This p38 range rover has about 104k miles on it and I bought it as a project with blown head gaskets as the rest of it is in beautiful shape. We changed the head gaskets, had the heads gone through at the machine shop, went through the water pump, put in a new thermostat and even a new radiator! Been through all the hoses including the return at the coolant reservoir and the car still gets hot within a few miles before we have to turn it off to prevent a overheat. I am out of ideas and have no clue what to do! Please help!

Fred

 

Have you connected an OBDII scanner to see what kind of temps you get? It will show temps climbing way before the gauge. The thermostat, even if new, can be suspect because it could get trash in it. It can be removed, heated in a pot of water, and water poured thru to test it for being open. Hoses from stat might be connected wrong. Follow the RAVE shop manual. An exhaust gas in coolant test could be run to rule out leaky HG or cylinder sleeve.

 

I wished I had sound advice to give, but I got a bad taste in my mouth after the one ( and only) P38 I owned. Mine was a cherry late 99' HSE black-on-black; had 68K orig miles, from the orig owner. Ran fine for about 2 months, one day "
pop" there went the headgaskets, with no warning other than to spew a cloud of antifreeze smoke.
Fixed it, 500 m. later, same. Again HGs, all new hoses, radiator, thermostat and WP just like yours.
It would still get hot at random.
I threw in the towel and sold it, with less than 1000 miles on two HG redos ( inlc. all bolts and head machining).
They look great, but the worst I ever owned.

 

check the t-sat as already has been said and i think you want to get on of those CO2 test kits to see if it is CO2 in the coolant.