As I said before, mine is still running 15K miles after the dealer told me to get a new short block installed because my sleeves had slipped. I'll keep an eye on the coolant levels and temperature gauge. But so far no problems. I was losing some coolant and thought I'd finally bought the farm on the engine. I took it in to an independent mechanic with a lot referrals from Land Rover owners and it turned out the problem was the water pump! He told me the same thing about the sleeves "...they don't slip." After the new water pump, my coolant levels are fine.

I'd like to eliminate the possibility of a problem or at least understand the exposure. To really understand my exposure to a future problem, I guess I ought have it compression tested?

Also, from reading this thread, if I do get to a point where I establish there is a real problem and it needs to be dealt with, I can estimate the costs of short block for AB or from the information provided here about Turner, but what is a "good" number to wrap my brain around for the labor costs to install the block?

 

The costs to install will obviously vary by shop, but I can't imagine they should be too outrageous. I've heard it can be done for $1200 - $2500 depending on the source of the engine and what (if anything) you have the shop doing to it.

I know a couple guys who have done the engine swap themselves. Both say that given the tools and a little help I could do it in a weekend. (Which means a shop should be alot quicker.)

Now, I don't know about the 4.6l...they're probably a lot harder to come by since the '03's were haunted by the oil pump failures, but I know you can get rebuilt 4.0l Bosch engines from reputable suppliers for a lot less than $4k. (i.e.- Will Tillery just had a rebuilt engine for sale earlier this month with a 6 month/6k mile warranty for $2k delivered.)

 

Thanks, Dave. That's helpful. My first Land Rover was a 2000 Discovery Series II. I drove it for about 110K and then traded it in for a 2004 Discovery II that the dealer had on the lot with 4K miles. This one is at 114K miles and I'm determined to keep it running and eventually pass it on to my son in about 4 years... Should never had traded in the first one!

 

I had my truck (04) in with a LR indy mechanic for an HG job. He said I had a slipped sleeve in cylinder 6. If I'm understanding what I've read--that shouldn't be possible. The guy has a good reputation and I hate to think I got taken for quite an expensive ride...

 

What did he do to fix it?

 

Re-built the engine and put a new sleeve (possibly a top hat, I have to look at my notes which are at the office) in the the offending cylinder.

 

one thing i always do is ask for the mechanic to show me what he's doing. i think sometimes a mechanic will call it a dropped sleeve because it fails a pressure test. so it needs a flanged sleeve anyway.

 

I finally got a reply from AB. Here is the answer:

"The ones we sell have standard sleeves that are pegged in place like the early factory engines where."

Is this as good as the top hat liners?

 

Haven't you ever heard that song by Loverboy...

Doot-un Doot-un, Later Disco cylinder liners just wont slip!!!

 

Its my understanding that the sleeve issue is poor quality control at the factory. The sleeve is pressed into the block while the block is hot, normally the sleeve is held in place against the ridge at the bottom until the block cools, if its not held in place it can push the sleeve out a little and the cly mating surface is milled and the sleeve has a gap at the bottom, first time it overheats the sleeve moves, the aluminum cyl liner cracks( not much meat there) and we have coolant in the combustion chamber and in my case the oil. A top hat liner will fix the problem. If you have coolant in the oil it may be coming from the gasket at the timing chain cover. Now we know why buick made them out of iron after they sold the design to Rover. Neil