Land Rover Forums - Land Rover Enthusiast Forum - Head Gasket the Shade Tree Way

EDIT: I have added lessons learned here, so readers won't have to dig thru everything. This write up is more of what not to do, and what happens when you make mistakes. It is not pretty, and you will see pictures of a very dirty engine, even though I have used Rotella and snake oils in the few years I have owned it. But it is a learning experience. I was able to get it back together and crank up. This would not have been possible without motivation from plenty of members.

1. Set up a work space. Pack up and unpack takes up a lot of time. Shade tree is fine, until you have rain almost every day. A garage or carport or barn is great. If you are out of hearing distance of others, so much the better. If working on dirt, a tarp helps you find dropped parts. But under a tree it collects water and you end up standing in puddles. I think the best would be a line tied fore to aft, under the tarp. Makes it a tent. Water drains to the side, and dropped parts come out right side or left side, you don't spend time reaching under the truck.

2. If you own ramps, they work great to elevate you some. I put mine on each side of the front wheels. If you have a brush bar you'll get tired of reaching over it.

3. A 24 inch breaker bar is good, a two foot piece of water pipe will slip over it and give you more leverage when needed.

4. Find all your tools. Before you start. Buy a big jug of hand cleaner.

5. You'll save money. But you won't save time. And SWMBO will take that saved money and apply it to much needed retail therapy. I was quoted $1710 plus machine shop. I know they would not have done all the small stuff I have piddled with, but my kid would have had her truck back a lot sooner.

6. Look over several posts about the project. Look at pictures. Read the RAVE.

7. Ask questions before you start or have road blocks. Right here on the forum. Some will screw with you (it's the internet), but most will have some point of view you might not have considered.

8. Don't try this at home if you only have an hour a day to throw at it.

9. Machine shop - don't skip that part. It cost me $250. Others did the HGs, and posted about them leaking badly. Second time, they went to machine shop and foound heads .004 inch out; .002 is the max. .038 inch is the thickness of your printer paper. Don't try to eyeball it, or test it with some home ruler and a feeler gauge. Don't try to use your own belt sander.

10. Valve train will likely need work to clean up. Will take plenty of time.

11. Gaskets should be bought in a set usually. You will at a minimum use two head gaskets, two valve cover, and the valley pan. Plus a few others if you like. Don't try to replace just one head gasket. I bought a complete set $118) of Victor Reinz from AutohausAZ. When I had problems AutoHaus reponded and sent a new box of gaskets, measurements, photo comparisons, etc. The same request was sent to VR, their customer service never responded. If it turns out I don't need the extra gaskets they will go back to AH.

12. You will find lots of other things that need attention. Allow time for that.

13. Print out instructions and mark them as you do them. Unlike the pro, you'll get called away for any number of things.

14. If you can't find it in the RAVE, ask. As an example, I looked in the SFI section of the D1 shop manual. Could not find the intake specs. So I used one from the D2. The D1 spec is 38 newton meters. The D2 spec is 51 newton meters. Became a problem for me.

15. Bolts should fit well enough to turn in by fingers or very low wrench pressure to a point. I cross threaded about ten bolts, with problems aligning the valley gasket, and my own stupidity. The resulting solutions and attempts at solutions have gobbled up time.

16. Don't work when sleepy and tired. A stripped bolt is another PITA.

17. You'll need to arrange for some solvent or degreaser use to clean parts.

18. Lots of small parts, putting them in plastic bags helped me keep things in manageable piles. Write on bags what they fit.

19. You can do this. It is not rocket science. But it takes attention to detail. It is not a place for sloppy work.

20. Cloth spread across the open yawning bottomless pit of the valley allows you to retrieve dropped parts without opening the oil pan. I also found tree frogs under the hood, so I hope one did not decide the engine was a nice condo.

21. You'll want a pickup magnet on a stick, and a mirror on a stick.

22. Allow time for new hoses, including heater. Mine were cracked inside, looked OK on the outside. Ditto for extra time for new spark plugs.

23. By following the wrong directions, and not lining up my valley pan gasket I tripled the time for the job, and doubled my costs almost. The idea of using the old gasket to line up heads before torque down is a good idea. If you want to clean bolt hole threads, use a gun cleaning brush instead of a tap.

24. Tough area are the rear exhaust manifold bolts (mirror is helpful to bend up the locking tabs), the rear head bolts (short extension helps get the angle you need), the lower bolt on power steering pump ( I used a 13mm crows foot alone to get it close and another wrench to tighten it), and that lower radiator hose clamp. Comes apart quicker than goes back.

25. When you drain your radiator, go ahead and flush it, then keep distilled water in it during the work. I had my radiator rodded out last year, and it was working good. I had some radiator sealer in the system prior to the HG failure. Before HG work my rad read 5 degrees variation top to bottom. Once what ever was in it "set up" and dried out during my extra long HG job, now it reads 30F difference. And I can't idle in hot weather without overheating. Rad shop say might can get the stuff out, might not. Have you seen what a D1 radiator costs?

D1, 183,000, HG leak adjacent to cylinder 3 out the side, 40 psi in cylinder 3. Work done under the tree, at very relaxed pace.

Session 1:

Put tarp on ground to find dropped parts easier.

Remove a variety of hoses and vac lines. Removed Throttle body and eased to the side, still attached to cables.

Removed intake plenum with the forest of tubes.

Problems found:

Missing a few washers on the 6mm hex bolts that hold down throttle body. Maybe I'm not the first in here...

Missing the gasket between the bottom part of the plenum and the intake manifold. Now I'm sure someone else has been here. Plenty of gunk on the intake, bolts that hold the bottom section of plenum to intake come out with fresh oil.

Noticed throttle body heater is corroded, so it will have to go as well.

And love the swollen end on the fuel pressure regulator hose. I should have used better hose rather than what was laying around.

More next session.