L322 Let's have your technical opinions then. Coolant leak and cracked manifold?

My latest financial mistake is causing me the expected bother. To be clear, I bought this 2009 facelift car based on half a dozen pics and the description "run and drive - yes" from and auction and had it delivered. (more detail in the intro section).

So, I was absolutely not expecting to jump start the car and have trouble-free motoring, nobody sells a TDV8 Vogue with full history (a pleasant surprise when I opened the glovebox), matched Falken tyres and 10 months MOT because there's nothing wrong with it do they? So, what is so badly wrong with it that put in an auction then? Not that much actually that I have found in a week or so of ownership!

I'm losing coolant; the heater doesn't work which is a sure sign and of course the other giveaway is it telling me and I have to keep topping it up. So this morning I stripped off the fan shroud an top hoses to inspect the water pump etc. I'll confess to being slightly horrified at the sight of the viscous fan with an electric motor! That seems like an unnecessary piece of engineering and a potentially expensive disaster, I digress, it';s working currently so I'll leave that well alone. Good news, all is dry and other than a loose P-clip from a. previous mechanic, all seems to be in good order. As I had the top hose off I decided to disconnect what I believe to be the pipes going to the heater matrix (aluminium tubes heading over the back of the V) and slowly top up the coolant until it ran from the heater pipes. My thinking was to give myself a fighting chance at bleeding it out. Put it all back together and topped off the coolant, ran it up; still no heat. However, I am losing coolant from the passenger side of the car at the back of the engine and it is dripping off the anti-roll-bar. If I fill the matrix it is noticeably worse than once it's expelled that lot.

What are the common things to fail in this area? Advice please.



Glass jar caught just enough to see the pink hue and prove it is coolant and not A/C runoff as I'd previously thought.

That's one done and now for the "Reduced Performance" issue. When going up an incline at about 1/3 throttle, not tickling it but not driving hard, the car often goes into limp mode with a MAP sensor error on Bank A (I think). Strangely, it ALWAYS tells me that Braking assistance and Stability Control are unavailable at the same time, these three always happen together and never appear individually. Is that normal?

Well, I think I have identified the cracked manifold issue as I noticed when refitting the engine cover, there is a diesel soot stain on the underside foam and it is directly over the top of the gap in the metal cover of the inlet manifold which has a (un)healthy soot deposit along the top of it. If we can take away one thing from this discovery, the EGR is working on that side I guess!


Please let me know your thoughts on these issues, Doesn't seem to bad to me but I need to address them obviously.

On another note, I removed the rotten side steps last week but tackled a couple of seized bolts today in the floor before ordering new ones. A friend and LR enthusiast dropped by to ridicule me for buying an auction L322. While there he tested my air suspension and told me that it was dumping waaaay too much air when it was in access mode. I sipped my tea and explained I'd never heard it do that before now.

"The suspension is fine - you've dropped it on my can of Rust Resolver you massive tit! Look at the state of my driveway!"

Everyone has that one friend eh?

Im not familiar with that engine could be a core plug.

There are so many small coolant hoses on these things its a bit of a job to locate.
Yes the AC runoff drops out around there so it could be a leaky heater matrix leaking out the same place. Can you bypass the heater in the engine bay to see if the leak stops?
Looking in the manual to change a heater core is probably a good reason to sell it .
There are many hoses around the back of the engine aswell which maybe could leak and show in that area.

Yes the EGRs are in the V in that area.
As for your "limp mode" I dont really know but it could be connected to the EGR leak, or possibly lack of cooling to a component that the brain sees as a problem.

I would ask how old is the battery. not because its related to your present problems but an unhealthy battery will throw allsorts of faults that will have you chasing your tail.
Have attached a couple of pages which may help it also explains you fan operation.

J

marjon said:

There are so many small coolant hoses on these things its a bit of a job to locate.
Yes the AC runoff drops out around there so it could be a leaky heater matrix leaking out the same place. Can you bypass the heater in the engine bay to see if the leak stops?
Looking in the manual to change a heater core is probably a good reason to sell it .
There are many hoses around the back of the engine aswell which maybe could leak and show in that area.

Yes the EGRs are in the V in that area.
As for your "limp mode" I dont really know but it could be connected to the EGR leak, or possibly lack of cooling to a component that the brain sees as a problem.

I would ask how old is the battery. not because its related to your present problems but an unhealthy battery will throw allsorts of faults that will have you chasing your tail.
Have attached a couple of pages which may help it also explains you fan operation.

J

Click to expand...

Show me a car that the heater matrix is easy to change .

Thanks for the diagrams, that is useful.

The battery is less than a week old, I always put new one batteries on as a matter of course for any car I buy, as you suggest, it's a common source of problems especially on a power hungry bugger like this and people so often overlook it. Incidentally, the one I took off actually had a date of 22/3/22 written on it and once I charged it up it has stayed at 12.6v for over a week now so It was probably fine anyway.

There is a valve block that controls the water flow to the heater and a known to play up and stop heat coming out the heater but that would not explain the leak, hb1 on diag, on my mates tdv8 sport he had to change a housing and was advised by his friendly JLR tech to change all the hoses in one go as they are all the same age and a pain to change so get it over and done with in one hit.

Two other faults coming up with the MAP fault is due to the crazy CAN BUS system used on these cars with all ECU's linked on a common data bus.

Wise words I'd say, nothing worse than fixing one to do the whole job again next week for the hose next to it eh? Fortunately I have some budget to spend on the car as I (think I) went into it with my eyes open. I'm always happy to invest a bit in my cars early on for preventative measures it pays dividends in the long run. However, I accept that I am in a privileged position to be able to do that and I firmly believe that this is where these cars get their poor reputation from when people attempt to run them on a shoestring.

I have actually got the car booked in for tomorrow morning for an investigation at a local-ish specialist. I'm sure that once it's on the ramp we'll be able to see more.

Datatek said:

Two other faults coming up with the MAP fault is due to the crazy CAN BUS system used on these cars with all ECU's linked on a common data bus.

Click to expand...

Kind of my thinking too.

Had it with Claire's Disco when the air suspension ride height wiring was failing, it's throw a fault for almost every component so it took a while to diagnose.

If you dont have a manual, you will need 1.

There are many about on tinternet for free, I did get topix sub and downloaded it for the 2011 (still sorting files so I can find them by a proper name)
But this 1 is pretty good.
Range Rover L322 Workshop Manual 2007-2010.pdf - Google Drive.

J

Some reasonable progress this evening. That's a big ass split in the inlet manifold right there, about 5" at a guess. I think I know where my boost pressure has been going! Man the plastic is thin too, really flimsy once it's cracked and of course the issue just gets worse.



Cleaned, roughed up and filled with Q-Bond. It's solid now and I absolutely cannot wait to ring LR in the morning and ask them to order me a new manifold, Ooof! That's going to be a bill I won't forget easily but hey-ho, it needs to be fixed.


Also found the coolant leak I think. Pretty sure it's the valve block mentioned by others. Directly under the diesel filter and looks tricky to get to. It's dropping coolant on to the chassis leg and then it runs both directions making it drip out of the back by the gearbox as I previously pictured, out of the front next to the rad and has the audacity to run through a big tubular crossmember (under the radiator) to the other side and drip there too.

Well RR, you may think your clever dropping coolant everywhere to throw me off the scent but huzzah! I found it and I WILL win (this round at least). There's more to come isn't there? Yeah, thought so.

Thanks for the support so far everyone, it's been interesting.

Well solved that bloke

That's a good bit of detective work.

I can't really take the full credit as I found this while searching the forum which set me on the right track:



Had the coolant leak diagnosed (properly) this morning and it is the aluminium pipe that runs from the valve block (under the fuel filter), it has a small hole in it. Not too bad really, £360 all in which whilst I could do it and save myself some money, I have almost no time in the next two weeks and they will of course flush/refresh the coolant and bleed the system up so the heater works again. £90 of that quote was spent this morning anyway so as a fix, I don't think it's a bad price at all.

I may hold off on the gearbox service for a week or so to see how I get on with the repairs made so far but to be honest, I'm quietly optimistic.

Inlet manifold from LR is (I think he said) £859 and it's not clear as to whether the £71 gasket is included in that or not. I think I just zoned out at that point.

Perhaps I have fixed it for good anyway - I really hope so.

Picked the car up this evening by the skin of my teeth as the place was all closed up, apparently it was a bugger of a job but they honoured the 1 hour labour quote which was good. There's nothing falling out of the car from a coolant point of view but the heater isn't working still. It get some warmth when it's been parked for a while but as you drive the heat gets blown out of it by the fan motor. Now, I can't say that this has ever worked in the time I've owned the car as it was pretty hot when I bought it and only now it's cooled down and raining can I say that it's not working.

I think I have an airlock and as the car was finished (sort of) late this afternoon and I needed to collect it, I'm not blaming the garage at all but I think I need to bleed it a bit more and critically it needs to be done when the engine is cold and probably through a couple of heat cycles which I'd rather not keep going back for. Any tips from anyone on how to do this? I've read a technical manual that suggests removing the fuel cooler/heater return hose as the bleed point but I'm open to suggestion especially from anyone that has been through it themselves. The garage is about 35 minute drive from me so you can understand why I don't want to keep going back especially as there's no public transport between there and home.

Oh, and the manifold? No more limp mode and no more thick black smoke under acceleration, currently all seems to be well on that front.

I noticed that little snippet in the manual too, don’t know if it’s needed but if they mention it it maybe. Follow what they say and see how it goes now you have no leaks. If you can see or find a better way let us know

They said I had to remove transmission subframe to replace front prop, a few cups of tea and a coat of looking at revealed you don’t.


Your making progress which is the main thing.

J

I just want to say (for no apparent reason) secondary coolant/heater pump.

J

marjon said:

I noticed that little snippet in the manual too, don’t know if it’s needed but if they mention it it maybe. Follow what they say and see how it goes now you have no leaks. If you can see or find a better way let us know

Click to expand...

My main issue here is that if there is air in the matrix side, it has to go downhill a fair way before it can come back up again and I'm not sure that the small pipe to the cooler is likely to yield much. You are right though, if it's the tech manual, someone must have made it work at some point. I'm really tempted to release the quick connects and see if I get any air out from those alloy pipes at the top of the engine.

Got an early start tomorrow as I'm in London all day so I'll play about on Thursday and report my findings then.

Have you checked that the heater valve block is actually opening to let the hot water in to the heater matrix.

Not yet, needed to resolve the coolant leak first so I'm chipping away at it. Any advice on how to check it?