Do not put in any cam unless it is a stock grade / lift cam.

Don't put in a performance cam.
It will make it idle like crap.

You may want to replace the timing chain.
But, really, that has nothing to do with the heads.

You can do that later.

here is what you are getting into:

1997 Land Rover replace catalytic converter and head gaskets

You can see the pictures.

 

Why did you have the jack on the engine?

 

I was trying to push off the head as I thought it was stuck.

Never do that!!!

The head just pretty much plop off or fall off.

I had left a head bolt in.

Once that bolt was found and removed the head just came off.


That Rover is still running.
I have a check engine light on with it.
And NO DTC codes.

See Discovery I section on this BB.

 

Hi Roverchick,
If you are using antifreeze and needing to add a lot of it weekly then your head gaskets are probably going. Or your valley gasket is leaking and you need to do the heads.
If all of that is not happening, then you can probably hold off.

My 1997 was using antifreeze and the antifreeze went into the cat converters and ruined them.

Also ruined the 4 o2 sensors.

This was at 138,000 miles.
We are now at 170,000 4 years later.

I did not have the heads shaved and adjusted.
I just replaced the gaskets and flipped the heads back onto the rover
Did not change the timing chain.
Probably needs all that though.

I do hear an odd noise at idle like something flapping.

 

You don't automatically need to "do the heads" if a valley pan gasket is leaking.

 

Wow...

 

I did not know what was leaking - the valley gasket or the head gaskets.
So, I did the heads.

If you look at the pictures, you'll see very thin and smashed gasket material near the water ports on the heads.

And, you'll see some clean areas on the back of the "V" near cylinder 8 area where I think the valley gasket was allowing antifreeze into the "V".

So, I think I had two issues way back in 2009.

I did get my service engine soon light off.

I had it confused with the CHECK ENGINE light.
I was trying to pull codes on a service engine soon light.
Duh.

Turns out the service engine soon light is a dealer reset thing.
Pulled the kick panel and did a reset on my own.

All good now.

Pictures of that HG job on the D1 are here:

Flickr: landroverdude's Photostream

 

After just completing HG replacement on my disco 2 I would recommend the ARP studs vs Stretch bolts and my reason is simply how can you have the same tty spec for 2 different length bolts? And my machinst also agreed with that thinking.

 

TTY bolts generally offer more accurate clamping force in our application. My assumption is that it was taken in to account if there are any variations because of bolt length.
I've sent an email to these folks, Bolt Science to see what they have to say.

 

This is part of the reply I received from an engineering specialist at BoltScience asking about the clamping force of a shorter vs longer bolt. The two head bolts are 66mm and 96mm.

Tightening into the plastic zone, the angle of rotation is not
usually that critical (past a certain point) and so what may have been done
here is that the angle of rotation is set to ensure that the longer bolt
will be yielded, the shorter bolt will essentially sustain a bit more
plastic deformation. The preload in both cases will be similar. Essentially
once past yield, the torque-preload verses angle of rotation of the fastener
is almost horizontal.

I then replied specifying that it was a Land Rover V8 and asking about studs vs single use bolts.

Companies are increasingly going for screws instead of a stud and nut. In
this application, since the fastener is going into the plastic zone there
are a limited number of re-uses of the fastener, probably about three hence
a stud may not be such a good idea. The plus point about studs is that they
don't wear out the internal thread.

PS I've done training for Jaguar/Landrover engineers on the analysis of
bolted joints which includes tightening methods - they also use Bolt
Science's BOLTCALC program for joint analysis. I've done training courses
around the world and in my opinion, in general, they are the most
knowledgeable engineers that I've come across.

His PS was certainly interesting.