Overheat, no start success story
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Rock Crawling
Joined: Jul 2015
Posts: 312
Likes: 24
From: Fayetteville, AR / East Africa
Overheat, no start success story
This is for those of you who have this problem in the future and can’t diagnose what’s wrong—hopefully this helps you get going again without a lot of wasted cash and time.
I’m here in Uganda with my new-to-me 1999 Discovery 2 TD5, “Hatari.” The engine was just completely rebuilt, from the block being resurfaced all the way up, as well as numerous other things.
Well several days into driving, a radiator hose sprung a leak unbeknownst to me and Hatari overheated on a long, steep hill and stalled. Backed down the hill into a cafe and one random mechanic came to look at it (friend of a waiter) and refilled the coolant but couldn’t start it. Towed it home and another mechanic (my friend’s trusted mechanic) came and couldn’t start it either. Of course all the worst scenarios ran through my head and I could see my wallet getting very hungry in the near future.
This vehicle’s “real” mechanic, the one who did all the work on the engine and who has cared for it for over a decade, came to my house the next day and... got it started right up with a rolling start down a hill. Yes, he had us push it to try and start it in the compound, but we only had about a thirty foot run, so then he had us push it out the gate and down a long steep hill (with me worrying how we’d get it up if it didn’t work) but no, it started immediately once he started down the hill and purred it’s deep, gutteral diesel purr once more.
After a few tests, he confirmed the engine is fine, just have a hose with a small coolant leak.
He said he heard compression when trying to start it, and I can start to see why the other mechanics kept trying to start it too—they could all hear that compression. A lost art of mechanics, I guess, with all our reliance on tools and less on our senses. The reason for it not starting, he said, which allowed him to know we needed to push start it, was that during the overheat, two of the piston rings (again, he could hear and count how many cylinders were working right) had swollen and stuck, and only a push start would release them to allow them to shrink back down.
Now just have to replace this radiator hose and figure out why it burst (it’s new...) but all the same, I hope this tip helps someone else down the road in an “overheat, won’t start” scenario, because I couldn’t find anything remotely suggesting this in my hours of research.
Rove on, friends.
I’m here in Uganda with my new-to-me 1999 Discovery 2 TD5, “Hatari.” The engine was just completely rebuilt, from the block being resurfaced all the way up, as well as numerous other things.
Well several days into driving, a radiator hose sprung a leak unbeknownst to me and Hatari overheated on a long, steep hill and stalled. Backed down the hill into a cafe and one random mechanic came to look at it (friend of a waiter) and refilled the coolant but couldn’t start it. Towed it home and another mechanic (my friend’s trusted mechanic) came and couldn’t start it either. Of course all the worst scenarios ran through my head and I could see my wallet getting very hungry in the near future.
This vehicle’s “real” mechanic, the one who did all the work on the engine and who has cared for it for over a decade, came to my house the next day and... got it started right up with a rolling start down a hill. Yes, he had us push it to try and start it in the compound, but we only had about a thirty foot run, so then he had us push it out the gate and down a long steep hill (with me worrying how we’d get it up if it didn’t work) but no, it started immediately once he started down the hill and purred it’s deep, gutteral diesel purr once more.
After a few tests, he confirmed the engine is fine, just have a hose with a small coolant leak.
He said he heard compression when trying to start it, and I can start to see why the other mechanics kept trying to start it too—they could all hear that compression. A lost art of mechanics, I guess, with all our reliance on tools and less on our senses. The reason for it not starting, he said, which allowed him to know we needed to push start it, was that during the overheat, two of the piston rings (again, he could hear and count how many cylinders were working right) had swollen and stuck, and only a push start would release them to allow them to shrink back down.
Now just have to replace this radiator hose and figure out why it burst (it’s new...) but all the same, I hope this tip helps someone else down the road in an “overheat, won’t start” scenario, because I couldn’t find anything remotely suggesting this in my hours of research.
Rove on, friends.
Pro Wrench
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 1,288
Likes: 445
engine stalled because heat related frictional forces overcame power stroke expansion forces in the cylinders. You are lucky she is running, but do a real cylinder compression test. Crank bearings are probably OK...but liners-pistons-rings-heads suffer without cooling....
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