Take a Range Rover across Europe they said...

Buy a Range Rover with 2 mates for £1500 2 weeks before you leave for a road trip across Europe. What could go wrong?

After driving though France, Belgium, Luxenbourg, Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia with only mild problems; such as a little bit of high water temperature when driving over the Alps, only to end up on the side of a German Autobahn in a steamy mess. The radiator had given up in a spectacular way, the plastic bottom section being blown off the metal part. This should have set my alarm bells ringing to something more terminal then just a over heating issue. So we got a new radiator air mailed from the UK over to Germany, fitted it and then realised when bleeding the cooling system that the bubbles never stopped. Once warm it was emptying all the coolant in about 200m worth of driving.

Managed to get it back to the UK after a lot of hassle and many favours.

Today i took the head off and found that No.5 has a crack in the head running from the injector port across to the centre of the cylinder. The head gasket seems fine, as does the block. I'm assuming the problem was caused by the crack in the head, so i'm on the hunt for a head.

Is there anything else i should check???

Who knew that the only part that would fail on the trip was the bit made by BMW.

Don't buy one that has been skimmed, you will be asking for problems. I am assuming that it is diesel.

tomcat59alan said:

Don't buy one that has been skimmed, you will be asking for problems. I am assuming that it is diesel.

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Ok, why is that because of clearance issues?

I normally always skim a head if i change a head gasket, should i not skim the new head?

And yes, its a P38 with the BMW 2.5 Diesel

other than this minor issue how was the rest of your trip? did you take any photos you could share with us?

Littelwill said:

other than this minor issue how was the rest of your trip? did you take any photos you could share with us?

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Yeah i do hove some just need to organise them.

Hope you had the suspension on the lowest setting through Calais

ukadamwest said:

Hope you had the suspension on the lowest setting through Calais

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Converted to springs. Had to pay for the larger ferry space not through height but length.

Would be great to see them.

Check on Rave, it is not recommended to skim this head. Don't think BMW made the radiator, whose failure probably caused the head to crack if you didn't stop immediately.

Doesnt take much of an overheat to crack the M51 diesel head.....

Think the cause of the crack was the overheat when the temp kept rising rather than the crack causing the overheat.....

Afterall you made it all through those countries before the rad went....if the head was cracked, it would have gone well before then....

Saint.V8 said:

Doesnt take much of an overheat to crack the M51 diesel head.....

Think the cause of the crack was the overheat when the temp kept rising rather than the crack causing the overheat.....

Afterall you made it all through those countries before the rad went....if the head was cracked, it would have gone well before then....

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Didn't I say that in not so many words? You taking over from Keith?

The radiator was blown apart, which i don't think was because it over heated but because the system was pressurised by the cylinder. The original overheating when going across the Alps was probably due to my driving and a combo of old radiator/fan. I don't think it helps having so many other heat exchangers in front of the radiator.

Previous owner had mentioned overheating but he removed the air con condenser and it stopped, when i looked at what he had removed the condenser was blocked with dirt/feathers/children etc. So the damaged was probably already done before we left. 3 of the other cylinders show the start of cracks.

I didn't realise what it was at the time but when we parked it sometime we would return to a little puddle of coolant. Which was the system being pressurised and the expansion cap letting some water out. Then the radiator started to leak, use a bit of liquid fix and it stopped, it hindsight just made it worse as i stopped it letting the pressure out so the next thing it did was blow the radiator apart. I don't normal use any liquid fix's but was stuck for ideas.

Anthony Day said:

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Yup, that's cracked, BMW had a big problem many years ago with porous heads, don't think it affected diesels. They started making them out of food grade ally and that seemed to solve the problem. My friend had over a dozen in his engineering shop, sent from the main stealers, all failed pressure testing.

yeah so in the hunt for a head, havnt got enough posts to ask on here but anywhere you can think to find one other then the obvious ebay or local scrappy.

I assume the M51D25 out of a e36 or e34 bmw will also work?

Anthony Day said:

yeah so in the hunt for a head, havnt got enough posts to ask on here but anywhere you can think to find one other then the obvious ebay or local scrappy.

I assume the M51D25 out of a e36 or e34 bmw will also work?

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I know of a guy that sells on ebay but he was also selling a skimmed head. When I told him it was scrap he still had it up for sale. Just be careful what you buy.