Discovery II 2003 89,000 miles. What is causing the loud ticking sound? No sound when its cold, warms up and begins making noise. It is not in the vin# range to cover the oil pump/replace engine issue. They have replaced the lifters, oil pump, timing, and cleaned out the oil pan. No visual wear on the rockers. The mechanic says it drops to 20 lbs. of oil pressure after it warms up but that should be fine. I've only had it since July '11 so I don't know the history. It came with service records and seemed well maintained. Still owe $6000 and in for about $2000 so far. Mechanics stumped, I'm broke, any suggestions?

 

Many people have experienced your exact symptoms and had a cracked flex plate. Cheap part, quite a bit in labor since you have to drop the transmission. Search the term and you will get a ton of information.

 

Its probably the liners moving around, its no big deal they cant drop into the bottom end on d2 like they did on the d1. Mine has done the same thing for the last 10k miles

 

But he has this issue only at operating temp... No sounds upon cold start up is when the 'supposed' liner noise happens. My money is on the cracked flex plate. Very common at operating temp.

 

The liners only move when the block heats up and expands.

 

No, you have it wrong... Here are the usual suspects list:

• SAI / exhaust / flex plate issues can happen at any operating temperature
• Slipping liner ONLY happens as the engine warms up
• Valvetrain noises usually only happen as the engine warms up - unless it is really bad!

 

I wonder if the 03 and 04 could have more flex-plate issues because of the higher torque in the 4.6 versus the 4.0. I know they say that a similar problem happens on the TD5 with the automatic, I assume because of torque.

 

Discovery / Rover V8 Slipped Sleeve Syndrome / loose liner 1of2 - YouTube

Discovery / Rover V8 Slipped Sleeve Syndrome / loose liner 2of2 - YouTube

Land Rover liner problem - YouTube

 

Yeah, I've seen the videos before. I wonder if THAT problem is caused by the engine getting too hot just once or twice, allowing the liners to move, and once they start moving they get all polished smooth, and then they don't want to stay put. Just a thought.

 

re: mechanic says it drops to 20 lbs. of oil pressure after it warms up but that should be fine.

A. Spec for a warmed up D2 at 2000 rpm is 50 PSI. From the RAVE, general data section. So you need a second opinion, IMHO, unless mechanic is speaking about idle speed PSI. No way you should be at 20 PSI at freeway speed.