Hi all, I've ran into some trouble doing my head gaskets. Im an ase mechanic doing this on the side for a friend. First land rover job, did alot of searching and figured i could do it. Its an 03 with secondary air, 100k miles. as i was going through it appeared as someone had done the job before. heads were machined and had a valve job done, I visually inspected the liners, and cleaned the block surface. got it all back together and found the radiator leaking, it had been previously patched in multiple places and was leaking from there. I got a new radiator, and vacuum bleed the system. It seemed to leak vacuum very slow maybe over an hr or 2. A this point i just wanted to get it running. fired right up, runs good, letting it heat up with rad cap off. Temp comes up and coolant starts bubbling out, every hose is hot, except lower radiator hose, like tstat is suck closed. put brand new water pump and tstat in,(btw wierdest tsat ever) all parts from british pacific. So the coolant is just geysering out and heater won blow warm air, I can put the cap on and he hoses feel like they have 50 psi air pressure. It blew warm air once when i put the cap on but the lower radiator hose stays cold. I think a liner may have slipped or cracked, theres no coolant in the oil, not smoking from the exhaust. Im gonna go get a block tester and compression tester and report back but i fear the worst. I also might try the old tstat, any insight or help appreciated. I torqued everyhing to spec, heads, rocker shaft, intake even exhaust.

cliff notes... cooling system overheating after headgaskets, lower rad hose will not get hot, new water pump tstat and radiator, seems to have been shoddy repair jobs before.

it was diagnosed as headgaskets at a local repair shop, definitely had a external oil leak and was overheating before. at this point its been three weekends, (teardown, back together, radiator) I hate that i cant get anything locally unless i spend an arm and a leg at the dealer which is over an hr away too. Im sick of this car and want to push it off a cliff.

 

Careful nauique1228, a guy named antichrist might try to ream you a new *** for talking about LR that way, for me I have had similar issues and am frustrated also. Sounds like you have air trapped in the system, is there a gurgling sound coming from the passenger dash area? Try using the bleeder on the top hose, you can also elevate the front passengers side to help move any air to the reservoir. I had to do this to bleed all air, don't give up it's only a machine.

 

May be a stupid question, but did you follow the procedure for bleeding the system? Make sure you follow it exactly like it's laid out in Rave. Sounds like an air lock somewhere in the system.

 

I always test new thermostats before installing them. Most are fine, but I have had bad ones.
Here're the steps for bleeding the cooling system:


Do you know why the head gaskets went? Usually the go from overheating. Do you know if the viscous clutch for the fan is good? I'd definitely test it to make sure. You can get them locally if it's bad.

 

Key words are "slowly fill expansion tank." Also, make sure you do this when the engine is off. If you try it while it's running, your expansion tank will become a geyser!

Eric

 

Ok im gonna try and bleed it again at this point its all water. Im gonna test the old tstat and put that one back in. they are really easy to get out though. Im definitely gonna recommend to sell the vehicle once im done lol. I hope you guys are right and it is just an air bubble. the headgasket job it self wasnt that bad. At least its not a dohc craziness or anything like that.

 

I hear ya on that. I hear people complain about HG jobs on these things all of the time but they are a walk in the park compared to some of the DOHC Asian cars. The hood doesn't even have hood springs to mess with when you pop the hood off! Bonus ;-p

Oops, I mean bonnet. lol

 

I pulled the new tstat out, tested it and the old one, and they're both good. Can someone confirm the orientation of the tstat. I have it with the "Y" pointing up. Lower to the lower rad hose, the branch to the water pump, and straight up to the intake/upper rad hose. it says "pump--->" on the branch so i know thats right.

 

Yep, that's it.

 

Thanks for the fast reply, im gonna go try it now. I figured that was it, seemed like the only way. just wanted to make sure i wasnt doing anything stupid..