I am right there with you. I just got my heads off yesterday 2012 5.0 LR4. I bought the truck with mechanical issues that i suspected would just be the timing chain. However, its worse. When I got the heads off cylinders 5 and 7 are cooked. I am guessing it overheated with previous owner. Looks like a new engine for me. Do you think land rover ever thought about how to mount more junk on the back of those heads (sarcasm intended). I am taking the body off to put the engine back in.

 

That's a bummer. Do you have a picture of the cylinders that you can share? I'm curious to see what you mean by cooked. Was yours still running?

 

3/2 -- 1hr

Received the oil filter wrench tonight. Easily removed the bolts underneath and lifted the passenger side head.

 

Suspected head gasket failure point. This is the area between middle two cylinders on passenger side. I should have written it down, but there was one loose head bolt on this site I'm 90% sure it was the top bolt between these 2 cylinders.

This engine was still running fine. I was unable to smell any odor in the exhaust, and it took a long time for a coolant block test to show positive. With that diagnosis I anticipated looking for a very small leak to begin with. These are subtle findings but I believe enough to explain the symptoms that were barely detectable.

It appears that 1 head bolt became loose allowing just enough head excursion to generate a small leak at this point. Time would not have treated this combination well. I don't see any other obvious damage, so hopefully this was caught early enough to reassemble and go for many more miles.

 

 

That’s cylinder 5. 7 isn’t much better. I couldn’t get the piston to even come out the top I will have to pull it from the bottom.

 

Small delay pending quote from local shop to recondition the heads.

Took the time to fix a cosmetic issue. The previous owner made a failed attempt at having the driver door vinyl restored (photo 1)

I didn't find a matching used panel replacement right away and couldn't find any advice on a repair so I blazed a trail.

1) remove door panel
2) remove door latch handle and window switch panel
3) Drill out plastic rivets holding vinyl covered top section (photo 2)
4) strip old vinyl with heat gun (photo 3).
5) take top section and old vinyl to auto upholstery shop for replacement. ABC discount upholstery in Las Vegas did a great job recovering the piece. $120 for the materials and labor.
6) reinstall top section of door panel by filing drilled out white plastic rivets with hot glue and then using screws with washers threaded into the hard glue
7) reinstall door handle and window switches
8) reinstall door panel
9) enjoy (photo 4)

$120 and about 4hrs time

 

2.5 hrs

Valve compressor and valve seal tools came in yesterday. 2.5 hours later all 16 valves removed from passenger side head. Also all clean and organized. Not really a tough job even for a beginner. The less fun part is next, cleaning the intake and exhaust passages.

 

What tools did you buy for the timing chain and crankshaft bolt? How much is the machine work going to cost? I'm getting ready to do the same on my 2011 RR

Thanks

 

1. 90mm oil filter wrench $20
2. Fuel injector removal slide hammer (spent a few extra dollars on a good one, assenmacher tools) $100
3. Timing set (these are all over ebay straight from china for cheap, might work for one job, I went with a used brand name set for better quality) $100
4. Crank bolt/pulley removal set (went cheap on this as the nice ones were $500+!. Worked well. Had to trim the bolt with grinder anyway to fit in behind the LR4 radiator, so was glad to not cut up an expensive one) $200
5. The head bolt tool has been the most elusive. You can use a 10mm hex bit which worked fine for me to remove them, but technically the right tool is a polydrive I believe.

Around $450 invested in the tools

Machine shop here in central California quoted $250 to machine and test both heads.

These direct injection engines build crazy intake valve carbon. The machine shop recommended a valve train tear down to clean it right. For the experience I have decided to do the valve work myself. Intake side looked great cleaned up, but exhaust side were pitted so going to replace those and the valve seals while its apart. Probably could get away with just slapping the machined heads back on but with all the carbon I saw and 120k on the valve seals I wanted to do a complete job. Since I'm saving so much doing it myself, I figure why not splurge a little on parts while it's easy to replace them now.