2004 Disco, was heading home and heard a pop fopllowed by noise that something was hitting the fan. My oil light came on and sure enough I sprung a leak. I just towed it home and haven;t dug into it yet - any ideas of what it may be. I know the gasket around the oil filter but it appears to be coming from around the water pump. HELP

 

oil sending unit or a oil cooler line

 

There is a bolt in the oil pump area, it may be where you screw in an oil pump gauge. I remember a post where someone found theirs to be loose.

 

Some '04s also suffer oil pump failures alongside '03s.

I hope that's not the case, though, and it's something simple.

 

got home and only had time to look around with a flashlight. there is a few small pieces of aluminum in a pool of oil. i have a feeling my oil pump exploded, does anyone have a pic or diagram of th oil pump and its location

 

You want the RAVE manual, which is available for download. Look for posts by Discomike or Spike. They have the download links in their signatures.

For now, the oil pump is encased in the housing where your water pump mounts to. It's right behind the fan and runs down to and includes your oil filter.

Assuming no damage to your engine, the housing (oil pump gears included) runs about $600 or so new, plus another $50 in gaskets. I think an oil pan gasket is included with that, so you might want to plan on dropping the pan and looking for damage.

The problem with the 4.6L is that Rover outsourced the engines, as I understand it, and the dowl pins are mismachined. It's not a problem with the oil pump, but the machining issues occured on the block. Changing the oil pump by itself might *not* solve your problem in the long run.

 

there are a few articles about oil pump failure do a search for "on your own"

 

Yep, oil pump. It disenegrated and tore through the housing. Everything else looks fine. I will replace the water pump andtiming chain while I am at it.