Discovery 2 2001 4.0 V8 coolant leak

Hello,

I have noticed my coolant going down a little over the last few weeks and been fearing the dreaded head gasket :-D well to my relief tonight i had a look under and noticed coolant dripping down if you stand in front of the car it appears to be coming from further back than the radiator say in line with the front of the engine and around the middle kind of area maybe slightly towards the passenger side, it stops when you turn the car off and starts again when you start it up. It is pitch black outside at the moment so not great for having a look but any ideas? my initial thought is water pump? i had planned on changing the alternator belt as it looks a little cracked next weekend so if it is likely to be that i will order a water pump to do at the same time.

Any help would be appreciated

Cheers
Neil

Water pump would be your 1st port of call but check the throttle body heater as well

Ok cool cheers i will take a look at that as well in the light tomorrow. Never been so happy to see coolant on the floor was dreading it being something more serious.

Popped out to look and all looks fine on the throttle body heater. Will get under over the weekend to try and confirm it's the water pump. Is it best to switch out the water pump or just change the gasket? And if I'm changing the alternator belt anyway is it easy jon whilst the belt is off.

Cheers
Neil

No do the job properly change the pump as its most likely the pump leaking not the gasket and make sure you bleed it correctly and consider putting UV dye in the coolant to to help trace any future leaks

Will order a waterpump anyways as not 100% sure when it was changed to be honest and taking the alternator belt etc off anyway next saturday to change it so will just switch that out aswell. Amazed how cheap parts are for these, my alfa i had before everything was so dam expensive parts wise.

Yes the parts are cheap its just the amount of parts required to keep them running is a shocker

biketeacherdave said:

Yes the parts are cheap its just the amount of parts required to keep them running is a shocker

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We don't see that on ours, once we'd done the basic sorting out it has been pretty good.

It does depend on keeping on top of maintenance and looking out for normal wear items that need sorting before they get out of hand, plus using OAT 50^ coolant, that is mandatory on the all-alloy V8's if you want any kind of life out of them.

Peter