I have the "behind the dashboard gurgle syndrome" in my '01 Disco II. Going to begin troubleshooting it by draining, flushing, and refilling the cooling system. What is the proper procedure for filling / bleeding air from the cooling system? Just bought the truck, so don't know if I'm looking at headgasket issues, leak, bad fill on the coolant, ect. I figure doing a proper fill and bleed should give a good baseline for further observations and diagnosis. I'll post up with more specific details if the problem runs deeper if a good refill doesn't fix it. Thanks all for your insight. Luke

 

The problem is mostly a small air lead in the heater core. fairly common. It can be bleed out. I presume that you are not loosing coolant. Hope it helps. gotta love a rover. duboff

 

Shiny, I recently replaced water pump and all the coolant hoses on my 2000 Series II. I refilled the system through the expansion tank, but first I unscrewed and removed the plastic vent plug (located on top of the cooland hose ***'y immediately behind the radiator top) to bleed out the air, per the shop manual. Once coolant ran out the plug hole, I screwed the plug back in, and ran the engine to operating temperature, let it cool down, and topped off the expansion tank to the max level as needed. Worked fine.

I'm not aware of any other vent points in the system. One thing I do when I'm refilling the system is go around the engine compartment and squeeze various hoses as I'm filling the system, to help in coaxing any air bubbles outta there.

Good luck!

 

I don't have the gurgly sound, but my '99 Disco II occasionally (once every 2 months) runs hot very briefly, the guage creeps up to near the red, and the warning light comes on, then goes back down to normal. I carry around a gallon of coolant and occasionally have to top up the plastic tank. I've looked for leaks, and can never find any, but the truck smells bad when I get out of it....like maybe burning anti-freeze? There are never any spots on the driveway. Maybe air in the lines? Or, maybe a hose leak is squirting on a hot manifold? That coolant is going somewhere!

Anyone else seen this, or know a fix?

Thanks!

 

Have you checked your oil to make sure there wasn't any milky substance or milky white color? Could be an internal leak...head gasket.

 

Searching the site, would have gotten you this:

Dexcool is the only coolant to use in D2s, and you cannot mix them with another. to bleed the air out of the system, you have to fill and lift the expansion bottle by taking it out of its attaching points and holding it as far up as it will go. I used bungee cords attached to the inner holes of the hood as attaching points to hold the bottle up. Then you unscrew the bleeding bolt. If there's air in there, you'll hear it. If there's none, only coolant will come out. As the coolant comes out, re-install the bleeding screw and re-install the bottle at its place. fill the the bottle up to level and recheck after a cool down after a drive.

 

You need to have your coolant system pressure tested to find your leak, you should plan on replacing all your coolant hoses as well as the t/stat, if they haven't been done yet.
Make sure to only use Dexcool when refilling.

 

My challenge is that I have followed the correct procedure for bleeding the cooling system, but without successas I still get the gurgling noise in the heater matrix.What I really don't understand how this procedure can get rid of air that is trapped in the heater matrix - if you look carefully at the routing of the hot water pipes that run through the bulkhead/firewall, you'll see that any air trapped in that location will *NOT* make it way up to the top radiator hose. This is because the routing of the hot water pipes for the heater are going down to the water pump and so air will always be trapped at the top of the heater hose.

It looks like Land Rover have missed an air bleed valve for the heater core circuit.

Can anyone else comment on this, i.e. have a look at the heater hoses and the routing of the pipes and tell me what they think?

Lawrance Lee
Melbourne, Australia

 

You need to go do a coolant pressure test, find you leak and fix it before you toast your engine

 

Before you go changing and flushing, you need to bleed out the air, top off the system with water, not coolant and then get it pressure tested, and repaired before you over heat your engine.