Here's some pix that may help.

To the right of thermostat - plug with brown top is two wire coolant temp to ECM, single wire to left of it is temperature sensor for gauge.

Finger points to feed side of hot coolant to the throttle plate heater. Text added.

Same items, view from driver's fender.

View of far side of intake, line runs intake to top of valve cover, oil separator connection.

 

Hope it turns out to be something simple, easy and cheap.

When I worked as A Reliability Engineer on Tomahawk, they had a TAAF program, Test Analyze And Fix. You ran it until it failed, fixed it, and ran the hell out of it again until it quit or you accumulated a predetermined number of hours. Hope you do not embark on that.

 

Danny, definitely not giving up. This will be a rock solid Rover by the time I'm done one way or another

Buzz, I was actually half joking about the coolant to vacuum idea but those are great pics and have helped confirm everything is hooked up right. I even did some neat custom things with the plumbing I'll post pics of eventually.

ihscouts, yes the smoke is white, smells like coolant, and there was also drops of water coming out the tail pipe. It also gets worse as the engine warms up. I think it all points pretty clearly towards a HG leak.

What else could cause those symptoms? Gas? Front cover gasket? Crack in block/heads? Mating surfaces not flat enough? I'm going to double check with the machinist to make sure he checked these things.

If it is just HG then the question is what is wrong with the HG? Inadequate torque? bad HG? oily mating surface?

If inadequate torque is the cause then maybe I can just re-torque to 80 lb-ft as a permanent solution. Or maybe it'll be a bunch more work just to find out it didn't help.

 

Did you have everything checked for cracks by the machinist? Sounds dumb but I've seen a few instances where shops just assumed heads and blocks were fine, did a quick machining and returned them to the customer only for the items to be flawed due to lack of inspection before hand. A small crack in a water jacket would be enough to cause your problem and may have been missed during the process. Sounds totally dumb but it happens more than you'd think.

See if you can narrow it down to a certain cylinder or at least one bank of cylinders and go from there. You may not want to hear this but in these situations it usually requires one or both heads to be pulled back off to verify the problem.

On the bright side is could also be as simple as one of the gaskets up top leaking. Anything that seals a water passage needs to be checked though if you're getting coolant into one or more of the cylinders. Sometimes the dumbest things can cause the biggest problem.

Good luck with everything, as far as you've come this will likely just be another small bump in the road.

 

What was the initial issue that started this project? If it was for coolant in the exhaust then a step was omitted when you committed to rebuilding. Magnafluxing the block and heads is always your first step when rebuilding a high mileage motor. Next is slipped liner which a pressure test helps to find besides the fingernail check for uneven deck at the liners.

Alright, beyond that......did you use any sealant around the intake coolant ports and did you correctly torque down your intake manifold in sequence and what torque value did you use?

Not all hope is lost yet bud....... check the intake.

Just info for future though. When you skin the heads or deck a block it changes the angle at which the intake fits. It's slight but enough. Check for coolant on the valley pan gasket, specifically in the back where it's hard to immediately see.

 

Would a pressure test at this point possibly show where it may be leaking?

Or some of that leak detector stuff you add to the coolant, run it and use a special light or goggles to see it glow?

Hopefully it's not a cracked block after all that.

 

Kit is 124-4006. Rangerovers.net has several members saying to use 60ftlbs instead of 80, that 80 is too high. Only one member had a hg failure in 6 months after stud install.

 

Good to know.

I think I would look into some ultraviolet or similar dye penetrant crack detection. I know there are kits out there. I have seen them in various Parts Stores.

My oldest son works for Wife's Cousin Frank as a Certified Welding Inspector at the local USS Steel Works plants. He brings home partial spray cans of dye and developer all the time.

 

Blown HG leaking coolant externally and into oil. Machinist should have checked for cracks and mating surface flatness. I will check with him Monday.

I did not use any sealant around the intake. Just the valley pan gasket with no RTV.

Drained oil. Can't tell if there's coolant in it. All the engine assembly lube I packed the oil pump with makes the oil silvery looking anyways. As an experiment I mixed fresh oil with EAL to see what it looked like compared to what came out of the engine. Engine oil looked only slightly more brown. Then I added a bit of coolant and stirred it up, there was no way I could tell the coolant was mixed in.

 

Let the coolant and oil mixture sit for a couple of days, it will separate.
The oil it lighter and will float ontop of the coolant, but it will take several days of not being agitated to settle and separate.