I have an 04 Disco with about 108,000 miles. The head gaskets were redone around 90K miles, but it started throwing codes recently and losing fluid with no obvious leaks. Took it to the shop, and they believed it was a bad head gasket. When the heads came off, the cylinder with the misfire code showed signs of coolant intrusion (the piston top and combustion chamber were clean, the others looked normal). However, the head gasket was in good shape, and the liners are in great condition with no sign of movement or slippage. This leads us to believe that there is a crack in the liner, allowing coolant into the cylinder when it heats up.

What options do we have? So far:

1 - Rebuilt engine from Atlantic British - I hesitate to go this route as there are some not so good stories about AB rebuilds prematurely failing.

2 - Rebuilt engine from Turner - Negatives is that they only sell short blocks, and have a two month+ lead time right now. Cost with shipping will be more than $5,500 for the SB.

So, are there other engine rebuilders in the US?

If we decide to not fix the vehicle, what is best way to dispose of a non-running vehicle?

 

If you decide not to fix it, you can sell it as is. You can part it out. Or you can donate it to charity.
Where are you located? If you end up swapping out the motor, I might be interested in the bad motor.

 

Sell it as is or part it out. Spending $5,000+ on a new engine is a bad investment UNLESS you have money to burn, in which case why not.

 

Curious to know if stretch bolts or or studs where used when the head gaskets where done. There was no need to remove the heads to inspect, if any of the center cylinders have coolant it’s always a cracked block. I had the almost exact sequence of events happen to my first D2. Sorry for your misfortune.

 

It would be a crack in the block, not a crack in the liner.

As mentioned above the only way to truly diagnose if coolant is seeping into a cylinder through a crack in the block is with the heads on using a boroscope. You should have been having misfires on the cylinder in question and a fouled spark plug. Did the head gasket damage happen when the head was removed? I see the torn part between the two left bores.

 

Just curious, was the Disco overheated while you owned it?

 

Your shop can easily do a quick pressure test on the block to see if it is cracked.

If not cracked, then you pressure test that head. If the head isn't cracked, then you check the block and head for "flatness" to insure that neither warped. Light warpage can cause a coolant leak even with a perfectly fine head gasket by allowing the coolant to flow under the gasket.

You've already done half of the work to replace the head and/or head gasket on that side of the motor, so it won't really cost that much to fix unless the block itself is cracked as you tested per my suggestion above.

 

Thanks for all of the replies. The head has been sent out to be checked. The engine did get hot several years ago, although I don't think it overheated. The vehicle was idling in a car line when I noticed the engine temp gauge rise above the mid-point, and I shut the engine off right away before the red light came on. The coolant reservoir had failed, and was leaking coolant. After letting the engine cool, I re-filled reservoir, drove it a short distance home, and replaced the coolant tank.

This was several years ago and the engine ran OK until recently when the check engine light for a miss-fire in cylinders 6 and 8 came on. The engine started losing small amounts of coolant at that time. The shop boroscoped the two cylinders, and noted that #6 was clean. A compression test indicated good compression, and since the engine did not tick, they thought it was a head gasket.

When the heads came off, it was apparent that the gaskets were in good shape (the "tear" in the photograph is a reflection). The liners are also in good condition, with no evidence of slippage. So now we are waiting to hear from the machine shop about the condition of the head, but if the head checks out OK, the fault would have to be in the engine block.

 

Since when does Turner only do short blocks? I bought a long block from them around 2 years ago.

 

The following is from Turner as of last week.