Hello Forum,

First off I just joined this forum and wanted to say that I appreciate all the info provided here.

In the last 2 days I have bled the cooling system and changed my throttle plate thanks to the detailed posts here.

Now on to my problem.

I bought my 2003 DII on June 18th, 2011. Everything was great on the truck until about 1 week ago. I was driving my son to school and noticed that the temperature would fluctuate. It has always ran at mid temp since I got it.

I changed the thermostat on it at work, but the truck kept overheating. Thanks to this forum, I found out about having air in your cooling system, and had it bled. Temp has returned back to normal (or cooler) and no problems....... until this morning....

As I dropped my son of at school again, I turned my DII of and noticed there was smoke coming from the engine when I parked. I immediately opened the hood and noticed coolant coming out from the throttle body. Again thanks to this forum, found out what the problem was and changed the Throttle plate.. No more leak..... Now here is what I noticed... As Im driving home today, at stop lights the truck seems to have a misfire and Idle seems a bit low. Temp stays where it should, but I feel like its a little warm at floorboard. When I got home I also noticed that there is a whooshing sound coming from the dash board when I turned the truck off.

It feels fine when Im accelerating (except for the warmth coming from floor board) but when at a stop, It just does not feel right.

I know that when the Throttle plate was leaking, alot of coolant was falling in the area where the spark plugs go... Would this have anything to do with it?

Any suggestions on what I should check out?

Oh and forgot to mention the SES light went on yesterday also.

I am a first time LR owner, and hope to learn alot from all the other members!

Thank you in advance.

 

Bad news. You have listed several symptoms of head gasket issue.

1. Smoke - if steam from engine area (white), and warm floor board area, can be leaking out rear of heads, or in the valley pan under the intake manifold and draining to the rear. Valley pan gasket is cheaper to fix than head gaskets.

2. Whooshing sound is bubbles making their way through the coolant lines that serve the heater system. You may be able to bleed the system and it could have been just air from your other work. But it can also be combustion gas leaking from the HG into the coolant. Before you order $300 in gaskets, there is a chemical test you can buy at auto parts store to verify exhaust gas in coolant ($50, does 16 or so tests).

3. Plugs could be fouled, remove and check. A really good HG leak will steam clean one or all cylinders on that side of the engine.

This would be a good time to borrow a scanner that can read live data, so you can see exactly what the coolant temp is doing, the guage is not very precise.

Think long and hard about the temptation to pour in mechanic-in-a-jar-stopz-leekz. While they once in a while fix something with a tiny leak, the rest of the bottle sinks to the bottom of your radiator, clogs half of it, and you are back to overheating. Plus, the weak gasket simply fails in another area, and the heads warp from constant overheat cycles.

A head gasket job is 1500 - 3000 depending on shop, the kit of gaskets is about $300, you need to buy new head bolts as they stretch when installed and can't be re-used. You also want to have heads checked for flatness and planed if needed by a cylinder head machine shop (about $200). Reasonable estimate of DIY time is two weekends, with heads going to shop inbetween.

You'll want to download the RAVE tech manual set for all things Rover. Detailed step by step process in there.

You'll find posts on this forum of how to clear the service reminder light. But reading any codes would be a plus, auto parts stores will do it for free. Need to check your main fan clutch as well, could be related to overheating that caused HG failure.

 

Dave, if you want some help, send me your number and I'll be glad to call you.