Hello All,
I have had a slow coolant leak for a while that I had thought was my water pump gasket because of the way it would leak down the front of the engine. Anyway, I had put it off for a while because of a lack of funds and just kept topping it off every two weeks of so. Today I dropped it off at a shop that my girlfriends friend owns to get a pressure test done and he found that both my head gaskets are leaking ....... which is the BAD. He continued the conversation by saying that he went ahead, WITHOUT ME KNOWING, and put some Barrs Leak in there to stop it ........... REALLY BAD. He said that he wont touch the head gaskets (which I wouldnt want him too now) because they are too involved. So my question is whether I can drive it until I can get it to another shop or do I have to have the thing towed someplace. Also does anyone know of a shop in North/Central Jersey that has a clue of what the hell they are doing. Thanks

 

putting stop leak in wont kill your engine..if at all may save you some time. Just keep an eye on the tep and you should be fine. They are temp fixes...temp.... I dont think i would be taking any memorial day out of state trips...

You are going to need head gasket job done...but you should have know that when you bought it... You can do yourself with help from here as i have even seen that a girl on this forum did it without any pervious experiance... They are smarter than us..i know that for a fact

kepp us posted, Chris

welcome to the land rover club of DA...

 

there is a member in our club from north jersey you should speak to him. s/n is Antmen

 

Dirve it and see how it does. With the bar's leak and other stop leak products, there is ususally a period of time, 20 to 50 minutes after you put the product in and let the engine idle. Did the mechanic do that? Have you driven it since you got it back? Did it stop the leak? I have a bottle of Bar's Leak that I bought on Saturday but didn't put in. I ordered the Universal Products product called Blue Devil. Should have it on Tuesday. I will let the forum know how it works. I suspect that I will need to do a head gasket job in the short term but wanted to work out all of the kinks with a new-to-me truck before I put the money into a head gasket repair. Keep us posted. I did a considerable amount of research reagrding the products and never heard of anyone that had any ill effects from the bar's leak or the blue devil. One Land Rover shop out here uses it regularly with good results. Let us know. Phil

1999 DI
2000 DII
2001 DII

 

Ohh interesting. I've heard that the Barr's Leak stuff is a killer. As for your questions, I havent gotten the truck back yet or spoken to the guy since this morning. I am at work and wont be able to pick it up until later on today. I will find out if they let the truck idle for the recommended amount of time and get back to you.
If you guys say it might save me some time without harming anything then I will give it a shot. Like I said it was a slow leak..... maybe a cup every 500 miles or so .... so it might be able to do the trick. Should I just ride around and see how it goes or is it something that I should get repaired properly ASAP. I could really benefit from the savings of 1500 for the time being, especially on a truck that has 155,000 miles.
I just was worried that the product was going to clog something up and cause other damage.

 

i would just go ahead and do the head gasket i wouldnt waste time with stop leak. 155k is nothing. if you do it now you can run that truck to 300k.

 

Ed Is correct, do the head gasket job yourself for about $500.00 in parts including any head work done by a machinest. If heads are good you could do for less. You could do in a weekend and save your self well over a grand... I have a 95 RR that has 300,000.00miles on it.

Chris

 

Starcraft1, Do Tell, did the Bar's Leak Head Gasket Fix work? I have been sitting on pins and needles all weekend, well almost, thanks Phil

 

There is a really good independant near the Princeton dealership that does Jag as well. Met the guy but for the life of me can't remember the name, it was British car service or something. He has both a IDS and an autologic.

 

STAY AWAY FROM BARS STOP LEAK.

That **** will cause you nothing but headaches down the road.

And your girlfriends friend is a pansy, there is nothing 'involved' with doing these head gaskets. This is nothing more than an old Buick engine with some electronics strapped to it.