V8 coolant loss

gaskets and both have been blowing quite a bit between the cylinders and the valley. If it were mine I'd strip it down ( you only need to undo the leaky side) and see what the problem is . Have a look at the RPI site for pictures of what goes wrong with older V8's the heads are bound to be leaking a bit it seems steve the grease

"alan" wrote in message news:4131b235$0$20244$ snipped-for-privacy@news-text.dial.pipex.com...

What you are looking for (once the offending head is removed) is what looks like a very fine crack between the steel of the liner and the ally of the block, on the gasket face of the block. The liners should be perfectly flush and no visible "crack". it's not actually a crack as such, it's the liner shifting slightly in the block, allowing a hot gas leak to enter the water jacket immediately behind the liner and overpressurise the cooling system. Only seems to manifest itself on the 4 corner cylinders, 1,7,2+8. This then causes localised overheating due to the hot gas forcing the water away from the effected area, which allows the ally to expand (sometimes beyond it's elastic limit), which then shows as a "crack". I hate to think how many blocks I've scrapped because of this inherrent fault. Problem is, there's no way of telling if and/or when it'll happen on any 3.9, 4.0 or 4.6 block, they ALL suffer from it. Part of the problem also is landrover's mapping of the ecu, the engines all run pretty weak at the top end, giving rise to a hotter burn under the conditions of highest load - not really good for engine life but an attempt at economy. Fit a decent aftermarket remapped ecu that restores the top-end fuelling, from someone like Mark Adams of Pharmhouse Marketing, a well respected ecu specialist. He's not cheap, but he's bloody good at what he does. All 3.9 or larger engines that leave here do so with an 82 degree thermostat instead of the std 88 degree, this helps slightly with prevention also. Unfortunately, there is no simple quick fix other than replacement. I did once "fix" one with the aid of a centre-punch, plastic metal and a smooth file, that particular 3.9 engine is still running in a 101, getting thrashed mercilessly around rally tracks as a motorsport safety vehicle! E-mail me off-list for details of how this was done!

-- Badger. B.H.Engineering, Rover V8 engine specialists.

coming soon,