Several years ago, I rebuilt my 3.9 L. Range Rover, eliminating the original steel head gaskets; replacing them with what I thought were the much improved fiber head gaskets, after having machine shop shave a certain small amount from the surfaces of the heads, to allow for thicker fiber gaskets. I drove that Rover for 80,000 miles without a problem. Secondly, I know a very experienced and gifted mechanic who specializes in Land Rover work, who tells me firmly, that there is nothing wrong with the Rover head gaskets, but that, when they fail, it is almost always the result of the vehicle losing some coolant, the owner not noticing; overheating. I know for a fact that aluminum heads, on all vehicles, not only Rovers, are notorious for warping slightly when overheated, so it is vital to avoid overheating. If not warped to extreme, those warped heads can usually be shaved down slightly, as done with my 3.9 heads,to make them flat again, so they sit flush with the block. If one simply replaces head gaskets, paying little or no attention to heads possibly being warped, one is likely to have to take heads off again, since heads can't seal properly, regardless of quality of head gaskets. NOW FOR MY QUESTION, TO VERY EXPERIENCED MECHANICS WHO HAVE CHANGED MANY FIBER ROVER HEAD GASKETS: In your experience, have you found the Rover head gaskets to be faulty in design/construction, or is that the fault usually is due to faulty owners not properly caring for their vehicles? Many Rover owners are even saying that the head gaskets were a design flaw, that they last only so long, and that one has to replace them much more often than on other vehicles. I have serious doubts about this, and I believe that the aforementioned mechanic is correct, and that the problems with them are more often caused by owners creating such problems. Am I wrong?

 

Your question may be better answered in a D1/RRC/Defender forum.

 

Why, I now have a 2004 Discovery II, and, to the best of my knowledge, the same type fiber head gaskets are used on all Rover engines. All these Rover V8 engines, were derived from the original GM Buick 215 cu. inch engine that Rover bought the rights to many years ago; it has simply "grown" from 3.5 to Rover's 3.9 to its present 4.6 capacity. Rover fiber head gaskets are same on all, particularly as far as their design and construction goes, if I am not in error? I meant this question to be directed toward the fiber head gaskets Rover uses; not toward any particular Rover model.

 

Sorry, I thought from your post you were asking which to use, steel or fiber head gaskets.

 

The head gaskets fail as the engine expands and contracts due to the cooling system allowing deltas in the temp of 20 or so degrees in a Discovery II.

For a 3.9 - this may or may not be true.

Mikle (can't spell it tonite) gaskets were probably used on the 3.9 - which are fine.

Overheating destroys them.
As does finally going 80 to 100,000 miles will usually fail them too.

http://jeffreyfall.com/landrover/199...ghtenSpecs.pdf

Maybe Victor Reinz gaskets are improved.

Found this

Victor Reinz aside from being the manufacturer of the gaskets for IH ( and Caterpillar and Cummins and Rover and Audi and Mercedes and numerous others ), is on the cutting edge of high performance diesel head gasket design. THey make ALL of the high tech European diesel gaskets including the ones for those race cars that are winning everything including Le Mans 3 years in a row.
That autozone consumer grade garbage that felpro puts out comes with this soft disintegrating coating that crumbles off if you look at it too harshly while installing leading to leaks very soon after installation. If you get REAL lucky you can get a set of heads dropped perfectly straight down onto the things with zero shifting and not tear them . I'll only use felpro in an emergency under protest and then I usually end up having to order the good stuff anyway, or use some gasket eliminator, . I've had felpro gaskets tear while properly torquing them down numerous times leaving me in a bind, and I can't imagine how hard it is to have one guy on an assembly line who puts one piece of cardboard in above and one below a valley pan to keep them from getting damaged in shipment, but most of them arrive with both pieces of cardboard on one side and the flanges bent and the things are junk.