Hello everyone. Have not checked-in for a while and thought may give you an update. My 2000 DII now has 132 K miles. If someone recalls I have (DIYS) redone my heads at 106 K, just about 2.5 years ago. All was fine up until 3 weeks ago, when I started noticing excessive white smoke upon engine start up. The Check Engine light also came on. Drove it little after that as the DI is mostly doing spare car duty these days. This week it started running really rough, at idle and started blowing even more white smoke upon start-up. Checked the coolant level.....low, at the bottom of the expansion tank. Refilled, 50-50 mix. Sooo, today I decided to look into it what is going on. Plugged in OBDII reader and got the following:

P1590 No description found in the database
P1174 Cam sensor fault
P1171 Rotor sensor fault
P0301 Cylinder 1 misfire

Then, I removed the spark plugs, left (driver) bank first. As expected, plug No. 1, all black, and.....MOIST. Woohoo, I am up to something here. Removed plug No. 3, looking just fine. Plug No. 5 fine, Plug No. 7 fine. The onto the right bank. Plug No. 2, fine, and all the rest same. After I was done removing the plugs, took a flashlight and peaked through spark plug hole right into the cylinder (No. 1, 3, 2 & 4 are the only ones you can look into fairly easily) and, bingo. It just happened that No. 1 was near TDC when I last shut the engine.
What did I see?...... a sea of range colored coolant, right inside of the cylinder.

Now, I have a project on hand. Already started removing all auxiliary parts and making a shopping list.

I really do not understand why the engine head gasket blew after short 26K miles. I am not a mechanic by a trade, but have done few complete engine overhauls in my lifetime, strictly as a hobby, and passionate one I have to say. Also, there is no evidence of head gaskets failure at the typical (for Rover V8 engines) rear end location.

Now, I have to say, I did buy rather economical engine gasket set from British Pacific to do the last job. In fact, I was scratching my head about it while doing the original job, as the oil pan gasket was anything but the right piece. Had to buy a another one from friendly local Land Rover dealer just to finish the project. Furthermore, the spark plug wire kit I got from British Pacific lasted only 10K miles (now replaced by Magnecor), the new water pump was slowly seeping coolant through stem vent hole from day 1, the new lifters were clicking happily and nosily from day 1, the serpentine belt is not looking pretty after 26K miles. Lesson was learned. I can not afford to buy cheap replacement parts from British Pacific anymore. O.K. Rant off now.

I do want to keep my Disco for a while longer. I will fix it, using only the best top of the line parts, suggestions for which I would greatly appreciate. Also, in addition of using wrong parts, was choice of Prestone Dex-Cool Extended Life (orange) coolant wrong for my old faith full Disco?

 

Dex-cool is what the D2s came from the factory with so I would say that was a good decision. If you completely flushed the cooling system you could have gone with any coolant but if you didn't go through that then staying with dex-cool was the right choice. I have been told that dex-cool mixed with any of other kind of coolant creates cottage cheese inside your engine. Not a good thing.

Go to Atlantic British for your gaskets. Did you use new head bolts when you reinstalled your heads? LR head bolts are designed to only be used once because they stretch. If the old bolts were reused that could be your problem. You may also want to have your heads checked by a machine shop to make sure the mating surface is perfectly flat.

Another thing to keep in mind and look out for is that the coolant in the cylinders may have damaged your catalytic converters. Watch for codes to pop up pointing to the cats.

Sorry to hear you're having to redo all your work.

 

It is rare, assuming the last head gasket job was done well, with new head bolts and proper torquing sequences, that the head gaskets will fail for a second time. I will be curious to see what you find.

 

AK Rover, new bolts were used and the heads were resurfaced in a professional machine shop.

Mike, I definitely used the correct bolt torquing sequence. Yes, I am also very curious what will I find when the heads are off. I may be able to remove them still today.

 

sorry to hear about your situation.
Keep us all posted on any conclusions/results.
I might be playing around with my Disco as well...just found some coolant sitting on the valley gasket.....urghhh!!

Good luck-man.

 

It is possible you just have a bad valley gasket though. I would get in there and replace it and then see if you see more coolant. You may just be leaking coolant from the valley gasket seal and no actually from the head gasket. when I did my head gaskets some of the coolant was actually coming from the valley gasket side of the cylinder head on my right side.

Let me know if you need some help, it's not too bad a job (even the full blown head gasket repair).

 

What if any special tools do you recommend for replacing head gaskets? I have a 1/2' torque wrench. i have heard that getting some of the headbolts out can be an issue.

 

OK! I worked on it yesterday, however, not enough to remove the heads yet. However, have removed all of the auxiliaries in front of the engine, including water pump. This exposed the front of both cylinder heads. I am not going to make a premature conclusion, but my original suspission about inferiority of the head gaskets I have used on the last job may be correct. What I see is sign of coolant seepage between the heads (both) and the block in several places. Still, this will be confirmed once I remove the heads.

 

You need a good long breaker bar (32" or so) and a 24" breaker bar, good metric impact socket set, wobble extension kit, impact driver extension kit, jointed extended ratchet, 12 point 8mm socket for rocker cover bolts, a good assortment of ratchet and wrench sizes to reach some hard to get bolts. And an assortment of regular tools (screw drivers, vise grips, pliers etc). Plus your torque wrench.

I don't envy you, I hope my job holds out until the truck dies. Question how did you get the viscous fan off?

 

This one is little tricky, I removed it the same way as last time ..... with the entire water pump. Once off, they are fairly easily to separate on the bench.