V6 2.5 valves buggered

Evening all and bear with me I'm a newbie with need of advice.
Please don't tell me I should never have bought the following, I trusted the person I bought it from.

Basically 3 years ago I bought a 2001 3rd automatic 2.5 V6 softtop with 84,000km (I live in Italy) she was a real beauty, only issue was a leaking coolant tube that just needed regular topping up. Anyhow had a LPG conversion added and everything ran fine for a couple of years. First issue was coolant leak got worse and eventually the problem was solved due to a worn pipe.
This week the first real issue has arisen, loads of White smoke from the exhaust and smell of petrol from the exhaust.
Local mechanic has said that the problem is that the valves have worn excessively due to running on LPG and lack of sufficient lubrification. Estimated cost of repair £1600 upwards depending on how many valves need replacing !!!!
She currently has 125,000km, does the diagnosis sound correct ? Once fixed can the lubricant issue be solved with Flashlube or similar ?
is it not cheaper to replace he head gasket and valves or replace the whole engine ?
Big question is she worth fixing ? or will I be throwing more money at a worsening problem ?

Many thanks for all your comments and feedback
J

op2:

:welcome:

The Mad Hat Man said:

op2:

:welcome:

Click to expand...

:5blurk5:

Sounds like a load of bollocks you have been told

id do pressure test once dry and again with oil down bore,it tell you if valves seats are worn,in any case most can be recut by specialist with serdi head machine,dose running on gas or petrol alter symptoms

Only driven on petrol, will try and drive with LPG and see what happens

I'd go with a pressure test on each cylinder. It would be a lumpy idle

not sure of valve sizes on the V6, should be the same as the 1.8

New, they are £16ish each

I bought a couple of re-con valves from Mike Satur MG back when I did the head rebuild, but now have 16 valves salvaged from another head. Keep us informed.

Thanks guys, biggest problem out here in Italy is finding an Honest Joe that won't take me for a ride.

To do a pressure test on each valve, what will actually be involved, ie does the engine need opening up ?

What costs can I expect just to get an estimate of what the full repair will cost ?

Big question is , White smoke and fuel smells and an occasional flashing amber engine light on the dash, how much damage am I going to cause driving 80oddmiles to the nearest LR dealer

Thanks again
J

jcpinca said:

Thanks guys, biggest problem out here in Italy is finding an Honest Joe that won't take me for a ride.

To do a pressure test on each valve, what will actually be involved, ie does the engine need opening up ?

What costs can I expect just to get an estimate of what the full repair will cost ?

Big question is , White smoke and fuel smells and an occasional flashing amber engine light on the dash, how much damage am I going to cause driving 80oddmiles to the nearest LR dealer

Thanks again
J

Click to expand...

It sounds like Head gasket or possibly valve stem seals/guides

Hows the water level, does it miss fire when first started, does the smoke clear after starting- could you video it so we can see and put on youtube?

Here's the vid:
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFhMX22JOLg"]YouTube - ‪Freelander‬‏[/nomedia]

Until about 6months ago coolant loss was a major problem however this apparently was simply due to a worn tube, until last week coolant would drop about 1cm with every 200-300milea usage.
I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination however I always thought that the engine was excessively hot.
No issues with misfiring when starting until last week, now when you start from cold the engine turns over but doesn't fire up on the first key turn, after that starts up pretty much straight away on second turn, the video is immediately after starting up, once warmed up white smoke dissapers although petrol smell lingers on.

Your thoughts wise ones ?
Thanks again
John

jcpinca said:

Here's the vid:
YouTube - ‪Freelander‬‏

Until about 6months ago coolant loss was a major problem however this apparently was simply due to a worn tube, until last week coolant would drop about 1cm with every 200-300milea usage.
I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination however I always thought that the engine was excessively hot.
No issues with misfiring when starting until last week, now when you start from cold the engine turns over but doesn't fire up on the first key turn, after that starts up pretty much straight away on second turn, the video is immediately after starting up, once warmed up white smoke dissapers although petrol smell lingers on.

Your thoughts wise ones ?


Thanks again
John

Click to expand...

Right there is a logical step to this before spending vast sums of money and this is limited to what i have seen so far and your description

1) look at the spark plugs, this is a good indicator of what is actually going on

if there is one that looks rusty compared to the others then you have head gasket failure on that cylinder or more

If there oily then we then start looking at valve stem seals and guides or bore wear.

2) If it was oil then it would foul the plug and when cleared only increase compression unless valve head had a split in it.

I suspect what is happening is you have a head gasket pin hole failure into the water jacket from cylinder, the cylinder has lost compression and that explains the petrol smell.

When left from hot the pressurised coolant is leaking into cylinder with engine off- this causes both the missfire and smoke.

3) with engine upto temperature are cooling hoses rock hard?
(be careful not to burn yourself)

4)Find a friendly garage with a four gas analyser, they may not know this but way better than fluid head gasket failure testers.
(my preferred method)
Procedure
bonnet open and analyser probe under bonnet-start engine-should see
HC 4-6ppm (PART PERMILLION )

Carefully release expansion tank cap and hold gas analyser probe above- if HC jump then definitely Head gasket

Also they will not be keen but HGF will show excessive O2 readings in exhaust

5) A compression test and cooling system pressure test would confirm this.

6) If available a cylinder loss test (compressed air in valve closed cylinder and in gear) will Identify leaking valves,rings etc.