I bought a 2000 discovery II. It had a blown head gasket and sounded terrible so I did not drive it. I repaired the head gasket and drove it about 50 miles. Started checking why check engine light is on and found I had a bad ignition coil. Upon removing air hose between air filter and throttle body I found a lot of fresh engine oil in the throttle body area and more when I removed the upper inlet manifold. I am sure it is coming up from the valve cover indicating blow by. The passenger valve cover has an oil separator in the stub pipe between valve cover and inlet manifold. The workshop manual says there is not an oil separator in the drivers side stub pipe. My experience says rings. The odometer shows 185K and the records I got with the vehicle shows head gasket repair at 100K but no other major work ever done.

When I replaced the head gaskets I removed the plate inside the valve covers and cleaned up the sludge in there. I removed a couple spark plugs before I bought it and they looked well used but they did not indicate oil problems.

Do these engines suck oil up through the valve cover? Has some one found inserting a oil separator in the drivers side stub pipe help remedy this problem?

I do all the work myself. I am giving this rig to my son and he does not have time to repair it so I want to eliminate most of the major problems.

 

Search PCV mod in the stickies at the top of the forum.

 

So these engines do not have a PCV from the factory?

 

Nope, which is why you have oil in yoru TB

 

OK I like that answer, I have re-cleaned my upper manifold of all the oil, the local NAPA has two of those recommended PCVs and I will get one tomorrow and get it installed. I hope that cures it because I do not want to re- ring it.

 

After I get all this back together I have been working on the steering wheel area and have removed the airbag. There is not anything in the air bag system that will disable the vehicle from starting if it is not inplace and operating?

 

No, but it will put a fault light on

 

Oh I have more fault lights than a Xmas tree