Hey guys-

A few months ago I bought my first Range Rover. It is a 2012 Sport Supercharged [5.0L AJ133 V8]. I picked it up for a little less than half price because it had a blown head gasket. I have done the same thing for other cars before; I buy them for half price or less and replace the head gasket and then drive them around for a year or two. I have never run into issues like what I have come across on this Range Rover. At this point I have replaced the head gaskets two times and it still won't run right. Maybe someone on here knows to do something I'm not? Below is what has been going on:

REPAIR 1:
After disassembly, the heads appear to be warped but not greater than 0.1 mm as indicated by the Land Rover repair manual. The block is totally flat. I lapped all of the valves, cleaned everything, replaced the head gaskets and head bolts with the proper parts, reassembled.
The car ran well for a minute or two, then started burning coolant and pressurizing the system. A leak down test shows that between the number 1 and number 3 cylinder there is leak.

REPAIR 2:
This time I sent the heads off to be machined and checked for cracks. The heads are now totally flat and neither of them are cracked. When they came back I reassembled with all new head gaskets and head bolts.
This time the car ran well for a minute or two and again started burning coolant and pressurizing the cooling system. A leak down test shows that between the number 4 and the number 6 cylinders there is a leak AND there is a leak between the number 5 cylinder and the cooling system.

I don't think the issue is in the heads- they are completely flat and are not cracked. The block is also completely flat. When I had the heads off I didn't see or feel any cracks anywhere. I would say that maybe the block is cracked and I didn't notice it but between the two repairs I have done they haven't leaked the same way both times. Maybe the head bolts aren't strong enough? I don't really know where to go on this one so I was hoping someone knows something about this engine that I'm missing. Thanks for your help!

 

The 5.0 doesn't do overheating. If they are run hot the block typically is shot. You can roll the dice and do the heads and see if it works out. Your situation is the one I hear over and over for the outcome unfortunately.

 

The block appeared to be in good shape when I looked at it. It didn't have any large cracks or any warping from end to end. In the research I'm doing it looks like the top of the block where the head gasket meets the block is the weakest link. There are other people posting images of chunks braking off between the cylinders and cracking. Mine doesn't have this so I'm hoping I can have the surface of the block machined and save it? I will take the heads off again and machine the block and report back.

 

On these cars when they over heat it can be a variety of things ranging some of the most simple things like dirty radiator of just air in the system or even just the cap for the reservoir, i would recommend checking if the rubber o-rings on the reservoir cap are okay before digging deeper because was the problem with my car after i blew 2 head gaskets, or it can be motors to cool the supercharger or the big jobs like head gaskets, water jackets and warped blocks and heads.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I am at a loss at this point though- I removed the block that came with the car and when it was out of the car I could clearly see it was warped. I swapped in a new block and put my old heads (which have been machined) onto the new, perfectly straight block. Now it STILL overheats, runs rough, burns coolant and has a hard time starting.

I'm starting to narrow down the issues I think. At this point it has a new block, machined heads, new head gaskets and new bolts but it still burns coolant like it still has the old block in it. In my experience, I've never seen head bolts that were so weak and I'm wondering if this is the issue? I could not find head studs anywhere but maybe I need to get creative and use a different kind of bolt for the head bolts that's stronger? Does anyone have any other ideas?

 

Did you fix the issues. I was wondering if it was just burning off coolant that was in the exhaust.

 

Did you fix the issues. I was wondering if it was just burning off coolant that was in the exhaust.