Last Land-Rover for mere mortals?

Tony Hi,

I forgot that the 300Tdi generation of engines has this plug on the thermostat. I guess LR engineers decided just to move the problem to another area instead of solving it altogether.

Nice idea about blowing into the expansion tank and pulling the debris out.

As for the replacement metallic plug it does make sense to be a standard plumbing size. Hasn't another fellow listers quoted the size recently? (have to check for it so as to save the trouble of making out at the lathe)

Take care Pantelis

On or around Sun, 4 Jun 2006 22:45:41 +0300, "Pantelis Giamarellos" enlightened us thusly:

can you actually get the brass ones still? lot of the earlier engines and rads had the same plug in brass. if they're not to be had, then someone ought to be in charge of savaging 'em all from the scrap motors. They had 'em on the earlier V8s, and also on the earlier 90/110 rads, I think. Same plug but in brass and not subject to shearing off. 'course, if the threaded bit of the plastic one was solid plastic and not hollow, it'd a) be less likely to shear and b) still retain the water in an emergency without its head.

typical crap costcutting exercise, again. what thread are they? 3/4" BSP?

Who's got a cnc machine with a bit of spare capacity, it should be possible and worthwhile to organise a short production run of brass plugs, to the same design as the plastic ones so they take the same O-ring...

On or around Mon, 5 Jun 2006 08:14:50 +0300, "Pantelis Giamarellos" enlightened us thusly:

and on the rad... although it seems to be the stat housing one that's most prone to fail.

Standard threads--I'd be cautious about differential expansion and electrolytic corrosion from different metals, and those might be advantages for a plastic one. But vehicle engineers have been using metal for a long time.

I've been dying to get this one in.....

ERR4686B Thermostat Housing Bleed Plug/Radiator Filler - Brass - 300Tdi £1.76 inc VAT

Richard

see shameless plug earlier

eeeeee! twice in one thread!

Richard

On or around Mon, 05 Jun 2006 11:29:31 +0100, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

excellent. pity they don't fit 'em in the factory instead of the crappy plastic ones.

Its probably hollowed out to keep the wall thickness reasonably constant to avoid filling problems on the injection moulding machine (cavities or porosity etc) rather than just cost saving for using less plastic.

David

I'd venture the issue is over-tightening. As they have an O ring, once they are tightened such that the O ring is in full contact with both surfaces any further turning will damage the O ring (brass type) or damage the plug (plastic type), so it *may* be that the plastic ones are deliberatly designed to fail when abused to prevent over tightening. Just a thought......but it is noticable that a couple of our regular trade customers get through quite a lot, whereas the majority never need them.

Richard

On or around Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:05:52 +0100, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

not that the traders are a hamfisted lot :-)

the one I had fail wasn't overtightened by me and failed when attempting to undo it to fill the engine with coolant.

What *really* worries me is that the vehicle has a full service history from new. The couple I bought it from freely admitted they know nothing about cars, they put it in for a regular service and assume they have to do nothing between.

So who sheared the top of a £1.15 plug off and didn't say anything? For that bit of ham fistedness I nearly lost my engine.

TonyB

On or around Wed, 7 Jun 2006 22:12:52 +0100, "TonyB" enlightened us thusly:

The one I had go broke when trying to undo it, and was otherwise fine, ISTR.

Still want to know why they piss around with plastic ones - I bet the cost difference is truly trivial.