overheating Disco

A friend of my dads has a J reg (i think) Disco. It's a 2.5 Tdi. He has for the last few months had a problem with it overheating. Symptoms are, go for a long drive on motorway, everything is ok, pull off motorway, stop for a few mins, pull away again and within a few minutes it overheats. The temp gauge goes right of the red end apparently!. So far it has had:

The engine stripped 3 times (I assume the headgasket has been done as well) The head has been crack tested New piston or pistons fitted (probably after the first time it happened) Radiator and heater matrix have been flushed. All hoses checked No visable signs of water etc on chassis.

Anyone else with a Disco experianced this?. Is there anything else I/he can look at. When the thing does overheat there is no water at all left in the system.

Dom J

Reply to
Dom J
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Couple of quick thoughts.

Has the thermostat been checked/replaced?

Has the temperature sender itself been tested?

P.

Reply to
Paul S. Brown

Dom J posted ...

Thermostat ..

Reply to
Paul - xxx

Check the gasket behind the water pump; it often fails resulting in a slow leak of coolant - ultimately causing overheating if unchecked.

The leak may only be visible by slight discolouration around part of the edge of the gasket.

Bet that's it.

Steve (300TDi)

Reply to
Steve H

I had something similar - the Disco (a '96 300Tdi) would overheat only when really pushed - generally when accellerating up a hill when already at motorway speeds, that kind of thing. But when it did overheat, it did so very quickly. There was no coolant loss, no problem with the fan, and no obvious problems with the thermostat.

Turned out the radiator was just rusted away - it looked fine, but the fins weren't really part of the thing any more! When touched, they crumbled. A new radiator fixed the problem perfectly - although now, five months on, the heater matrix has started to very very slightly leak causing the smell of antifreeze and misty windows being discussed elsewhere on this newsgroup. I guess a previous owner was maybe filling the thing with pure water and no antifreeze. Either that or Land Rover used poor quality parts... surely not...

;) K

Reply to
Kieran Turner

In article , Steve H writes

That is only a problem on a 300

Reply to
marc

In article , Dom J writes

Replacing the radiator is the only real option.

Flushing disco rads never really works.

Reply to
marc

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