choices,choices?

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Banhambuilt

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i have only had my 95 range rover 4.0 for 3 weeks (i did a swap for it as moneies a bit tight).engine runs great on petrol and lpg

i have a headgasket gone,165 thousand miles,not original engine as i have a receipt for a short motor at about 100 thousand.
doesnt overheat,top hose is hard but can be squeezed.
i did a sniff test on coolant and it changed to yellow.

mot`ed it, only needed 2 rear tyres and a set of rear pads. taxed it yesterday for 6 months.

changed,plugs,leads
fitted new lpg filler and fill pipe
replaced various bulbs in switches etc.

lpg is single point lpg aeb leonardo with a 75l tank in wheel well.

on coil springs,must admit i dont like the ride to much.

do i splash out and get the headgaskets done?
local landy specialist quoted £750 all in including head skim. is this dear?

its alot of money on a 15 year old car that i would convert back to air suspension anyways.
or do i sell as is and put abit to it and get a working one,lol

what would you guys do?
cheers
dave
 
No such thing as a working P38, not for long anyway :p

Are you sure its a headgasket problem?, whats the symptoms?

Could it a be a slipped liner?

was the short motor fitted with top hat liners?
 
i did a sniff test with the blue liquid and sniffer thingiemebob.

how do i tell if its a liner?
receipt just says short engine?

no symptoms as such,was just checking the hoses coolant etc and noticed top hose,took cap of very slowly and header tank was filling with bubbles.coolant went from hardly showing on tank to being up to cold level.so i did a sniff test.temp sender stays in middle of gauge on dash.

cheers
dave
 
Hi,

You will need to do a compression test to deteimine how bad it is by comparing the readings.

The price quoted does not seem that bad to me, i have an L332 m62 engine, the heads have just been skimmed and the valves reseated, along with the full gasket kit it cost just over a grand.......thats without labour as i did the job myself.

bob
 
It doesn't overheat (you say temp gauge stays in the middle) it runs well enough to pass an MOT and it isn't pressurising.
Water will always fill up the header tank when you take the cap of cos its under pressure.
If it runs well, doesn't overheat then leave it alone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
i did head gaskets on mine too but mine used to overheat in a couple of miles driving,did the work myself apart from head skiming which cost £50 i also put new radiator genuine water pump all gaskets ,bolts etc only cost me about £300-£400 to do now spot on temp never goes above a quarter
 
Hamster97 said:
It doesn't overheat (you say temp gauge stays in the middle) it runs well enough to pass an MOT and it isn't pressurising.
Water will always fill up the header tank when you take the cap of cos its under pressure.
If it runs well, doesn't overheat then leave it alone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Click to expand...

I was going to say that, just enjoy it before something else breaks!!:D:D
 
Drove it to work tonight, 20 mile one way. When I pulled into our yard I got a strong petrol vapour smell. As if it's over fuelling. Consumption was saying 12 mph after i reset it on getting onto m6 and did 13 miles at between 55-60mph. Not visible leaks of petrol.
Top hose was hard to press in but not solid.

i was getting a slight missfire too at around 1500-2000rpm
only thing i didnt change on the ignition side were the coil pack.

The joys of p38 ownership,lol
 
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personally i wouldnt use k seal or any other product like that,best to fix properly ,as for selling it and getting another someone might have had the same problems and fired some k seal in and you wouldnt be any the wiser till it knackered up,you will be buying someone elses problems.fix the one you got at least you know its been done right
 
Don't put anything in it. My top hose isn't squishy when its hot either cos its under pressure, its normal to only be able to press it in a bit, same as all the water blowing out the header tank if you open it when its hot.
Running under pressure lowers the boiling point so if you can press it in a bit, its normal. Missfire is more than likely leads, common fault and a wiff of petrol, fuk knows but don't go looking to fix the head gaskets just yet!!!!

EDIT:

Plugs should be BPR6ES and leads ideally should be Magnecore (sp?) but if not, only use genuine leads.
 
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I'm no expert but I think the P38 spares leads are OEM and I think Champion plugs were manufacturers spec BUT (and its a reasonably sized but....fnaaaarrrr fnarrrrrrr) been told NGK's and Magnecor are the way forward although they won't cure anything if they aren't your problem lol.

PS, my previous post should have read that water under pressure RAISES the boiling point lol.
 
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