Well finally got to look at it, it blew something through the front of the timing cover just above and to the driver side of the crankshaft. The parts look exactly like the oil pump, (the ring part) now my big question is what made it do that. The pan had oil in it, no milkshake or anything like that just dirty (Dan!). I didn’t get a chance to get the oil pan off as it was getting late and the last person in there put a **** load of sealant on there, and I wanted to make sure I got all the bolts out before I got the pry bar out (don’t want to make that mistake with a aluminum block! I'm going to try to get over there and get the pan dropped and if there’s nothing in there besides oil pump parts and no damage to the bottom end thinking the engine might just need a quick rebuild/flush to get the pump fragments out then back on the road. He did get it shut off as soon as it fraged itself and coasted to a stop. What major things would you guys do to it while it was out?

 

I believe first off that timing chain cover runs $500-600 new. Used ones are hard to find unless you find some one who willing pull one off a motor, if you do they run about $300-350. i believe a lot of nos stuff was used up on the 03-04 that had misalined dowel holes. I believe I read after they ran out of replacement motors that started replacing the timingchain/oil pump covers. After your inspection if you dont find anything else your looking at a cover, oil pump, timing chain, water pump, cam sensor and a gasket set.

 

What would all that cost? Are we better off just dropping a use/refurbed engine in there?

 

That is a call you have to make repair or replace. By the time you throw in hoses a belt and termostat your close to $1200-1500 in parts and you still dont know why it grenaded in the first place.

 

Exactly. This is a call that you make with the motor on a stand, after having properly torn it down and determined the mechanism of failure or found that you can't determine that mechanism.

If you want to try to patch this up with the motor still in the truck, you can certainly do that, but I'd say its more of a risk that you will miss something.

Honestly, the extra time you take pulling and refitting the motor will likely be a wash with how much easier it will be to clean, inspect, and replace parts on it when its sitting on a stand. On a motor like this, with an engine bay as big as a disco, anything more than head gaskets and the thing is getting yanked (if I'm the one working on it).

 

Yea I am pulling the engine and putting it on a stand to work on, but I got the oil pan dropped and there’s nothing in there besides shavings (I'm guessing from the oil pump), not the smoking gun of any other parts. The next thing is to pull that front cover off and see if something is in the pump besides pump parts. I'm really thinking a though cleaning on a stand and it might be good to go. Not sure why the oil pump would fail like that, but maybe it was defective from the factory and just gave up.

 

I'm hoping you're going to find an obvious casting flaw/sign of metal fatigue on a pump gear or similar. I could totally buy something like that letting loose while the truck is running making everything want to jump through the front cover, and, providing the block is OK, having everything be just fine with some replacement parts.

 

Right now that ring is in a bunch of pieces, thats what blew that front cover. I doubt I'm going to be able to tell if it had a flaw or not, since some of the pieces are on a road somewhere. I'll know a lot more when I get it on a stand.
Thanks for all the help so far guys

 

lets see some picture

 

i just went through this. i have a 2004 disco with 102,xxx miles and the oil pump stopped working. it spun a main bearing and had to have a new engine put in. i tried to trade it in with the bad engine and told dealers to keep it on the up and up. but they would not give me jack for it. i pondered what to do for about three months and decided to just put a new engine in it. i picked it up yesterday. It was the only option, now it has sale and trade in value and it comes with a year warranty parts and labor. overall it was a pretty bad situation. the engine they put in has 60k some odd miles on it. they gave me a nice paper trail.