You may have a head gasket just starting to fail. When mine went I hit 196 after idling for 20 minutes otherwise it ran fine. It was just enough over pressure to dump coolant out of the the overflow. The gasket had a hairline crack.

As to the lifters, you can get them out fairly easily. No need to remove the heads, it just takes a few 4 letter words and some finagling. I used a pair of circlip pliers to apply pressure on the inside and ease them up and check them when I did my heads.

 

Agreed, I can't imagine why heads would have to come out for lifters. I'd try some treatment/oil before tearing in as it would really suck to have a clip pop out of a lifter or something else fall in while the motor is in the car...if going through hassle of pulling them I'd either replace or rebuild them all. Hear horror stories about some of the "new" options these days however.

 

I highly agree with you. I just installed it last weekend and it's really nice having the UG tucked up out of the way

 

Compression test is always a good starting point, for determining engine condition. Granted, it's a no fun situation with SAI. Did you try listening with a hose (3/8's X 24") around the engine. Seeing that it has SAI, another place l'd listen to...would be the check valves mount on top of SAI exhaust manifold.

As recommended, you could try an additive, run it for a bit and then change oil. To replace lifters, you need to remove tappet covers, rocker-arms, push-rods, throttle body plenum, intake manifold and valley pan. I don't believe you can pull them up through the head, like a small block chevy (using a lifter extraction tool)...the area around push-rod is to narrow. Scrapped the last set of heads l had lying around, but removing tappet covers will answer that question, for sure.

Me, if l was looking to go to an event, it would be...additive, oil change and watch coolant temperatures...and keep fingers crossed...lol. Like l said, drove my 01 4.0 1000 miles after drowning it bad...and it would make yours sound like it's not even running quiet, in comparison. Everything is a crap-shoot.

Good luck.

 

Well some good updates.

Everyone is spot on and I’ll be working towards all of it. However the mystery of what happened has been revealed. xrad put in a cool gauge, but sadly, it’s way off- I suspect by around 20 degrees at the higher end.

To explain, the Ultragauge got delivered today and of course like a kid on Christmas, I went down and installed it immediately. Well…



Per the original gauge it would read 194 or up to 197. I stopped when it hit 206 on the UG and 190 on the original gauge. Now I understand why the condenser fan was coming on: it was legitimately doing it’s job and although I can’t remember the temp it is to come on, I know it’s one I don’t care for.

But this is all in the fun of peeling back the onion, so I’m not deterred in slightest and just glad I could figure it out.

So next steps are: Flowkooler, 180 stat to be ordered, and then use the new in box radiator. That’s on the cooling system front. I mean shoot, it’s pretty much standard operating procedure to change all that out anyway and I’ve done it on every single D2 I’ve had, so nothing strange here.

Getting back to the engine and what to do there, I got a cheapo oil filter, a bunch of T4 oil- that stuff is CHEAP- and some Lubrimoly engine flush or lifter stuff or whatever and another OEM oil fiter and will do that dance after I get the cooling system refreshed. At that point, I’d say it’s at a nice steady state.

One other thing I played with a bit the other day was working adjusting the steering box (and yes, a spare came with the treasure trove). I made it a bit too loose, but I’d be pretty positive it had never been messed with as it took a huge amount of force to break it free. I’ll be doing a bit more fine tuning on that once I get the other stuff done.

I’m excited to get the shelves built for the barn and be able to organize all the parts and get to work on everything (a few things to do to the Alveston too).

 

You should install the cat back exhaust on the one that needs them. (I can't keep LR's stupid color names straight)

 

It’s GIVERNY you peasant! But yeah, I have the cat back (one of the couple it came with) exhausts on the ready to be installed on that one. I first need to get shelves built just to have the floor space to bring it and a couple more cars down to the barn. I’m not going to transfer all the tools down until we get the garage doors in (I think around 2 weeks out).

I’m going to focus on the Silver (finally I get one with a “normal” color name) for the time being in preparation for the Rally. I’m pretty certain after the cooling system refresh and engine flush (I’ll be doing back to back oil changes), it should be good to go- as best as possible given the engine concerns- to make it to Ouray and back. As long as it’s pretty steady state, I’ll then work on the Alveston (red) one to do injector seals, coils, plugs, and whatever else I should do while the intake is off to get that one in perfect shape. Oh yeah, the VSS sensor in the Alveston as well to FINALLY address that annoyance.

THEN I might work a little on the Giverny (green) one and see what’s up there.

I ordered the Flowkooler and 180 T stat, and those should get here early next week, which means next weekend will be when I get the Silver one back to a place I feel comfy with.

 

@The Deputy would be proud of me. Amazonia delivered a new toy to see if I can isolate sounds.



Based on the schizo weather here, we got a few inches of snow and driving around leaves me with a Disco that looks like this after only leaving our neighborhood.



I’m hoping to have one shelf built this weekend so I can get at least 3 cars in there now.



Next weekend will be spent working on the silver one I hope in doing the cooling system stuff and the engine flushes. Then we will really have the health determined and if I get to use the silver one.

 

I cannot tell you how envious I am of that barn. I dream of having that much space to work on cars in