Five Pots
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This one has got me a bit stumped, so I'd appreciate a second opinion or two ..
I have an '02 15P Defender, does lots of motorway mileage, now approaching 200K.
Its always used a little coolant over the last 5 years but never enough to be an issue.
About 18 months ago, I had the head off (was cracked around injector no.1). Had it welded up and a skim. Also had it pressure tested. No problem..
But its still using water, so obviously there's a leak I couldn't spot. Recently the coolant loss started getting worse, so I did a coolant pressure test; I found a small leak on a heater hose, fixed that but was still loosing coolant. The oil has always been clean, but there was a very small amount of oil evident in the coolant. Running temperature has always been fine, and she pulls like a train, and doesn't smoke excessively.
At the weekend, with the engine warm and still running at tickover I lifted out the dipstick, and found there was lots of steam (not oil vapour) coming out the tube. Similarly there was steam coming out of the oil filler cap, and there was emulsified oil visible in the camcover.
So, off with the head. First thing I noticed was the oil in the camcover was heavily emulsified, and that water vapour/droplets had also been sucked down the breather pipe outta the camcover to the induction system. The oil in the sump was normal .
With the head off:
The gasket appears fine, cant see any signs of leakage between ports.
There is some staining around the big hex core plug behind the exhaust manifold, so I must've been loosing some coolant there ..which would've vaporised on the exhaust.
Then I took off the oil cooler (because there was a little oil in the water). And I can see that some coolant has also been leaking around the gasket to the block. There was also a stain on the heat exchanger which might have been a leak path for the oil into the water
I have ordered a refurb kit for the oil cooler with a new heat exchanger, seals etc.
Obviously, cleaning everything up, ordering new gaskets, head bolts etc.
I'm also going to try dye crack detection on the head.
So I have found two places where I have been loosing water externally, but I can't figure out why I had the steam in the crankcase/camcover. ?
Anyone else come across this pls?
I have an '02 15P Defender, does lots of motorway mileage, now approaching 200K.
Its always used a little coolant over the last 5 years but never enough to be an issue.
About 18 months ago, I had the head off (was cracked around injector no.1). Had it welded up and a skim. Also had it pressure tested. No problem..
But its still using water, so obviously there's a leak I couldn't spot. Recently the coolant loss started getting worse, so I did a coolant pressure test; I found a small leak on a heater hose, fixed that but was still loosing coolant. The oil has always been clean, but there was a very small amount of oil evident in the coolant. Running temperature has always been fine, and she pulls like a train, and doesn't smoke excessively.
At the weekend, with the engine warm and still running at tickover I lifted out the dipstick, and found there was lots of steam (not oil vapour) coming out the tube. Similarly there was steam coming out of the oil filler cap, and there was emulsified oil visible in the camcover.
So, off with the head. First thing I noticed was the oil in the camcover was heavily emulsified, and that water vapour/droplets had also been sucked down the breather pipe outta the camcover to the induction system. The oil in the sump was normal .
With the head off:
The gasket appears fine, cant see any signs of leakage between ports.
There is some staining around the big hex core plug behind the exhaust manifold, so I must've been loosing some coolant there ..which would've vaporised on the exhaust.
Then I took off the oil cooler (because there was a little oil in the water). And I can see that some coolant has also been leaking around the gasket to the block. There was also a stain on the heat exchanger which might have been a leak path for the oil into the water
I have ordered a refurb kit for the oil cooler with a new heat exchanger, seals etc.
Obviously, cleaning everything up, ordering new gaskets, head bolts etc.
I'm also going to try dye crack detection on the head.
So I have found two places where I have been loosing water externally, but I can't figure out why I had the steam in the crankcase/camcover. ?
Anyone else come across this pls?
