I recently picked up a 03 disco that "needed a new engine." I was not bothered by the engine because I have a diesel that I'm going to be stepping in at some point. I figured I would at least see what is wrong with this 4.6 since I'm still saving up for the diesel swap. Anyways, all I was told was that the rover had overheated. I did a dry and dry test today on the engine and have super low numbers. Here's the results

Dry. Wet
1: 155 1: 200
2: 170. 2: 200
3: 100. 3.110
4: 110. 4: 120
5: 70. 5: 70
6: 65. 6: 70
7:80. 7: 70
8: 85. 8: 90

Any ideas? I was hoping maybe I could do head gaskets and call it but I don't think that's the case after seeing this. Thanks for any info! Cody

 

An HG job would include a trip to machine shop, where a valve job is normally part of the price. $250 in my case. $118 for HG kit. With bad HGs, and warped heads, adding oil won't make much difference as gasket is not holding pressure to start with.

On the other hand, if you pull the heads, you can examine the heads for flatness, and check the gaskets for common failures, before ordering any parts.

 

The general rule when looking at compression is there should be no more then a 10% difference between high and low cylinders. This engine is in trouble and head gaskets won't fix it.

 

pull the heads you have nothing to lose but a few hours of your time

 

Do a cylinder leak down test before opening the engine to see exactly where the issue is. Or at least where the most likely location is.

 

- for others could you describe the leakdown test in detail?

 

There are actually tons of videos on youtube.
There's nothing Land Rover specific about doing them.

 

This seemed pretty good:

 

Thankful for the input guys. I don't have a leak down tester so I guess I'll either buy one or just go ahead and pull the heads to see what's going on.

 

Flatness spec is 0.002 inch.