Bought a three legged dog!

Thought I'd say hello, been scavenging information from here for a while and people like seeing things!

(Before I begin, yes it's a K, yes it's a liability, yes the head gasket has gone and yes, shut up, I'm not setting it on fire and walking away. Yet.)

Never one to run away from a challenge I purchased a 2003 K powered freelander;


Now I'm not daft, I know the K series very well having had several rovers a couple of years ago, but this one was a bit risky with no service history so I hammered the price down to pocket money and took a risk. Knowing that I'd have to do the head gasket eventually I started doing the research necessary. Then... the first service happened.


Oil filter was so old that it was starting to rust through.

Left the undertray off and it was dropping oil everywhere, so it started, hunting down the leaks. There was a major one coming from the oil pump gasket and the oil seal, so that came off and got replaced;



Pulled the cam rail off and found that someone has stripped this down before and used silicone:


*groan*

Fitted new cam oil seals, stopped those leaks!

Cam bearings are knackered, so I refilled with 15w40 on reassembly and the cold rattle went away.

That was the oil leaks sorted.

Of course, it then started dropping coolant everywhere. YAAAY!

First thought, pulled the plastic intake manifold, replaced it with the TF 135 manifold. No joy, water still running down both ends of the head. Eventually caught it in the act, coolant seeping out of the head gasket, which was being covered by all the accumulated mess that I'd just deleted.

So, onto the head gasket, have ordered the N series gasket, new oil rail and 10.9 bolts, and started the strip down. You can see here how badly it's leaking:




The fun really started when I pulled the sump off, which was full of an enormous amount of crap from where it hasn't been serviced properly:


Got the sump off:


Then noticed this:


Someone has rebuilt this with the higher tensile bolts, and not changed the oil rail, as a result the oil rail has cracked on every bolt. Glad I ordered the N series kit with new rail :S

Tomorrow, the head comes off:


Meanwhile, the only other car with a reputation for reliability worse than a K series soldiers on...


Also, the sump is a complete b*****d to get off on these - removing the sump is the easy bit, removing the mount that locks the sump to the IRD to the engine block is a total swine.

I'll post more tomorrow as I get the head off, I'm hoping it's not totally scrap metal

Welcome to the forum.

Funny fred. Great pic's.

It could have been worse. Yer could have bought a rusty ole tratter... ound:

Brilliant Fred!!!!!

Glad to see someone else as stupid as ME

Hope you have better luck than I did with the head gasket. Mine was half blocked with crystallised oil and I had a big job just getting the bolts out as the bolt holes are oil paths and two had blocked completely jamming the bolts in.
Here's a fred I started a few months ago
http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f9/head-bolts-jammed-wont-pull-out-279069.html

Funny thing is I also had a RX8 but I bought mine fubared thinking I could fix it but turned out the engine had chewed itself to bits and wasn't worth fixing so I sold it on.

After you've fixed the HG you'll have to sort the VCU.

Yeah, great pic's! Loved the oil rail cracks!

Great pictures but you know that by now good luck with it , the last time I saw a oil filter like that it drop apart as we tried to get it off

+ 1 good read Best of luck with it.

wow yes good luck great pics
i had a 1.4 k seires rover 200 the old shape.
as i used to work at rover for 16 yrs.
and towed a caravan.
the engine was unbreakable. had it three years and could not blow it up
But then i moved on to a 1.8k new shape rover
it was nothing but problems.
they should of just put a turbo on the 1.4
they messed it up on 1.8
but there is a mod on the coolant inlet
on the 1.8

Good luck and good post. Look forward to next episode.

Test reply, keep getting moderated.

Something about replying to Alibro, I guess, every time I try and respond to him my posts get moderated! Anyway, onto the next chapter...

B34R said:

Something about replying to Alibro, I guess, every time I try and respond to him my posts get moderated! Anyway, onto the next chapter...

Click to expand...

LOL, I never saw myself as a radical before.

Everyone stay clear of me or you'll get moderated. :bounce:

Sooo, headbolts out, head off... uhoh, look at that corrosion on the head gasket...


Then more fun started, the head gasket didn't come off in one piece, but six!


The first two layers of gasket were just completely disintegrating, no wonder it was leaking coolant everywhere!



The oilways were all blocked up much like the link above, cleaned the block up:


Cleaned the head up:

Checks out completely straight and the head saver shim did it's job, no depression in the head where the fire rings were, can't feel it with a fingernail. Still has the skim marks in from when the gasket was done last time!

So, a word to the wise; this is what happens when you fit the harder bolts to the original rail:




Cracked everywhere, I suspect one more torque up and it would have shattered.

New head gasket arrives tomorrow, should all just go straight back together... I hope.