Cracks and the quality of parts...

Feeling a bit disappointed in the quality of parts. I fitted a replace front driveshaft last July and recently saw a small split in the inner CVJ boot. I'll organise a replacement CVJ boot kit but in the mean time I gave the rubber a clean and a sand and stuck a bike tube patch over the split - seems to be working well

I also replace the coolant tank in July and notice a three months ago that coolant was leaking from the top of the tank. I thought it was a faulty cap, so I replaced it but it kept weeping coolant. The new tank has numerous tiny cracks crazing around the base of the neck! Not a happy chappy.

Rear sub-frame mount - yes mine has two visible cracks on the OS forward mount point as well as a cracked weld on a tubular sub-frame member behind that point. Working at organising having these welded up in the next week or so.

I've often wonders with the expansion bottles whether they could be coated in something to seal them rather than replacing them. The replacements do seem to be poor quality and coating them in something might give a more reliable solution. Mine has lots of little cracks - but I think less coolant escapes there than other places!

Surprised a crack like that isn't a warrant failure.

Looking at the cracks in the header tank. I would say its a combination of bad design and poor quality control.
The cracks look like stress marks possibly caused during manufacture or over pressurising on the car.
If the radius where the cracks are had been much larger there would have been less of a high stress area.
As for the boot it could have been a rock flicking up from the wheel. (you would need a photo before it was touched)
Great photos by the way much easier to understand your problem.
Are these original Land Rover parts?

Stv123 said:

Are these original Land Rover parts?

Click to expand...

I'm guessing not. The tank looks like a generic replacement and the driveshaft has the wrong shape inboard joint, to be a GKN unit.

GrumpyGel said:

I've often wonders with the expansion bottles whether they could be coated in something to seal them rather than replacing them. The replacements do seem to be poor quality and coating them in something might give a more reliable solution. Mine has lots of little cracks - but I think less coolant escapes there than other places!

Surprised a crack like that isn't a warrant failure.

Click to expand...

SSHHHhhh not so loud they might hear you - they haven't spotted it in the past 2 years!! I only found them by accident. I thought I had a faulty strut and was getting ready to pull it out.

Today I trialed dropping down the rear sub frame to see how much room there would be for a TIG welder to get in there = plenty and its pretty straight forward job. Sadly the damage is a bit more than what I could actually see. I took the opportunity to replace that centre diff mount as I have had that thumping sound from time to time.

Difficult to understand how that has been caused!

One thing for sure though, that's a lovely rust free 20 year old Kiwi car