Oil cooler or head gasket?

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ianrobbo

New Member
Posts
31
Location
West Sussex
Hi all,

Recently bought a 2000 TD5 Discovery, and have to say it's been a bit of a nuisance up to now! But I'm not a quitter!

Only had it a few days and the rear suspension was sagging overnight - a new suspension airbag solved that one. Got stuck in town when the ignition switch failed to turn - removing the switch and lots of WD40 and grease cured that.

Latest one - just got recoverd back to Sussex from Devon. Really, should never have gone to Devon. as I knew there was a problem - oil level dropping, and oil in the coolant water. I thought I could keep on top of it by topping up the engine oil, and draining the oil out of the header tank, but it obviously got worse - had to pull over (luckily on the way back from Devon) with the temperature going up, and fountains of oil/water sludge coming out of the water filler cap.

Anyway, I don't think that it's the head gasket - there's no water in the engine oil, when checking the oil filler or dipstick. I understand that there's a water-cooled oil cooler on the TD5 - that's where I'm going to start looking, and of course removing the oil cooler is a lot easier than removing the head.

Any thoughts?
 
Last edited:
Mine had the same problem, i had the head gasket replaced but the problem persisted. Loads of reading up later i discovered it was the oil cooler, doddle to fit in a couple of hours tops, remove the turbo and surrounding bits and it's a piece of cake.
 
How about ditch the oil/water cooler, connect the water hoses together, and fit an oil/air cooler.

Would have thought it would do a better job also.

OR is it designed to heat the oil initially?

Cheers.
 
Mr Noisy said:
How about ditch the oil/water cooler, connect the water hoses together, and fit an oil/air cooler.

Would have thought it would do a better job also.

OR is it designed to heat the oil initially?

Cheers.
Click to expand...

I must admit I was thinking along the same lines myself, or at least somehow isolate the two temporarily for fault finding.
 
Some pipe joiners would do nicely.

Oil cooler isn't necessary until the engine is piping anyway.

Better still, it's probably thermostatic (unless as above it's also an oil heater)
 
By way of an update, got the oil cooler out yesterday. Although it's quite badly corroded, I couldn't initially see where the oil was getting through.

Anyway, after I'd removed the cooler itself from the mounting plate & cleaned it all up, I immersed it in a shallow tray of water, and pressurised it (thumb over one end, blow in the other!) and hey presto, a steady stream of bubbles rose to the top - Bingo!

I dug around a little in the corrosion pits, and I can now see where the leak(s) were. I've taken some photos, but I've temporarily mislaid the download cable for the phone, I'll post them up when I find it!

New oil cooler £250 + vat from Britparts, or £250 + vat from main dealers. Main dealers is excluding delivery of course, so main dealers it is. Frustrating though, that you can't buy the oil cooler on it's own - you need to buy it with the mounting plate, which is perfectly serviceable.

Parts department at Caffyns in Lewes were very helpful actually, same can't be said for the parts department at Frosts in Hove - all a bit too much like hard work for them.

There is loads and loads of black sludge all through the cooling system though, any one any ideas on a cheap and effective way of cleaning it out? £5 for a little bottle of Radflush just ain't going to do it. I thought I might fill it up with diesel and run it a few minutes, then drain. Do that a couple of times, then revert to water. I don't think diesel would be too dangerous, it's pretty non-volatile, it just might foam up a bit.

Any thoughts?
 
Unless anyone knows any better, I would say solvent is the only way to shift it.

Would be a good idea to remove the thermostat to give unrestricted flow, and to have the heater on full when flushing.

Cheers.
 
ianrobbo said:
By way of an update, got the oil cooler out yesterday. Although it's quite badly corroded, I couldn't initially see where the oil was getting through.

Anyway, after I'd removed the cooler itself from the mounting plate & cleaned it all up, I immersed it in a shallow tray of water, and pressurised it (thumb over one end, blow in the other!) and hey presto, a steady stream of bubbles rose to the top - Bingo!

I dug around a little in the corrosion pits, and I can now see where the leak(s) were. I've taken some photos, but I've temporarily mislaid the download cable for the phone, I'll post them up when I find it!

New oil cooler £250 + vat from Britparts, or £250 + vat from main dealers. Main dealers is excluding delivery of course, so main dealers it is. Frustrating though, that you can't buy the oil cooler on it's own - you need to buy it with the mounting plate, which is perfectly serviceable.

Parts department at Caffyns in Lewes were very helpful actually, same can't be said for the parts department at Frosts in Hove - all a bit too much like hard work for them.

There is loads and loads of black sludge all through the cooling system though, any one any ideas on a cheap and effective way of cleaning it out? £5 for a little bottle of Radflush just ain't going to do it. I thought I might fill it up with diesel and run it a few minutes, then drain. Do that a couple of times, then revert to water. I don't think diesel would be too dangerous, it's pretty non-volatile, it just might foam up a bit.

First off use rad flush or kettle de-scaler to get the majority of the oil out of the system. Make sure you flush the coolong system thouroughly to get rid of all traces of de-scaler if you choose that route. Then all you can do is drive around in it. You will notice that you keep getting oil floating on the top of the coolant in the expansion tank.

It is actually easy to get rid of this without having to completely change your coolant.

With the engine running, fill the expansion tank to the brim and then squeeze the top hose to make the expansion tank overflow. This will cause the oil on top of the coolant to be pushed out. Repeat this step until the coolant shows no sign of oil. Then remove the bleed screw from the top hose until the coolant is at the required level and re-fit.

Repeat the above process as and when required. I still had the odd sign of oil showing after a year.

Keep a close eye on your coolant hoses too. The oil can damage them and make them turn brittle or soft. I replaced ALL my coolant hoses as each one showed signs of degradation.
Click to expand...
 
Mr Noisy said:
Unless anyone knows any better, I would say solvent is the only way to shift it.

Would be a good idea to remove the thermostat to give unrestricted flow, and to have the heater on full when flushing.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

To remove the thermostat in a td5 would mean it needs to be replaced with a bloody great Y piece. The best bet is to replace the thermostat a couple of months after the new oil cooler has been fitted.
 
Made some good progress today. Got the new bits, fitted them, filled the coolant system with diesel. Went for a drive, got it up to temp, came back, no leaks. Drained the diesel out of the coolant system, came out nice and dirty, and relatively runny, so must have done some good. Refilled it with diesel, am leaving that overnight to soak into the oil.

Tomorrow, will take it for a drive, get it up to temp, drain it, and refill with water. Go through a few drain and refills, then fill it up with coolant mix and see how we go.

Picture of the outside of the oil cooler:

IMG00062-20100826-1458.jpg



Picture of the inside of the oil cooler - the green dots are my lawn!

IMG00063-20100826-1458.jpg
 
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