Recently I became an owner of Range Rover 4.6 hse. The car looked ok when I was buying it (checked in a Land Rover service before purchase) but after 450 km I got strange symptoms. Engine is running fine with temperature sensor pointer verticall and suddenly without any obvious reason temp goes in seconds all the way to red zone and coolant is boiling out from a radiator tank. Nothing is coming out from expansion pipe on the tank, water goes out from a cap instead. I don't have "mayo look oil" so hope it's not a loose cyl liner (am I too optimistic:)?). Thinking of thermostat valve, water pump, radiator tank cap itself, cooler dirty/chocked or cyl head gaskets. Any suggestions how to narrow my search? I live in Poland and as far as I know my Rangie is a first one in my place so there is no garage with a Range Rover experience. Please help the pioneer:) Rgds Miki RR 4.6 HSE, 1997, 192 000km
That does't sound good at all. It could just be a blown head gasket, but it is also classic symptoms of the dreaded porus block. If you can rule out anything like a failed water pump etc then the heads are going to have to come off. It's just possible that the head gasket may be at fault, but if the old one looks undamaged then the block is suspect. Please don't panic just yet, but be prepared for the worst. I don't suppose you have any warranty from the seller? If you do, take it back and get them to fix it or refund you, after the amount you've used it it is highly unlikley the vendor was not aware of the problem.
I'm trying to be:) Already manage to order cooling system repair compund called K-seal from Kalimex ltd. as I read on this group it might work on a porous block. The strange thing is the engine was running fine for 450km since I brought the car from a city I bought it in to my place, and suddenly, bang! I have a kettle under the bonnet:) Though I noticed that when damn needle goes all the way to red and tiny red light comes on it tends to drop a little bit (a needle, not a light) when I pressed a gas engine revs increased. Viscious fan maybe? Of course I didn't experiment to much as the engine was boiling. And one more thing: I can see air bubbles coming out of rubber hose (about 1/2inch) into a header tank. Is there any chance that the system is heavy aerated and needs just to bleed the air off?
Nope. No waranty from the seller. Not yet in Poland:) Head gaskets are on their way, fingers crossed:) Thanks for all advice. miki
Couldn't a stuck thermostat have similar effects? It could be heating up the water to such a degree it cant get cooled by the radiator? I might be talking crap though! I'll have a look on my RAVE cd tonight
Also, you can get a tester to check for exhaust gas in the coolant, this will confirm any present.
The main way the head gaskets go is on the outer water gallery on the front & back of the heads/block & normally that just leaks the water away onto the road. But they can leak all over the place i believe too!!
Do both at the same time, you will need to have them skimmed also. When you have the heads off look at the pistons, do any look 'cleaned' by water at temperature? Or do they look like the should. Another easy way to check before ripping the heads off is to take out the plugs, if one looks very 'washed' clean it can tell you more about the areas affected by block/gasket problems.
Usually when you take off the head gaskets you can see the leaks, i could on mine.
That's my next step Nigel. I've just got RAVE manual from the web and trying to get it to work (I seem to be very incompatible as on a top of Range Rover, my computer is Macintosh:)) But anyway I'll go through that Rave thing and maybe some idea will come to me. I did some more test with my Rangie. Now it behaves well. I poured the coolant mixture in a header tank, ran the engine with tank cap off and then stopped and refilled the system. After that I let the engine idle for 30 min. Nothing. Temperature was ok. I did 5km and still ok. I've checked the hose to a radiator, when the engine is cold (idle) hose is also cold and not pressurized. After some time hose is getting warm and stiff but I suppose it's normal as colant expand and works in a system under water pump pressure. What looked strange for me, was the axial play on a water pump. Anyone of you guys know is it supose to be like that? It's
5 mm reciprocating axial travel of pump pulley and fan attached to it. Looks strange for me (I'm an engineer but I work on a huge diesel engines only). And another thing was those two electric fans at the front of radiator. By tracing the system they look like A/C condenser fans, but with A/C on or off both fans wouldn't start. Are they A/C fans, support fans for viscious fan or both? The A/C itself also sometimes doesn't cut in when I start a car and it's running ok next time I turn ignintion key in.
I ran the engine with a header tank cap off and couldn't smell any exhaust gases. Would I smell them if they were present? There is a lot of bubbles constantly coming out of pipes attached to a header tank but nothing smells like exhaust.
This doesn't seem to be a case. I lost water couple of times because it came out of an expansion tank cap while it was boiling. (sighs) Such a nice machine that Rangie but why it costs me so much troubles from a very beginning?:) Thank you all for help. If, eventually I find out what's wrong I let you all know. Maybe I got a lemon?
I had that on a Beemer in France. It was absolutely fine, then the needle would hit the red, a couple of minutes later it would drop back to normal. After a few goes at this it eventually overheated on the autoroute. I managed to limp it to a provincial garage who filled it up with coolant for me and pointed me in the direction of the BMW garage (about 20km away) I got all the way to the BMW garage with it doing the same thing - stopped outside the garage, started to reverse into a parking space when there was a huge bang, and lots (and lots) of steam! The thermostat was sticking - housed in a plastic manifold on the front of the engine, the pressure had blown the plastic manifold to pieces! The whole process had taken the water pump with it (plastic blades that had knackered because of the heat I guess?).
Guess the OP could try removing the thermostat, and see what happens, but as others have mentioned, it sounds like the classic P38 4.6 V8 problem.
I have too agree with the above post. This is easy to diagnose without taking the heads off. Get your self a compression tester (around $25 US). Pull all the plugs from the head and inspect. Do a compression test on the cylinders with ALL the plugs removed and note the pressure. They should all be about the same. Around 130 - 150 psi or 10000 kPa give or take (if memory serves me right). If two cylinders are much below this and next to one another then a blown head gasket may be the culprit. Easy to change out with standard hand tools, just time consuming. Check your oil for signs of water too.
My wife's '99 RR goes through 1 gallon of coolant every 6 months.I cannot find any leaks or problems with the plugs. I've checked the "dreaded" unions to the heater core with no luck either. Rugs and floor boards are dry. There is no diminish in performance or smoke from the tailpipe. I am stumped. So I routinely inspect the level and top off as needed.
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