Visual Clues of Head Gasket Replacement
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Drifting
Joined: Jul 2024
Posts: 29
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Visual Clues of Head Gasket Replacement
I’m looking to buy a Discovery 2. Some local used dealerships have them, but they generally know nothing about the maintenance history beyond CarFax. Are there visual indicators that these vehicles have had their head gaskets replaced? Otherwise I’m looking for other indicators of attentive maintenance, but on the head gaskets, I didn’t know how to check. Thanks.
Camel Trophy
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 3,880
Likes: 950
From: Charlotte
It's not foolproof, but because the head bolt tightening sequence requires the bolts to be tightened twice after an initial low torque tightening, and that final tightening is done by measurement of degrees of rotation, some people put little Sharpie marks on the bolt heads to keep track of how much the bolts have been turned. I know I did that 14 years ago.
As @mln01 says, look at the head bolts and gaskets. At 20-24 years of age the question is not so much have they been done, but how long ago. Almost unheard of them making it past 140k although it has been done if the maintenance is very diligently done. Good idea to register for a free account on mycarfax.com and run the VIN through there, it will show service history if the shop entered it in the system. There is also an small exposed section on HG on the bottom edge of the head, if you can take a high resolution photo of the exposed gasket it is possible to match it up with the manufacturer. If you are shopping for several always make the choice in the following order:
1. Low miles - only thing on the truck you can't replace
2. Frame rust - no significant rust is only acceptable answer
3. Paint - besides frame by far the most expensive thing to replace.
4. Engine services history, if i had to choose between two with very similar miles and one was cheaper but no hg recently done and more expensive but recently done, I would choose the one that had NOT been done assuming I could source a good shop to do it. Then you could knock out several needed upgrades (HG, hoses, radiator, wp, coils, etc.) all at once and have years of troublefree driving.
1. Low miles - only thing on the truck you can't replace
2. Frame rust - no significant rust is only acceptable answer
3. Paint - besides frame by far the most expensive thing to replace.
4. Engine services history, if i had to choose between two with very similar miles and one was cheaper but no hg recently done and more expensive but recently done, I would choose the one that had NOT been done assuming I could source a good shop to do it. Then you could knock out several needed upgrades (HG, hoses, radiator, wp, coils, etc.) all at once and have years of troublefree driving.
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