Did you bleed the system? Do you hear gurgling or waterfall sounds coming from your heater?

You might not have lost any coolant at all. Rather, it drained from the resevoir the first time the thermostat opened.

 

Thanks for the respone to this. I didn't bleed the system the proper way before making the change, which is what is probably expected of a junior member. Instead, I disconnected the coolant hose to the water pump and allowed the coolant to drain into a bucket. Little messy, but caught the run over with a towel. I had another big wave after removing the pump. Going forward the drain is a better idea.

After completing the job, my assumption was that filling the reservoir tank to the line would mean that it was full. Probably a bad assumption since I'm probably 50/50 on assumptions throughout my lifetime.

Filled up with coolant this morning at cold to line. Plan to check coolant level again tonight and tomorrow morning to see if I'm still losing fluid.

I've been friends with my Amigos for quite a while, but they have decided to pay me a visit lately, but that's another topic.

 

You have to bleed your coolant lines and even when you do you are going to have to top off a couple times in the following couple days:

https://landroverforums.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=23072

 

Thanks a million, or actually $1200 bucks for giving me hope that its not a head gasket issue. Also thanks for the bleeding system link. Now I won't look like an idiot on the side of the road with all my co-workers driving by who I just told the day before about my great mechanic thumb.

 

So here is the update:

I have a few issues that I'm working on. As previously mentioned I replaced the water pump and that took care of both the front and back of engine coolant leaks, which I thought was odd since the back leak seemed too far away from the wp to make any difference. We'll after two days with no coolant leaks I moved on to working on the Amigos by testing the ABS by making an abrupt stop on loose ground as suggested in Amigo threads. I return home and the back engine coolant leak is coming out in steady stream.

Here is a little background on this leak. I never had this issue until one day I took it to an indie shop to get the front drive shaft done back before I started working on it myself. The very next day I after picking it up I have this massive coolant leak. I take it back to the guy and without even checking it out he says that I need a head gasket job and that it was unrelated to any repairs that they did. Not having the $2K at the time, I was able to hold off on the expensive repair by checking the coolant level daily before driving. About a week later the leak stops for six months. Now its back. This is a similar leak as others, very back of engine towards the top on drivers side leaking down to the exhaust pipe. Heater works fine. It only leaks for about 10 minutes after turning off the motor, but it's a good bit of coolant leaking.

With all of this said, I noticed that other suggestions mention that just tightening the bolts may fix the issue. If this is correct then should I just review the rave manual and start tightening random bolts that I can identify to see if it will work? Could the leak be coming and going from the temperature change?

I believe that my wife will go to jail for poisoning her husband to death with anti-freeze, but little will they know it was the Discovery.

'01 Discovery SD 125K miles

 

Tightening the head bolts will not do a thing except for possibly breaking your head bolts, sure it could be your valley gasket but you need to get to the bottom of it. Are you at all mechanical? Do you have tools? You can do your own head gaskets in a few days (call in sick) for around $600 including buying every single tool you need plus all the parts and fluids. Obviously less if you have tools.

 

Yes, reading my posts you'd think that I couldn't pull it off, but yes I am mechanical and I think that I could do the heads with the tools that I have. I think that I just hoped that I could avoid them for a little longer, but at 125K miles I probably got more than most. At the end of the day I'm going to have to replace them at some point right? I'm bihting the bullet and going for the fix. Looking for 30K mores miles afterwards to make it make fiscal sense.

 

Go for it. When I did mine I had never done any engine work. The Rave CD is great.