Well its been a bad day for my son in law....
His old disco needed lots o welding and now the engine has started to smoke realy bad (blue).
Mot up in march tax up in feb not enough time not enough good weather to fix by then, so he went to buy another disco today and got well ripped!!!!
I suppose its one of them things knowing what your buying before you part with your cash... lesson learnt..
BUT what has peed me off a little is the fact that not just a landy owner sold him a dud but they claimed they are landy lovers and have a couple o landy's and also belonged to a 4x4 club...:deadhorse:
Now he has got to do the hg and maybe head skimmed.
The head bolts have paint marks on them so im asuming the head has been off b4.
He dont know if it has been overheating for a long time and if they have cooked the head.

so to my qstn...
If he needs to have it skimmed and it has been skimmed b4 can he have it done again...?
also just to be sure is there any way i can find out by a mesurement or something if it has been skimmed b4?....thanks

i would always be careful about skimming tdi head as if been to hot ali relaxes and valves seats can drop out , or bend again .new heads are not that dear ,check rad is cooling all over ,often cause of over heating.if skimming head depth of valve to head face needs to be maintained,most of over heating problems have been rad caused in my experience

I recently brought a 300TDi commercial which had over heated and scrapped the head. I managed to get a near new head of Ebay for £160, now fitted and found a core plug now leaking behind turbo (this was probably the cause of the over heating in the first place.
There were quite a few on a couple of weeks ago so worth a look or check out Devon 4x4 forum, there was one on there or £150 300tdi cylinder head

TY guys....
Ok here is an update...
HG removed,head skimmed,new water pump,thermostat,timing belt n pulleys,hg.

On thinking that the temp seemed to go up far to quick then drop to half if the ignition was turned off then back on i renewed the temp switch wire,temp switch also a new expansion tank cap.
I didnt do the work on the engine, a guy who works on landys did the work he has been doing them for a few years now with no bad feedback(he is trusted).
I havent talked to him since i brought it from there as its new years...

Ok the problem is still there eg: it will tick over for an hour with no probs,thermostat is opening and closing.
I can touch the hose's without being burnt and temp stay's near the bottom.
When i take it out about 1 min into the jurney the temp will go to half and sit there,up hills,down hills it dont matter what kind o driving it does.
Then all of a sudden the heater blows cold,temp goes to the hot and white smoke pours out of the exhaust.

Turn engine off no bubbles or air blowing back through system no sign of leaks.
Turn ignition back on temp says half way start it up n temp stays at half heater is warm.
Drive for a bit and after so long same thing happens again get it back home let it cool then open filler cap not much or no pressure in water but has lost some water....
Im at a loss now and have no idea where to go with this...
Have done searches everywhere.

Could it be a cracked head or engine block...?
Could the water only leak when the pressure in the system reaches so high then stop when pressure drops..?
Coz the hg n head has been done is it pos that water could bypass the pistons n just leak into the exhaust manifold..?

Any help here would be very much appreciated as im at a loss thanks...

have you check rad is cooling all the way across by hand often the cause of head gasket trouble skimmed heads can move again if ali has relaxed during first episode also they can crack look for clean port others dirty i would only fit new head if old head had moved more than 4 thou

HI JAMES
When head was off all piston tops were coated in carbon n all seemed to be the same as each other.
No obvious bad points on the old hg,came off very clean so i presume hg had not been on long.
I must admit i have not tested the rad in the way you have discribed but i have noticed that the thermostat does open.
Have you ever herd of head or engine block cracking/could water get to the exhaust without going via the pistons...?

Also james what do you mean when you said...(i would only fit new head if old head had moved more than 4 thou )

landymanmel90 said:

Also james what do you mean when you said...(i would only fit new head if old head had moved more than 4 thou )

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i think he was referring to how badly the head has warped when it was overheated (if put on a perfectly flat surface and checked with a feeler gauge all the way round at 4 thou ) if theres a gap anywhere its moved (warped)

to the best of my knowledge if a head has warped that bad it may have caused a crack somewhere in the head main casting making it useless

and as to the earlier question i saw i have seen cylinder heads skimmed up to 4 times before they get to the point of destruction ( valves hammering the tops of pistons )

hope this clears up a few points mate

thanks johnny..
Well after peeing around with it now for some time and costing a bit o cash, we are thinking of going down the road of using this "steel seal" its supposed to be wonder stuff hmm.
We do have a spare engine to put in if it blows the bottom off this one,only prob with the other engine is it blows blue smoke if you hold the revs at 2k,have no idea why but we may find the problem b4 we drop it in.....

landymanmel90 said:

thanks johnny..
Well after peeing around with it now for some time and costing a bit o cash, we are thinking of going down the road of using this "steel seal" its supposed to be wonder stuff hmm.
We do have a spare engine to put in if it blows the bottom off this one,only prob with the other engine is it blows blue smoke if you hold the revs at 2k,have no idea why but we may find the problem b4 we drop it in.....

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blue smoke at 2k.........turbo?

test rad first, heads can crack in ports, also if aluminium has been too hot it relaxes and valve seats can fallout etc,i would only skim head to remove fire ring marks ,blocks can crack but it is fairly rare ,the easiest way to check is clean bore and leave it overnight crack will leave rusty mark

blue beasty said:

blue smoke at 2k.........turbo?

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unless the turbo has spat loads of oil into the exhaust it may just be getting hot and burning the old oil out of the manifold and downpipes (had this with a few vauxhall astra td head gaskets last year ) a bloody good run down the lanes to nutsford and back usually cures them