Hello all!

I just picked up a 98 Disco for 1100 bucks last night, the seller disclosed that it had overheating problems but only sometimes, and that he never let it get too hot. He even offered to tow it to my place with a tow truck. I have read for the past 6 hours about overheating issues and while I have learned a lot, my situation is slightly different than all those that I have read.

1. The clutch fan is shot. I can stop it with my hand while the motor is at 3000 rpm.

2. The upper rad hose was literally flat when I did a pre test drive inspection.

3. On the test drive it overheated when arriving back at the house and te upper hose was now hard as a rock and now a 3 inch hose or larger lol.

4. On the test drive I kept hearing water rushing around in the dash.(could that be air in the heater core?)

My question is where do I start? Should I purge the system first? New clutch fan? Engine tear down? I am pretty handy with a wrench. Could the motor be junk even though it runs great, starts right up, no noise,(except a small exhaust leak) it even has decent power.

Thanks in advance for the advice guys!

 

Start with the Chevy fan clutch mod from the tech section.
Replace the thermostat and all coolant hoses.
Make sure the belt is routed correctly.
Flush the cooling system with a off the shelf flush.
Make sure you bleed it well.

 

Thanks for the help! What are your thoughts on the condition of the engine? If it is spent, what are my options for replacement?

 

I wouldn't call the engine done for yet, correct the overheating issue and go from there.

 

Thanks. I'm planning on spending most of the day tomorrow working ok it so I'll post a few updates as I go.

 

1. When you think overheated, you think gauge off the scale. In reality, Rover temp gauge is normally at 9:00 from 135 - 235F, so by the time it starts to crawl up, it is way too hot.

2. The bubbles rushing under the dash are either air (hopefully) or exhaust (probably). The cooling system routes water through the heater core all the time, and dampers make heat come to where you want it.

3. The rad fan does not have much impact if you are going 35 - 40 mph, you can drive without it in a pinch. But people do get the belt route wrong, etc. The cupped side of the blade goes toward the engine block, and a plastic trash bag held in front of the grille should be sucked toward the grille. Your clutch is toast from description.

4. IMHO you have more likely got some serious head gasket leak. Now parts are $300, and machine shop is about $200. If you want to check this out before the fan clutch, hoses, thermostat, there is a $50 chemical "exhaust gas in coolant" test you can buy at auto parts store, it will do maybe 15 tests. Any white smoke out the back? Coolant in oil? Loss of coolant?

5. I certainly believe you will need all of what Spike says, plus a radiator boil / rod out, plus maybe head gaskets (hope not). What we hope it is not is a cracked block.

 

Wow you guys are wealth of information. I will pick up a tester. Is it as simple to replace the head gasket on a rover as it is on a 66 mustang lol. If so I can easily do that. Just pull the heads and have them cleaned and decked?

 

Yup, head gaskets is a long week end in your garage if you have the parts and tools.
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But dont do that, wait until you get the rest figured out, you say it runs fine and strong, so lets concentrate on the overheating.
Clogged radiators are common, and expensive.

 

The radiator can be gunked up, or clogged with trash between it and the AC condenser. Indy rad shops can boil out the copper radiator, and rod it out, about $70 near me, look for a shop that does farm equipment, they don't care about the MSRP on the Disco. But that swollen hose means a lot of pressure.

 

Okay. I'll start there. Also, as a side note, I went out to start it this morning as the starter didn't even click. I immediately thought bare wire killed the battery but I came back 3 hrs later an boom, she fired right up! Any weird rover thing or prob just a loose wire to starter solenoid?