Hey everyone, I wanted to introduce myself. I am Scott and I am an addict lol. So I just got my second discovery 2, my first one was an 01 and I loved it (even with the issues). I was just browsing FB marketplace locally last night minding my own business and an 04 was listed for sale at a crazy low price, it has had alot of work done to it but I will get to that in a minute. I went and looked at it last night but being dark I really couldnt tell much about it. The seller was upfront and honest about everything and in the ad he stated that it does overheat. The exterior and interior are in really good shape So I went back today and did a combustion test and sure enough it was yellow so I was about to walk away when he dropped the price even lower so I bought it lol. Fortunately I had stayed up late last night reading on here about all the different causes for overheating and I thank you all for that! So here is what he had done in the last few weeks.

Head Gasket, New rad, new water pump, new fan, new oil cooler, inline mod with new T and bleeder valve, 3 amigos fix and a few cosmetic things that are not relevant.

So with all this done, from what ive read on here it is either a cracked block or a bad job on the head gasket. The shop that did the work says that the issue is a clog in the cooling system but I think since the combustion test failed that is not the case. Point is I knew what I was buying and paid what i felt was not only fair but a great deal even if I have to do an engine swap. I have always worked on my own cars except for my first Disco, I took it to the dealer for both issues I had with it mainly because it was my daily and I didnt have time back then. So with this one since it is a toy and I paid next to nothing for it I would do alot of the small stuff myself and since my daughter is really into cars she can get in on it too which we are both excited about, and I am really hoping I can convert her from this jeep kick she is on lately and this could be her first car when she can drive in a few years. So with all that said I am open to any suggestions you may have based on what I have said but I am not hopeful for an easy fix and I am ok with that. OH!! The reason I dont have faith in what the shop said other than the test is because they didnt even BURP it properly, I was able to do that already, but they did put the fan and serp on right lol. It idles just fine but the PO said it overheats when up to speed, I drove it around his neighborhood last night and it did just fine under 30 mph. I had it towed to my house tonight.

Anyway, I am very happy to be back in a Rover even if it is a project and I promise it will be back on the trails where it belongs!

 

So, it's failing the combustion test even after the repairs made. Well, if that's the case...they either did a crappy shop (doing head gaskets or didn't thoroughly inspect cylinders for steam cleaning - cracked block or slipped liner). So, without knowing these two items...you're kind of in a pickle. You can either disassemble it yourself and reevaluate the job or condition of engine...or look for a replacement. You're in an area that probably sees very few rusted out frames, where the engine out last the frame...so...you may have to look a little harder for a replacement or travel some.

Good luck, and welcome to the forum.

 

Welcome to the forum Scott.

 

My suggestion is read the forums and begin doing the work your self. With the engine in the state it is in the car may bleed you dry taking it in to get worked on.

You've got a lot of new great parts.

If the engine has not overheated since the head gaskets job I would redo it yourself in hopes that it was not done correctly. If the heads are just pulled and not taken to the machine shop it's not a very expensive job, new head gaskets, ARP studs, exhaust gaskets, upper manifold gasket and O-ring for the pipe going to the water cooler.

After this if you continue having issues it may make sense sourcing another engine and doing the swap yourself. Complete rebuilds can get expensive vs. finding a D2 or a P38 with just over 100K, wrecked but the engine is fine. Going rate on a used engine seems to be around $1,500. This is a lot cheaper than a rebuild.

 

Hey Scott, welcome. So we need to start with the truck having recently had the HG done we can probably narrow the issues down to a few potential causes:

1. Cracked block - less common than the internet would have you believe but it does happen so it is a possibility.
2. Leaking HG - since this was done recently, if this was the culprit I would suspect they stripped a head bolt hole and you are not getting full clamping force. Not necessarily fatal but it could be depending on which hole it is as those hole are pretty thin in some of the areas.
3. Other?

I like to fully diagnose and understand before I start wrenching, because once the heads are off it is harder to fully diagnose the problems as in specifically which cylinder might be the offending culprit.

I would recommend starting with this method:

1. Top off the bottle, bleed the air, then put the cap on tight and loosen one turn. Drive the truck and see if it overheats (I suspect it will not. Trucks with blown hg only overheat due to combustion gases if they can't escape because the cap is on tight). This will tell you if you have a cooling system issue other than the blown. It might even throw a misfire code on the leaking cylinder, giving you a clue where to look.
2. Run a compression test on all the cylinders, throttle wide open, fuel pump relay pulled. look for one or two that are low. Compression testers can be rented at AZ/AA/Oreilly
3. After you have done test #1, rent the cooling system pressure test kit at Oreilly auto parts and pressure test the system. Make sure the system is full of coolant when you test it. Let it sit overnight. The next morning, pull all the plugs out and see if one is cleaner than the rest, if so that is likely the leaking cylinder. Then turn the engine over with a wrench on the crank pulley. Look for water coming out of one of the cylinders (probably the one with the clean spark plug. If the leak is big, or the block is cracked, you should have one with significant amount of water coming out.

Once you know which cylinder is leaking, it will make determining the cause of the leak easier.

When you start to disassemble and you are down to the head bolts, look at each bolt coming out carefully inspecting for water on the threads indicating a crack in the bolt hole.

Hopefully you find something indicating poor assembly practices. If not, you can pressure test the block with a block off kit in place of the heads and the same pressure tester you used before. Let it sit overnight full of water. You want to make sure it does not leak before you put it back together.

Lastly, if the engine is not in good shape for some reason, you may want to consider a replacement. Several guys on facebook in the NC area break LR's - Mike Sides, Doc Heydary, a couple others. I recommend a 4.0 block, you can swap your 4.6 guts in to it if you want. Good luck!

 

Hey Thank you all for the replys! I will follow up with a little more information. So it definately was NOT bled correctly, I have let air out 3 times now and finally got just coolant with no bubbles. PO had a compression test done and all results were within the correct range. I do see that it is throwing a code this morning so I will be hooking it up to my reader shortly and update yall on what code it is. I am taking the combustion test I rented from Oriellys back in a little while and will go ahead and rent a pressure test just to cover that base. Being that the combustion test failed it is safe to say there is a leak somewhere and at this point it is just about figuring out if it is catastrophic or not, which I knew when I bought it so all of the the things yall are telling me I pretty much already expected. Extinct, thank you for the names of the LR people in NC I might be needing more info on them as this saga continues lol. Thank you all again, this community is so much better than the Corvette forums lol!

 

Ok so I hooked up the scanner and there were no misfire codes. I had the following:
P1590
P0134
P0135
P0155

So it seems like o2 sensors which the PO already had and came with the truck, an ABS fault which I have the sensor for the driver rear to fix that and then the cooling fault which we should have known would be there. I did a test, I let it warm up then held rpm at around 3000, coolant temp stayed right around 168-174. I then let off the gas and it stayed around 184 but once got up to 210, I then gave it some throttle and the temp quickly dropped back down to the 170s. Ambient temp during test was around 86 degrees ... Oh this is fun!!!

 

Hi Scott and welcome good luck with this

 

Ok so I decided since I had the system bled and it was doing so good I would drive it a short distance to see how it goes. I drove it to the end of the neighborhood (about a mile) and it did great so I kept going, about 2 miles to the shell station it did great staying between 186 and 194. I put some v-power in it and came on back to the house, it did get up to about 210 but went right back down to 184. I figured since it did so good I would try to drive it to Discount tire to get one of the tires remounted which is about 10 miles away city driving, it did great up until I was going about 55 mph and it started rising fast up to around 142 before I shut it down. I pulled over in an apartment complex and let it cool down but decided to go back home. I stopped by auto zone and got more coolant because it seemed to have lost at least the bottles worth, I let it cool back down and it took the whole gallon to top it off. The whole drive home it stayed between 184 and 191 with no issues... I am going to try the method of loosening the cap just a little to see if the exhaust gasses are causing it like Extinct said.

 

Man, that sounds like a flow problem to me. Is it a new water pump? If you can find a $60 ebay radiator it might be worth throwing in to see if there's a change. How's your thermostat?