are ok then fitting composite gaskets will give you a better chance of it all working reliably, even if it's at the cost of a little performance.  Compsite gaskets compress down to 1.2mm rather than the ali gaskets being 0.5mm, thus reducing the compresion ratio.

[Dr Strangeglove]

Do you know what caused it to blow the gasket?  Did it overheat?  If so you need to know what caused it to overheat!  I had to do the heads on mine a couple of months back.  It cost me £140 to have the heads skimmed and tested (£25 per skin/£25 per test and £40 to have two studs removed after they broke trying to get the exhaust off).  The composite head gasket set cost me about £40 ish, new oil filter, oil, air filter, coolant, new breather pipe, etc cost a further £70 ish.  Then a big favour from a friend of mine who is a mechanic.

One thing I would suggest is take loads of photos before you start of all the different little fiddly bits.  Mine is a 3.9 Vogue so you have the alternator, PAS pump and aircon pump all mounted to the front and all need to come off - when it comes to re-assembly and you aren’t quite sure which way the bracket went and using what spacers, the visual reminder will help.

I marked my ht leads/rubber tubes and hoses/wiring etc with some tipex.  The little sponge on the tipex corrector is very useful - however - if you can also use a permanent marker per use that also - tipex can come off dirty rubber and wiring as it tends to flake off when the parts flex.

I am no mechanic and I would have been goosed without my friend.

Good luck with it mate.

Just one more thing, depending on the year your engine may have 14 or 10 bolts in each head.  If it has 14 bolts then the outer 4 should not be tightened to the same torque as the other 10. look at the RPi web site which states:-

“All post '96 Rover V8 engines no longer have the outer 4 head bolts on each bank, this is what the engine has always needed, but it took Rover 25 years to realize it. The following solutions/actions are available to you.

 Do Nothing. Well Rover got away with it for 25 years. It's a far-off, long term problem on new engines and an immediate problem on all pre '96 used, medium to high mileage engines, of all assumed conditions.

 Use conventional tin (shim steel ) gaskets to retain compression ratio. This is actually better than it may seem, you can (we would) refit the outer 4 offending bolts as Rover, but torque them to only 20-25ft/lb so they fill the hole but have no detrimental effect, this is generally the best option if your head and block faces are new or near perfect order.

 Fit composite gaskets. This is the surest way of getting the best head gasket seal, but unlike the above option, will lower the compression ratio by a factor of about 0.6-1 (important to some but not to most).”

http://www.v8engines.com/engine-4.htm

[Yoshi]

I have the manual on cd here for the range rover, and mine is the 89 3.9 v8 which would apparently have the 3 sets of bolts, but i have the torque settings for all of it!

Am thinking of letting it get done by a mechanic, all except for the rad which i can do meself!

Also no idea why it went, was going up a nasty hill, put me foot down for kick down and it happened, went up to about 3500rpm then it was heating up when accelerating and cooling when braking!

[Yoshi]

well its not officially off the road for a while :( there is no way i can do it myself, not enough knowledge) and me local garage who are pretty good said the cheapest he could do it for was £450 for both sides :( he will however do the test in a couple of weeks to see what side it is to see if we can lower the cost, but in the meantime i swapped me pc and £100 for a motor on his forecourt, an n-reg mundano with tax and test til november (just the base unit of the pc, not the tft monitor)

[Dr Strangeglove]

I am sure you will get loads of posts now telling you to do both sides.  A lot of the hard work is in taking of all the parts that are in the way of you getting to the heads.  The only labour I think you will save is on the removal of the second head, and the removal of the exhaust manifold from that side - as for parts they come as a set - I would recommend you refit a composite gasket though - slightly more expensive but a good look at the RPI website will convince you!

I am in a similar situation to you in that I have had the heads done but it is still overheating.  It seems ok when I drive at a reasonable speed but then starts to struggle when I start doing a lot of turning (slowing down then accelerating away).  I am presuming now that it is the radiator (but this is more a presumption in hope) as the water seems to circulate, the heater works very well (I was advised by difflock that if the water pump is not working very well the heater would tend to blow hot and cold!) and I have removed the thermostat to ensure it is not that.  I can only think of two remaining items - the radiator (one for mine I have priced new at £165 at the moment) which you may think seems an expensive part but I am hoping that this is the problem as the only other thing I can think of is a cracked block or slipped piston lining and I do not want to even consider that!!

dave362 currently has a rad for the 3.5 on ebay to collect from York - current price £50 with a day to go - only six months old apparently.  Whilst your rad is not as expensive as mine, £50 for one six months old looks OK.

ONE MORE THING: Range Rover Blue's told me that sometimes the timing being out can cause overheating - again look at the RPI website for a description of how to fist check you have the correct TDC on your pulley before you check the timing.

Oops - forgot to mention - Land Rover Owner International magazine had an article on checking the head and also for checking for a cracked block.  Whilst I want the original I will photocopy it or scan it if you want (as it was last month), just let me know a fax number or email address.

I hope all goes as smoothly as it possibly can mate.

Regards

Mick

[Lucy1978]

I'm still lost as to what's telling you your heads have gone.  Your radiator is shot and it was over heating, well those go together quite well.  Do you have water in your oil? are you loosing coolant, not through a leaky rad?

Heads aren't a difficult job, just takes time, the longest usually waiting for the guy to skim them, normally about 20 quid a head.

[Yoshi]

The AA man said he thought the head had gone (or one of them) by the white exhaust fumes, they were coming out cold and white, but i dont know enough to argue with him, the only thing i have to go against is when the head went on the vm and the spoke was very dense and stayed in the air, whereas this smoke doesnt stay in the air, it comes out the exhaust massively but dissipates quite quickly :D

He also put 10 litres of water in, all of which is now on bettyblue22's drive as we are sure the rad is leaking lol

[Yoshi]

i have all the LRO's (only just read the post again) so will have a wee look through after :D

[Range Rover Blues]

The recovery guy told us the heads might be gone on RRR after it dumped it's water and overheated.

It took another 6 months to fail :roll:

[Yoshi]

Sol it might not be the heads then?  So i should change the rad and see what it does then?

[Lucy1978]

I would, sort out the known problems before looking for other ones.  Change the rad, make sure all the hoses and connections are water tight and keep a close eye ont he temperature gauge and the coolant level, if it plays up again then whip the heads off and have a look.

[Yoshi]

ok, cos it only went on this one hill, it never went on it before.

[Dr Strangeglove]

Have you checked the compression on all the cylinders - I had a similar problem to you and got quite a few replies "3.9 Auto overheating" and "V8 Overheating".  I have bumped them to the top so you can see the advise I was given.

[Yoshi]

OK, i will have a wee look now :D

[dave362]

Seems like I am plugging the second hand (6 months old) radiator that I have for sale all over this site, but I think the prices that I have seen quoted and paid on here that I must. Less than £100 as new for mine. Also many other drive train and engine parts from an 87 3.5efi

[Garth]

Took my motor 2 months to convince me the head gasket had gone.  Running rough on tick over, steam out of exhuast on start up lack of power etc.  Did compression test and all seamed ok Changed/renewed all HT leads coil dizzy cap etc. Got a bit better.  Checked and found air leaks on intake side so replaced injector seals and inlet manifold (valley) gasket again made better.  Then hydolically locked when starting and smashed starter motor.  After fitting new/second hand starter thought it would be a good idea to remove plugs to reduce load and when I turned over there was a plume of water appiered out of no 1 cylinder plug hole.

Turned out that head gasket had gone between no1 and waterway.

Search mine and RRB posts as there may be a lot of usefall info for you.

Cost wise I paid £60 for skimming both heads from a classic car speciaslist £40 for head set from Bearmarch the rest was TLC

Refitted with 10 bolt composite gaskets after advice from RRB and local Morgan racing specialist

[Range Rover Blues]

Was it drinking much water Garth, becasue my LSE is doingh something similar and it starts straight away but it's rough for a few seconds, it smokes rather than steams but uses very little water which I put down to the weep on the rad anyway.

[Yoshi]

well i am gonna try just the rad first and see what happens!  got the gasket set in already just in case, £13 all in delivered for 2 composite gaskets :D

[Garth]

Until the last week before gasket went totally the water use wasnt to bad the exhaust could best be discribed as "heavy steam" if that makes any sence

[Yoshi]

Heavy steam sounds about right for whats happening on mine.

[Range Rover Blues]

Well I don't know about mine, it was steaming but LPG does that. Now the weather's improved it doesn't do it.  It's been running rough since last summer when I fitted the LPG (rooughly) and I know i damaged the inlet gasket (had to use black silicone) so that needs doing again but I'm loathed to disturb the heads just for the sake of it.

Oh and I think the cam might be past it's best, which is another culprit.

[Garth]

Badger dont hold me to this but unless you need to use the motor daily keep running it till you definatly have failier or are 100% sure of fault ie it gets lots worse.

If you end up getting heads done and intend to keeping it for a while get them skimmed, head de coked and valves lapped in and get hydrolic lifters (tappets) checked and all top end oilways cleaned out.  
Dependning on how much cash you have spare of course.

Point to note £450 is a lot to spend on half an engine is the rest of the engine worth it.
If you can change the rad you should be able to do heads.  If you did it yourself would cost a 1/4 of that.  Digital camera, pen and paper, a half decent tool kit and some patients (and a spell checker) however if your as good a mechanic as I am at DIY send it to  a garage. :D  :D  :D

[Yoshi]

I am considering doing it myself, generally it is run as a daily motor and would need to be used as such, its not so bad right now as its off the road cos of the fault, so driving a mundano!!!

[Range Rover Blues]

It's nothing that's beyond you mate if you have the patience, but I 'd say fix the rad and see what it's like.

[Dr Strangeglove]

Keep us informed Badger!!

Good luck with it mate - I hope the Rad solves the problem.