History is bought 99 DII with 115K, but new factory SB at 80K cuz of hg problem (they had the $$$$). Upon dissasembly saw the nipple on the expansion tank was broken, hence (probably) the leak. Did have an exhaust leakish sound, have not found where that was coming from yet, will look at the ex manifold tomorrow. So, #2 gasket ring looks like it was leaking, ya'll concur? Worrisome is the slightly cleaner piston top and combustion chamber on #5... any chance this is an anomaly? The plug looks just like the rest of them. Oh, all liners seem fine, all equal, can just hook a finger nail on all of them. Thanks.

 

I don't see a distinct crack on #2.
I do see where the crown is very close to the water jacket and that there is a good bit of head gasket sealing material missing.

From looking at this picture I would postulate:

You did not have fluid going from the coolant jacket into #2 cylinder. You had no misfires.

I do think though that you had exhaust gas going into the coolant jacket and pressuring the system.

I say this as air and pressure can squeeze past that little bit of insulation or material that is left.

but the coolant can't make it back into the cylinder because what little gasket material is left is blocking it.

Is that indeed the symptoms?

 

Sounds good to me, but I dropped the ball and didn't do a sniff test on the coolant gasses so can't say anything about that part also didn't run the car but just for a minute or two for fear of messing things up even worse. Does cyl 5 look suspicious to you? Also very odd that the nipple on the tank was broken... not sure what to think, maybe someone broke it messing around after the incident? The PO aint answering calls right now

 

Btw the combustion chamber shown is #5, I posted it because it looked cleaner than the rest, like the piston.

 

What were the symptoms before you pulled it apart?

Did you see anywhere where the gasket had definitely failed?

 

The only symptoms were, I heard from PO that it got hot and lost water, when I fired it up to view the car I heard an exhaust-ish noise. Honestly that's all I'm going on, I regret not having done the sniff test. The gaskets, no nothing more than that tiny spot I posted, where the material is worn and you can see a dark "shadow" on the fire ring where seems clear enough that some pressure was escaping hopefully causing me noise. Other mystery aspects are the broken expansion tank nipple and #5 on the clean side.

 

Clean everything up.
Get the heads checked.
Victor Rheinz gaskets.

New stretch bolts.
Back together.

Flickr: Landroverdude2's Photostream

 

While it's apart... Put in ARB Head Studs... Not stretch bolts...

 

I agree with jfall. That cylinder does look a bit shiny, but not truly steam cleaned in my opinion. I'd go over #5 with a magnifying glass and flashlight, and if it looked good, have the heads checked and just put everything back together.

TripleThreat - the OP started another thread where he's stated he wants to stick with the STY bolts. How many miles do you have on your studs? Did you retorque them?

 

jfall, what do you mean by you don't see a "distinct crack on #2?
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The thin aluminum wall behind the cylinder liners cracks, from overheating, on these engines, and nobody is able to ever see any cracks from top of engine block at all, so not seeing cracks on #2 is meaningless.
Jfall, in my opinion, you are way to anxious to bolt it all back together; I wouldn't. Here are my tentative concerns: The exhaust and intake valves look too black, carbon covered to me, and, of course, that #5 piston is way too clean too.
Childeric, post, or send me private message, showing more pictures, pictures of the whole head, showing all valves, to compare their appearance against all other valves in that head---might be good to show that with both heads, if you have them both off?
If what you are showing is the left side of engine, the pistons are #1, #3. #5, #7, so what you are referring to as #2, is actually #3. Try to get a close up picture of cylinder #7, by clearing those lines in the way.
Since piston and cylinder #5 is so clean, that was probably steam cleaned from coolant; I am highly suspect of it; think it very well may have been cracked behind the cylinder liner---only pressure tests will tell. Until that is done, I wouldn't waste my money on head gasket and head bolts until I was certain of condition of the block, cracked or not cracked---and no way you can tell just by looking down on block.