wammers · Jun 21, 2011

john winsemius said:
Ok guys it seems like all I see on here are head gaskets going on low mileage motors. Are the land rover motors that big of a piece of junk, or are you guys not doing good service on them? 200,000 miles on gas and 300,000+ miles on a diesel are the normal here?

And the air suspension. You don't have the snow and ice like we do and all the salt and sand they put on the road for traction control, for 5 months of the year? Whats up

The Land Rover motor is actually and American motor. A early attempt at all alloy engine. Which was a cockup. Rover were daft enough to buy the rights to it. In it's 3.5 litre version it was very good. Just over boring it instead of redesigning the block has caused all the problems. The cooling system is very marginal so any slight over heat causes them to go tits up. Unlike the big yankee iron blocks that you can virtually run without much oil or not much water and get away with it. They don't twist and warp like the alloy engines do. It's just basically not a good engine anymore.

wammers · Jun 21, 2011

jamesmartin said:
engines last longer on long journeys rather than cold short ones , ive stripped test motors with equivalent of 200000 miles like new inside and old womens motors with 40k on clock and worn out + no one seems to understand about checking cooling system effiency ,as long as expansion tank looks like its got something in it will be allright+ lr should have done a little more than bore 3.5 out 200 thou

Spot on James. The V8 cooling system on later versions is marginal at best, left alone and uncared for it will destroy the motor.

Andy_J · Jun 26, 2011

Got the head off yesterday, including breaking one head bolt (luckily it sheared at the head so i could get it out with a stud extractor)

Head gaskets, don't look damaged and the head are still flat, so i am going to rebiuld the heads (new stem seals and regrind the valves) and put it back together. Still need to check the thermostat, makesure that is not stuck.

jonbill · Jun 26, 2011

but isn't the high compression still unexplained? doesn't seem wise to slap it back together again without getting to the root cause.

eightinavee · Jun 26, 2011

jonbill said:
but isn't the high compression still unexplained? doesn't seem wise to slap it back together again without getting to the root cause.

I'd be inspecting the cam lobes.

Andy_J · Jun 27, 2011

eightinavee said:
I'd be inspecting the cam lobes.

I checked the cam lobes and measured the distance the talpets moved as cam went round. I also measured each of the push rods. everything seemed within tolerance

wammers

No longer with us, RIP

wammers

No longer with us, RIP

Andy_J

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jonbill

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eightinavee

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Andy_J

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