TD5 head worn due to moving?

Hi all, another td5 head question!

My cooling system was pressurizing on my disco 2 year 2000.
thinking it is the head gasket and it prob was, i removed the head.
on removing, one dowel had snapped and the other was bent. after cleaning off the matting face of the head. i discovered that rings were worn into the surface of the head, around the edge of the gasket area at the top of the cylinders on the head.(if that makes sence).

1.first off im thinking oh crap thats a new head.it would need to be skimed to far into the surface to remove these depressions. so will i need a new head?
2. if i get a new head and as my vin 1A296131 people say i cannot use metal dowels...... why not??????????? if i put those crappy plastic ones out of a lego kit, its going to happen again!!!!

ill try to post a pic of the wear

Many thanks for your thoughts

Who are saying you can not use metal dowels? They're talking out of their arses. You can use metal dowels in all TD5 engines no matter what the engine or VIN numbers. It was an official LR mod to stop the head moving around on early engines. If you have a lathe then you can turn your own in a few minutes but they are cheap as chips to buy any how.

As to whether the damage could be skimmed out I'd talk to a professional head reconditioner with experience of the TD5 head. It may not be necessary. I've seen engines put back together with worse damage than yours and they've gone on to run for many thousands of trouble free miles. It all depends on whether the gasket will seat properly given the damage. If you do have it skimmed make sure they recut the valve seats to take in to account the metal removed from the head.

Good luck and fit metal dowels with no worries.

:5biagree::5biagree: and :welcome2:

Hi Shifty,
thanks for your reply.
will take it to local landy place to get them to look at it. i got a feeling what they will say but hay ho if it has gone to far then may be a blessing in disguise.

As for the dowels and vin numbers, in the haynes manual and some one quoated on here, that all engines up to vin 2A 736339 must be replaced with plastic.... b*****ks to that.... i even read that metal ones could crack the head.. as long as they are the same length, how could they? i have brought new metal and plastic dowels to compare.

metal dowel is 17.90mm long by 7.93mm wide
plastic dwl is 18.68mm long by 7.95mm at one end and 7.89mm the other. so nice precision to start with with the plastic one.... and get this! the plastic was more expensive than the metal one.
ill measure the dowel holes and see if they are deep enough. if not ill file a bit off if required. i presume the plastic ones can squash a bit when compressed!

who evers bright idea it was to put in plastic dowels should be made to compensate all the 1000s of owners who have had to fork out so much money in the past and future.......
ill let you know what happens.

thanks again for your input, metal is going in what ever happens!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Believe it or not the dowels were only used to align the heads on the blocks so the automated robots could insert and tighten the head bolts with no problems. They were never meant to keep the head aligned during use as the bolts were deemed enough to do that. However the bolts are a sloppy fit in the head allowing sideways movement as time has shown. Steel dowels stop that movement completely.

The metal dowels will expand in length a tad hence the slightly shorter length to allow for this. The length is not that important so long as they are not longer than the depth of the holes in the head and block added together plus the thickness of the gasket and a mm or so to expand. You could actually use aluminium or wooden dowels but steel does the job.

The diameter of the dowel is more important as it is this that holds the head in the right position. They should be a good sliding fit and be truly parallel. The plastic is tapered so they come out of the injection mould easy. Damm stupid idea right from the off for such an important alignment component.

yeah makes sence..... well im re leaved that i can use metal ones, big time. me discos only done 70, 300 miles so should be ok for the rest of my owning life of her.
ive had a 88" series 3, 2.25 petrol 90, 110 v8 county, volvo v70 and finally this 2000 disco 2. i have spent a fortune doing all the things that go wrong on a series 2 disco, cos they have gone wrong and other things. air springs,injector loom, fuel reg, egr mod, brakes, still got leaking sun roof not done that yet, fitted face lift head lights, fitted turbo gauge, temp gauge, had a re map etc to loose the crap pull away power hole... and other bits... oh and the poxy pulley for aux belt. Bloody £300 odd, rip off. now this!!! but i tell you what! its still one of best cars ive had... i just love it...
so if i need a new head i know that its something that i wont need to worry about again.

Landrovers........ dont you just love um.

Cheers

Thank you old seadog,

its a pleasure to be here

hi Shifty,
ok, i took the head to an engine recon place to look at the head. good news they recon they can skim it.. phew.
I had only taken the rocker shaft and injectors out. i was not expecting to be leaving the head there, so the valves lifter and cam were still in.

my question...!

in the manual it says keep the hyd lifters upright. im worried that when the guy takes out the lifters he wont keep them up right and lay them down...

i suppose the reason they say keep upright is to keep oil in them?
if you buy new ones they wont be full of oil, so does that really matter?
i dont want to phone them up panicking about whether they stored them upright or not.

i suppose once all reasembled, turn the engine over without priming the fuel, will build the oil pressure up to fill the lifters..

i dont want to phone them up and tell them how to suck eggs.. if you know what i mean.

So am i panicing for no reason????

thanks for your reply

If its a reputable place they'll know what to do.

You should always turn the engine over a few times by hand just to make sure that there is no mechanical contact. You cant do any damage by hand. If it all turns over nicely then turn it over with the starter in ten second bursts with the fuel pump fuse pulled just to get things lubricated and to see if you have oil pressure. Only then should you try and start it.

Its good they have the cam and valves as they should put it all together for you and if anything is wrong you can take it back.

Thanks for that shifty, a good tip... cant wait to see how they get on.. i suppose as long as they have got enough seal able mating surface it should be ok.

thank you very much for your knowledge.

cheers

I also used my oil can as a means of getting engine oil into the essential bits before turning engine over

T

Hi, All td5 engine cylinder head dowels are superseded to the metal type now so there is no problem using them on 10p or 15p engine.
The rings that you have in your cylinder head sealing face are caused by the head bolts loosing there clamping load over time and allowing the multi layer cylinder head gasket to chatter causing it to bite into the alloy cylinder head.
a quick pressure test and skim should be all that is needed but depending on the amount removed from the cylinder head they may need to recess the valve depths.