While he was installing the precautionary Lucky 8 front drive shaft, the indie LR mechanic observed a coolant dripping down the back of the engine, which he said was the result of either a bad head or valley gasket. I have begun the process of replacing them. After removing the upper intake and leaky valve covers I found the throttle heater plate to be leaking again and I found a large pool of coolant (yes, that's Dexcool) underneath the ignition coils. Could this be where the coolant dripping out of the heater plate collects and drips down the back of the engine? Is this my coolant leak? The truck idles normally, no fault codes, no coolant in the oil, just a steady loss of coolant.





The valve cover bolts were very loose and the spark plugs were not properly tightened. There is a lot of oil in the cylinder head around the rockers and in several of the spark plug holes which I am assuming came from the leaky valve cover gaskets. The latter were sloppily slathered in Permatex grey all the way around. The insides of the covers were black and the intake and rockers are either heavily varnished of orange from Dexcool.









I'm beginning to wonder I might not have a head gasket problem and would rather not get involved with the cylinder heads but the rockers look pretty bad. Should I clean up what I see, replace the heater plate, torque everything down properly and hope for the best or disassemble and clean the rockers and then remove the heads and the lower intake? How do you clean the rockers and cylinder head? How do you get the PSA pulley off??

Any advice will be appreciated.

Captions
Coolant under ignition coils

Oil in cylinder head

Orange engine. Varnish or Dexcool?

 

Easiest way to get power steering pump pulley off is to break loose the 3 bolts with the belt on.
If there is no anti-freeze in oil/vice versa, that's obviously good. You can have the coolant tank Co2/pressure tested to check for exhaust gas in coolant, head gasket leak.
If you do need head gaskets, and don't change them first, you are risking the cost of valve cover, upper/lower intake gaskets, gallon or so of anti-freeze, and your time to do it over...so not a big deal.
I would replace the lifters either way too. Common cause of ticking(whether they tick now or not), $90 from Lucky8, and you are right there at them either way.
Oil pump would be a good idea too. Add in and timing cover, and waterpump and oil pan gaskets. With pick up tube o-ring, a couple more hours, and around another $100 or so.

 

There is no visible sludge in the engine, so I wouldn't be overly concerned with cleaning. Unless there is carbon built up blocking passages.
I don't think it looks bad either.
Blown head gasket leaves a milky mess everywhere, unless it's unlikely only leaking to the outside. And if it is, it'll soon be leaking inside.

 

Thank you both for replying.

Everytime I open the expansion tank to add coolant, pressurized air escapes. The coolant level in the tank drops an inch after 20-30 mins running, which seems like a lot for the heater plate alone to be leaking.

I won't know if there is carbon blocking the passages until I take off the heads, right?

The serpentine belt, alternator, jockey pulley and compressor are already off so I can't get the PSA pulley off that way. Is it possible to get the lower intake off if I remove the auxiliary housing bolts but leave the PSA pulley on?

I already bought the head gasket kit from Lucky 8, new coolant and Rotella.

Do I reassemble with new heater plate and have the cylinders pressure tested or remove the heads?

 

Engine looks clean to me. Not sure about your leak but it seems the throttle plate could leak that much and more. Maybe a pressure / leak test will save you in the long run.

 

How many miles? Factory head gaskets won't make it much past 150k. If it has more than that they were probably already done (suggest you check carfax history, call dealer and ask for detailed history), if not you will be back soon. I have owned 8 Discos, 1 blew between cylinders, 1 blew to outside, 3 blew to water jacket, none had water in the oil, none had highly pressurized cooling system or non pressurized system; but we did not keep driving once they began drinking coolant. You are this far in, if you are keeping the truck do it. Oil pump and timing chain are completely unrelated separate jobs. You can do a oil pressure test after you get it running and decide if you need to do those.

To get the pulley off take a pair of vise grips and clamp it on the pulley from behind.

 

If your showing no other signs of blown head gaskets other than coolant that could have run front to rear down the valley pan I would fix the throttle body heater and keep an eye on it.

 

Agreed. Don't panic. Looks like a pretty clean engine to me. Leaking valve cover gaskets are standard equipment.

Remember two oldie-but-goodie Land Rover lines ...

• If it isn't leaking it's empty.
• Rovers don't leak, they're marking their territory

 

Thanks for the clarifying advice to all. The RAVE manual and this forum are my guides.

I have owned the truck for 5 years. I am the 5th owner. It has 98K. I have had continuous coolant issues: replaced the heater plate two years ago, water pump, thermostat, radiator hoses in 2014, radiator was replaced by PO in 2012. I had an SES light/misfire in cylinder 8 which began when the coolant began to leak, but that turned out to be a vacuum leak; light off now/no codes. The expansion tank pressurizes after driving but I am now sure the cap is bad. I suspect the plastic hoses are leaking and the pipes in and out of the intake seem to leak (there was no O ring on the pipe in and no gasket of any kind on the one going to the heater. The bleed screw is leaking again and the screw-tightened hose clamps on the radiator hoses were less than tight.

Nevertheless, given the pervasive sense of inevitability hanging over the head gaskets, I will press on. Apart from the recalcitrant PSA pulley, I have two very stuck bolts on the auxiliary housing, one of which is very close to being stripped so I have to rent an impact wrench today to get them off.

Do I need a valve spring compressor to take the rocker assemblies off? How do you clean them?

By the way I have been doing all this with the Disco parked in the street in 105° temperatures.

 

Replacing the head gaskets is not inevitable. They are either leaking or they are not. If they are not leaking why replace them? Especially without a garage in which to work.