A couple of weeks ago, my partner's 99 D2 blew a head gasket. We were at a loss on what do with it. Her biological father had just moved in with us. He has MS & has taken up way more of our time and finances than we had originally planned. A huge Rover repair bill was not something that we could afford or something we wanted to deal with & being without a second vehicle was going to be real hard to say the least. While I have fixed minor things on cars before, most of my experience was simply unbolt an accessory and replace with a new part. The extent of my engine repair knowledge was right around zero. I had a Mercedes 500E once in college that blew a head gasket & that was the end of that car. I was told over and over I couldn't fix it myself & I should sell it & I sadly did. I miss that car even today!

This time around I was not going to let that happen. I was convinced with a Rave manual in hand and this forum at my disposal I was going to tear into it and fix it myself.

And I did just that. And it runs and drives like new again!

I made about four unexpected trips to the local auto parts/ supplies place but got it done myself. Well, almost myself... I'm a chick and only about 5'3" at that, so needless to say the head bolts were a bit tighter that I had planned. I put an ad on Craigslist & enlisted the help of a strong guy for a few minutes to crack them loose. BEST $20 EVER SPENT. The guy was super nice & even offered to stop back by to re-torque them for me.

Doing a job like this gave me an amazing sense of accomplishment & I look at our 2 Discos in a completely different way now. I am convinced that I can do the work myself & keep these on the road for many more years.

I just wanted to thank all of you here for making the information so available when I needed it.

Also, a special thank you to DiscoMike for taking a couple of random phone calls from me even if nothing more but to reassure me that I had a good game plan & had bought the correct parts. Your time & willingness to help is more than appreciated. if you ever find yourself in Jersey, Let me know. I owe you a drink.

 

Yay! How long did it take you start-to-finish?

 

Hey i have a shop in avalon so if u ever have another problem and u need certain tools or supplys im more than willing to help you guys out

 

That is AWESOME!!! congrats on your accomplishment! Its very nice to see people working on their own cars..

Congrats again and very best regards,

 

Glad to hear that you could do the work and that we could help.

 

Good job! Just remember anybody can move anything with enough leverage. Next time use a pipe, cheater bar, slide it over the breaker bar and you can do it all yourself.

 

Also known as a trunk monkey

Good job!!!

 

Outstanding! I'm glad to hear that everything went well.

 

Thanks everyone. My only regret is how long the job seemed to drag on. In hindsight, I really should have just taken a few days off to do it. I'm an engineer Monday-Friday & on the weekends, I help a friend detailing cars. My weekend schedule is pretty flexible but I still worked some in the mornings while working on the Disco in the afternoon. The Disco is just a hair too big to fit in the garage & still have room to work, so I was working in the driveway & could only work until sundown.

All in all I worked on it two full Saturdays & probably an hour to an hour & a half during the week in the evenings.

 

you need a good work lamp and an extension cord