Rover 414i water leak

First off, keep a big bottle of water in the boot, and top up as often as possible until you sort this. Thirsty Rovers bite back! It's not unheard of for the coolant pipe to corrode, but don't discount the other possibilities for leaks in this area, especially the inlet manifold gasket. If your car has the original black gasket, it only lasts a few years, and water leaks from here are common. You can actually see the gasket at each end of the inlet manifold, there's a small 'ear' that pokes through, although its on the underside at the end so a small mirror is needed. Also, earlier cars had a mixture of studs and bolts holding the manifold on, which tended to shake loose (mine had a nut missing at one point). Advice from my Rover dealer was to replace all the bolts with studs, and then use special oval single-use nuts that can't loosen.

I'm carrying 2x5l bottles of mixed antifreeze just in case.

I don't thing the dampnees I'm seeing on the water pipe is from the inlet manifold as it's under the junction of the air intake pipe and the manifold and the dampness on the gearbox is directly under where the paint blister and damp patch was on the pipe.

I'll definitely check the manifold gasket when I get home and find where my 6 year old decided to hide my inspection mirror the last time he went on garden safari!

I think mine has all studs and nuts but not absolutely sure so will check while I'm round there. Mine is a 1996 model so maybe it's already been down this road, I've only had it a couple of months so a I hope I haven't bought someone else's problem!

Thanks for the info.

Jimmy

Just FYI:

My water leak became apparent at the front of the engine - I initially thought the head gasket must have gone, but eventually worked out that the water was seeping round from the back. Mine had studs on top of the manifold, but the four underneath were bolts. The original nuts were black in colour, the newer 'squashed' type are silver - the one that had fallen off was replaced by the dealer during servicing ages ago and was the new type, so they made the change a while back - maybe not 1996 though. If the gasket hasn't been changed, it's almost certainly leaking air even if its not water. I was amazed how much difference changing it made to mine - the performance improved dramatically, especially pull away at low revs, and the engine was much quieter too. If you need to do it, it's not a hard or expensive job. Hardest part is undoing the bolts as they are fiddly to get to. The Haynes manual assumes you are removing the manifold from the car, you can ignore most of their procedure as you are just moving the manifold back far enough to change the gasket. Apart from draining the coolant, I only recall undoing the breather hoses and the air intake hose clip, everything else can stay connected - just be careful not to put any strain on the fuel hoses etc. Hope this helps

yes these pipes are notorious for corrosion and failure, they are cheap to replace, but make sure you have a new O-ring seal on the end as they can also leak from the thermostat end. as many may have mentioned do not let these engines overheat, head gasket will be the next to go. if you have the plastic inlet manifold thay can also leak from here, the original seals were not made thick enough to provide a good seal on a plastic (flexible to a point) manifold, so get a modified (thicker) seal from rover. again a simple job to replace.