Freelander 1 Head gasket vs inlet manifold gasket

Alibro said:

Lucky the cam wasn't destroyed although it is does look worn through lack of oil.

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The cam bearings were kinda noisy on reassembly, they're pretty buggered. Put heavier 15w40 oil in it and it shut up immediately. I don't really care - if they go they go and I'll buy a new head.

Plenty of K series heads out there but many will be buggered by overheating so be careful if you do go that way. If different oil shuts it up, then happy days.

So i've gotten it apart, crankshaft pulleys are tight aren't they!! haha. Was having to do it solo so i put it in 5th gear and got a 1.5m length of wooden post to wedge the brake pedal down and clamped down on it by inclining the drivers seat back towards the steering wheel! Didn't use a cam locking tool in the end as i couldnt find one and it was fairly dry this afternoon so i made a start on it. Got it pretty much lined up, then undid the crank pulley bolt and whipped the pulley wheel off. Popped the bolt back in and re-aligned the crank bolt with the two dots and the guide line on the block. Then with my big wrench wedged above the brake disc i loosened off the cam pulley bolts with the timing belt still on. It moved the crank pulley a bit butiwht everything lossened slightly i realigned the cam pulleys and crank pulley and loosed them all off. I figure the timing isn't as important when i'm taking the head off as it is for putting it back on? Also, the split pins for the cam pulleys seemed to be in weird positions, so much so that i couldn't get the two central head bolts out without taking the entire cam-carrier off as well first.... would have preferred not to have to undo 26 tiny little bolts in the gale winds and horrendous rain but hey, ho.

The head is now in the kitchen awaiting cleaning. Had to come indoors because the weather is horrendous outside and unfortunately i don't have a garage to sit in

Well i think we predicted one of the problems.... RTV sealant everywhere in the bearing carrier channels. The two end ones are completely blocked and the channels between each spark plug whole are completely blocked as well. Stinks of burnt oil... which funnily enough is how my exhaust was smelling. I did wonder why there was smoke coming out the oil filler cap when the engine had been going for a while, with that kind of circulation i bet it's been cooking the oil and burning it off, straight down my air intake chamber. Now it's inside the house i can really smell the burnt oil from it. The gasket looked reasonably okay, but there was some mayo like mixture at the bottom of the block channels so something was going where it shouldn't have been. Also noticed a blackened deposit at the top edge of the liners, don't know if thats meant to be there or not but i take it i need to clean it off?

Pics to follow shortly.

Be very careful when touching or cleaning the liners as they are held in place by Hylomar sealer. Don't turn the crank until the head is back on. It's wise to have the box in neutral too just in case the car moves slightly in the wind.
It's sensible to clamp the liners, just in case

Good job getting this far, I used a cheap 240V rattle gun to get my crank bolt off.
To get a couple of the head bolts out you have to turn one of the cams a little as it gets in the way otherwise. Don't worry about the cam positions as you will be setting it again anyway.
When refitting the cam pulleys make sure they are aligned properly with the little split pins in the correct position for each pulley, ie exhaust and inlet. I got this wrong last time and the car wouldn't start, took ages to figure out why.
Use a nylon scouring pad and some diesel or such to clean the surfaces.

Nodge68 said:

Be very careful when touching or cleaning the liners as they are held in place by Hylomar sealer. Don't turn the crank until the head is back on. It's wise to have the box in neutral too just in case the car moves slightly in the wind.
It's sensible to clamp the liners, just in case

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Yeah its in neutral and covered over for tonight. Had a piece of wood but no piping to build a makeshift clamp with the old headbolts so it'll have to make do without for tonight. Back on it first thing tomorrow morning so it won't be like that for too long.

Alibro said:

Good job getting this far, I used a cheap 240V rattle gun to get my crank bolt off.
To get a couple of the head bolts out you have to turn one of the cams a little as it gets in the way otherwise. Don't worry about the cam positions as you will be setting it again anyway.
When refitting the cam pulleys make sure they are aligned properly with the little split pins in the correct position for each pulley, ie exhaust and inlet. I got this wrong last time and the car wouldn't start, took ages to figure out why.
Use a nylon scouring pad and some diesel or such to clean the surfaces.

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Yeah i read your thread you linked to earlier, good to know or i'd have probably made the same mistake as well.

Just out of curiosity does anybody know what size the right breather hole is supposed to be on the top of the cam cover? It's the hole that connects to the injector system with the S-shaped piece of flexy pipe. It has a similar sized tube attached as the left hole, but inside my cam cover it's only been drilled out by a 1 or maybe 2mm drill bit. Needless to say it was completely blocked. I'm just curious because it has a much larger exit hole and pipe, but it isn't drilled out to match the pipes that are attached to it.

The s shaped breather is at manifold depression so should only have a tiny hole. If you make it larger, the engine will run badly and burn the oil up very quickly. Unblock it but otherwise leave well alone

Call me odd, but I actually much prefer to strip the head while it's on the car, find it kind of therapeutic.
(But in the current weather I could understand the impulse to get indoors!)

The smell of burning oil is a big indicator that it's been blocked up badly, your camshaft bearings are probably burning out like mine were. Your mechanic that did the job is a f***ing halfwit if he's used silicone like that. Drives me mad that people just don't care when dealing with other people's cars.

Get yourself a couple of tins of brake cleaner from a parts place, make it spotless before you reassemble - put plenty of oil on the cam bearings before torqueing the cam cover down.

Don't be surprised if you put it back together and it starts rattling like mad. If it does, step up to 15w40 oil for a while and it should stop the noise.

You only need the tiniest smear of the anaerobic sealant, use as little as you can get away with.

Pay attention to the following while reassembling the cam carrier:

Nodge68 said:

The s shaped breather is at manifold depression so should only have a tiny hole. If you make it larger, the engine will run badly and burn the oil up very quickly. Unblock it but otherwise leave well alone

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Okay, cheers for that. Thought i'd check before getting the drill out Seems odd to have such a large hose attached when the hole is so tiny inside.

B34R said:

Call me odd, but I actually much prefer to strip the head while it's on the car, find it kind of therapeutic.
(But in the current weather I could understand the impulse to get indoors!)

The smell of burning oil is a big indicator that it's been blocked up badly, your camshaft bearings are probably burning out like mine were. Your mechanic that did the job is a f***ing halfwit if he's used silicone like that. Drives me mad that people just don't care when dealing with other people's cars.

Get yourself a couple of tins of brake cleaner from a parts place, make it spotless before you reassemble - put plenty of oil on the cam bearings before torqueing the cam cover down.

Don't be surprised if you put it back together and it starts rattling like mad. If it does, step up to 15w40 oil for a while and it should stop the noise.

You only need the tiniest smear of the anaerobic sealant, use as little as you can get away with.

Pay attention to the following while reassembling the cam carrier:

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Yeah there was a lot in there. The stuff inside that'd been exposed to the oil had turned rock hard as well. There were 3 of the oil passageways that go down to the hydraulic lifters/tappets that were blocked to the point of needing a micro-screwdriver and a hammer to knock the sealant out. They came out like little hard plastic pellets. The poor engine certainly needed some love!

So its been rebuilt, cranked it a few times by hand to make sure it was ok. Fired it up and it lived!! The bad news is it was still smoking heavily from the exhaust. Ths other even worse is after 4 miles my engine began to make a funny noise and now it sounds like this...



Any ideas for more things i can try? After the rebuild the engine seems livelier and more responsive but dont want to drive it if its making that noise.

OKay, so i found my issue i think. I put my cambelt tensioner on slightly wrong. The allen key hole was at the top, not at the 6pm position. Found another forum where someone else had done the same, got it lined up with the spring okay but was still tensioning wrong. 5 minutes later and it's not making the noise now when revving. Will be driving to halfords in a minute to get some more OAT so i'll see how it goes after that. Drove for 10 miles last night though and got home before it started making the noise. Opened my header cap today and there was no release of pressure. Might be too early to say for definite but it looks like the pressure build up might not be an issue anymore!

Nice one. There's always some wee thing goes wrong when doing such a big job. Hopefully so long as you prepped the surfaces properly, didn't disturb the liners and torqued it all properly it will be fine. The smoke might just be residual oil in the exhaust burning off. Heres hoping.

Obligatory photo's!!

The anount of mayo i was getting on the oil cap.


Oil leak that had been running down behind the timing belt cover


The block with head removed. The cylinder full of coolant seemed to drain off somehow overnight. No idea where it all went too!


The cylinder with "irrepairable scoring damage" and the black residue i ended up taking off all 4 cylinders



My blocked oil passageways



My cam cover filter and breather were blocked completely so they got soaked in cleaner



Only half of the cured rtv sealant i pulled out from inside the engine!!


The long, tedious, cleaning parts section




Rebuild



My upside down tensioner

Alibro said:

Nice one. There's always some wee thing goes wrong when doing such a big job. Hopefully so long as you prepped the surfaces properly, didn't disturb the liners and torqued it all properly it will be fine. The smoke might just be residual oil in the exhaust burning off. Heres hoping.

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Yeah i'm hoping so. Going for a slightly longer trip tonight so will keep checking it to see if it settles down at all.

The scoring you mentioned look acceptable. The cross hatch pattern is perfectly normal, added at manufacture to bed the piston rings in. It's presence shows that little cylinder wear has taken place.

Check all the breather hoses to the cam cover as one of mine was totally blocked with mayo, I was thinking the same as Nodge about the cylinders unless there is scoring we can't see in the photo.

Wouldn't water in the cylinder drain through the ring gap into the sump?

Agreed, the crosshatching in the cylinder liners is normal.

Chancing it there big time, last time I washed car parts indoors I got yelled at!

Try using the dishwasher if you really want to get her mad.

Double post

Alibro said:

Check all the breather hoses to the cam cover as one of mine was totally blocked with mayo, I was thinking the same as Nodge about the cylinders unless there is scoring we can't see in the photo.

Wouldn't water in the cylinder drain through the ring gap into the sump?

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Cylinder is perfectly normal. And yes, water left overnight in the cylinder will end up in the sump.