Freelander 1.8 K series hgf - more data

Most of what has been said in this thread is of no help to anyone stupid enough (like me) or unfortunate enough (someone who didn't know any better) to buy a 1.8 petrol Freelander.
As far as Head gasket failure is concerned most times it happens there is plenty of warning but it is either missed or ignored. My company car gets serviced by a garage every 18000 miles and in between times, the only reason I lift the bonnet is to fill the washer bottle.
If you have a K series then that regime won't work. You must regularly (weekly) check the coolant level hasn't dropped and the dipstick is clean (no white creamy residue). This is especially true if your car has done over 40,000 miles since the last head gasket change (yes they can go that often but usually last up to 65,000 miles).
If the coolant level has dropped then find out why. Besides the obvious "Your head gasket is gone" that everyone loves to shout. There are lots of hoses that can fail, as can the header tank and the seal at the water pump, but topping it up and driving on without curing the problem is a stupid and ultimately will be a very expensive thing to do.
If you catch a headgasket failure early it is a reasonably straight forward thing to fix and needn't be that expensive. If you wait until the car has come to a halt with steam pouring out then it will be.
For the record I bought a 1.8 Freelander with 105,000 miles on the clock. I bought it with no service record or warranty but was able to use that to beat the price down. It came as no surprise when 2 months after buying it I found Mayo on the dip stick. My theory was at that mileage the second head gasket was about due to fail.
Replacing the head gasket cost me around £250 as I was able do the job myself but it would have been cheaper only I ran into some very unusual issues and had to take the sump off to remove and replace the oil rail. A garage should charge around £400 to do it.
The point of all this is lots of people talk a lot of rubbish about K series engines needing replaced if the HG goes. They do fail more often than is acceptable but with a little common sense and regular checks they can be repaired.
If you are not prepared to open your bonnet once a week then run a mile from a petrol Freelander.
If you enjoy a challenge, don't mind getting your hands dirty and want to save between £1200 and £1500 on the cost of buying a Freelander over an equivalent diseasil then go ahead. But you have been warned.

robjsam said:

please help me out recently i purchased a cylinderhead which had been rebuilt and i have had endless problems with noisy hydraulic lifters so i removed the cylinder head and asked for advice from my supplier who said that it could be a rover cylinder head instead of a freelander 1.8 cylinder head.is there a difference that you might clarify for me i would much appreciate it

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If the hydraulic lifters are noisey it means they are not pumping up with oil which is necessary to take up the valve clearance, this would be caused by blocked oil supply either in the channels between the camshaft rail and the head due to too much sealant or the wrong type of sealant used, or by a blocked oil supply hole on the hydraulic lifters itself, it is very small. The solution is remove the cam rail, cam shaft and dismantle each hydraulic tappet/ lifter unit and clean it and reassemble. Dismantle it down to the internal piston and spring in the tappet and blow out all holes.

Alibro said:

?...The point of all this is lots of people talk a lot of rubbish about K series engines needing replaced if the HG goes. They do fail more often than is acceptable but with a little common sense and regular checks they can be repaired.
If you are not prepared to open your bonnet once a week then run a mile from a petrol Freelander.
If you enjoy a challenge, don't mind getting your hands dirty and want to save between £1200 and £1500 on the cost of buying a Freelander over an equivalent diseasil then go ahead. But you have been warned.

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Well said. I read some statistics from a warranty company that 5% of k series engines have HG problems compared to 2% average of other engines, so not so hugely bad as people think. Just searching on eBay for "head gasket gone" in cars shows loads of other makes have HG failures, a search today shows Mercedes, bmw, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Citroen, VW, Mazda, Saab, Toyota, Audi, Renault, Volvo. Somewhat different to popular perception.

comeinhandy said:

Well said. I read some statistics from a warranty company that 5% of k series engines have HG problems compared to 2% average of other engines, so not so hugely bad as people think. Just searching on eBay for "head gasket gone" in cars shows loads of other makes have HG failures, a search today shows Mercedes, bmw, Mitsubishi, Vauxhall, Citroen, VW, Mazda, Saab, Toyota, Audi, Renault, Volvo. Somewhat different to popular perception.

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Mmmm, not sure I would believe these figures, I've been driving for over 30 years without a head gasket going and many of the cars were high milers. In the last two years I have bought two cars with K series engines and both have failed. From what I've read it is more like 99% of K series will have HGF before they reach 100,000 miles and the rest will go very soon after. This is VERY different from other cars. In fact many K series will have had more than one HG fail before they reach 100,000 miles but this is usually down to poor workmanship by the garage doing the work.

Alibro said:

Mmmm, not sure I would believe these figures, I've been driving for over 30 years without a head gasket going and many of the cars were high milers. In the last two years I have bought two cars with K series engines and both have failed. From what I've read it is more like 99% of K series will have HGF before they reach 100,000 miles and the rest will go very soon after. This is VERY different from other cars. In fact many K series will have had more than one HG fail before they reach 100,000 miles but this is usually down to poor workmanship by the garage doing the work.

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Only HG I've ever had go was a series III landrover

Got caught in a 15 mile 4 hour stop start tailback on the M11.

After 8 years of ownership.... And now on 140,000m - my wifes FL1 is coming out of service with a suspect blown headgasket. Bought for £500 with the original head gasket blown,it has done sterling service and owes nothing at all.In 8 years twice it has conked out - both due to failed rotor arms,genuine parts.
Been a good car,suprisingly good off road and amazing on snow/ice.
Value for money - Yes !

eightinavee said:

After 8 years of ownership.... And now on 140,000m - my wifes FL1 is coming out of service with a suspect blown headgasket. Bought for £500 with the original head gasket blown,it has done sterling service and owes nothing at all.In 8 years twice it has conked out - both due to failed rotor arms,genuine parts.
Been a good car,suprisingly good off road and amazing on snow/ice.
Value for money - Yes !

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Nice one. What mileage was on it when you got the HG replaced?

It was on 55,000 - one owner,very smart car...

eightinavee said:

It was on 55,000 - one owner,very smart car...

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You did well getting 85000 miles out of a head gasket. Kinda proves my previous point about them failing on average at around 65k

Gradually becoming convinced that a lot of the gasket issues are down to thermal stuff.

Personally I think the radiator in the FL1 is massively oversized, to the point where cold water comes out of the other end of it at anything over a slow trot.

The prt thermostat works well because it causes a partial mix, raising the exit temp of the rad.

Or something.

B34R said:

Gradually becoming convinced that a lot of the gasket issues are down to thermal stuff.

Personally I think the radiator in the FL1 is massively oversized, to the point where cold water comes out of the other end of it at anything over a slow trot.

The prt thermostat works well because it causes a partial mix, raising the exit temp of the rad.

Or something.

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Disagree, I think its more to do with the actual gasket design and construction,made worse by the sandwich design allowing too much fretting between the major components. On all the K series motors I have done I have used the solid oil rail as part of the job.
That and the probable indifference of the original build tolerances - liner heights etc. I'd like to think if they were built properly in the first place they would do 200,000m like a lot of other engines....

From what I've read I think you're both right and there are 3 big changes that should make the k series reliable:
1) N series head gasket (same construction as KV6 HG which is not a HGF susceptible engine, with no fire ring to dig into the head, and used on MG6 with no HGFs)
2) External PRT to reduce the thermal shock to the engine (avoids rapid thermal cycling during warm up)
3) Stronger oil rail to strengthen engine and reduce thermal movement.

Just done these recently on another car, so I'm hopefully that should now be as reliable as any other car.

nope - poor design - built in hot spots causing cavitation, poor cooling system and an engine not designed for use in a Freelander with low airflow

The Mad Hat Man said:

nope - poor design - built in hot spots causing cavitation, poor cooling system and an engine not designed for use in a Freelander with low airflow

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Might just have to agree, to disagree. If it was cavitation/ hot spots and poor cooling then after the suggested mods it would still have problems and all the time. Which it does not, even when thrashed hard which my cars often are. No reported HG failures in MG6 k/N series engine also tells a story. Cooling should be through rad not air around engine. I mod'd another car with cooling issues from the past, the stag v8. Removed the mechanical fan and just depends on electric fan with a modern controller, plus higher exp bottle(an issue with the old one). No overheating even in hot weather(France) and it's now very reliable, so cars are fixable.
So whatever is wrong it's a nice challenge to fix it, which I believe is possible here, like what's been done with the engine in the MG6.

A fantastic engine with a power to weight ratio that is unequalled even today.
Petrols are best, more powerful, quieter, kinder to the environment and don't snap crankshafts.
If your scared of doing a bit of preventive maintenance or want a trouble free motor don't buy a Freelander or for that matter any LandRover

My mrs had a k series for 5 years trouble free, then the first time i drove it the head went...... probably says more about my driving than the design,

comeinhandy said:

Might just have to agree, to disagree. If it was cavitation/ hot spots and poor cooling then after the suggested mods it would still have problems and all the time. Which it does not, even when thrashed hard which my cars often are. No reported HG failures in MG6 k/N series engine also tells a story. Cooling should be through rad not air around engine. I mod'd another car with cooling issues from the past, the stag v8. Removed the mechanical fan and just depends on electric fan with a modern controller, plus higher exp bottle(an issue with the old one). No overheating even in hot weather(France) and it's now very reliable, so cars are fixable.
So whatever is wrong it's a nice challenge to fix it, which I believe is possible here, like what's been done with the engine in the MG6.

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There is your answer - I think you will find the Hippo is a slightly different style and weight to the MG6. cooling setup is also different. yu cant compare the two.

The Mad Hat Man said:

There is your answer - I think you will find the Hippo is a slightly different style and weight to the MG6. cooling setup is also different. yu cant compare the two.

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I agree that the engine was unsuitable - they should have brought the T series out of retirement really for the freelander and not used a light weight thrashy engine for it. Landrover already had experience of the T in the discovery MPi which are getting increasingly rare these days.

But...

Given the massive difference in gasket build between the early K and the N series gaskets, something tells me it would have cost them less to correctly align the liners in each engine and user a proper gasket than all of the warranty claims for exploded engines afterwards. The K was a damn good engine, when it worked, if they'd just spent a couple of minutes more an engine doing alignment... theres a good chance the company wouldn't have ended up in the sh*tter so badly.

The N series is a much stronger engine, and even though it's still unsuitable, I bet good money that put in a freelander it would explode far less than the original K series.

Remember that the K series was the last run of the mill engine they made before the company died, and finished off what was left of their reputation.

K series engine failure has little to do with the weight of the Freelander. The gearing in the Freelander is deliberately lower than in other vehicles so the engine only "see's" the same loads. I believe that the massive cooling system on the Freelander was responsible for the increased HF failure rate over normal K powered cars. However I'm not saying that the K series is without faults because it's not. However these can be largely overcome by using a combination of components designed to help. I'm not a fan of the MLS gasket as an across the board repair. If the liners are out by more than a thousandth of an inch, HG failure will return. The latest Blue polymer Payen gasket is my favourite replacement for these, less than accurately made engines. Then fit the PRT and the Freelander has a chance of achieving normal mileages before a repeat failure.

I have replaced a head gasket for a freelander 1 k series petrol last year - and since then the car has run very well indeed. The freelander had done 50,000 miles and then failed. I am not a skilled engineer so the HGF repair took me over 8 weeks - working a little bit each evening! . That said, I also had the injectors sent off and serviced and I spent some time cleaning the piston tops and making sure the head was immaculate. I also serviced the starter motor and alternator at the same time. I followed the advice from the Haines manual to the letter and also watched a video posted on u-tube. I had to make my own tools to lock the main crankshaft and over head cams - but I eventually brought the latter tool for 8 pounds. The main crankshaft locking tool used the starter motor mountings to interface a cog on the flywheel. I have included a picture of this and I was quite proud to have made it (being an academic not a hands on mechanic) If anyone is due to attempt a HGF repair on a K series I am more than happy to loan the locking tools and give some simple advice (like how to remove the fuel inlet from the fuel rail which, is meant to be easy, but I found difficult and how to lock "solid" the cam sprockets to allow removal of their locking nuts and how to feed in the new timing belt using wooded wedges to ensure it was tight and correct.). Other points were to take many pictures and label up all electrical connections unless you are familiar with the engine. I have a complete set of pictures showing the timing marks of the cam sprockets, crankshaft timing and other bits I thought important at the time. If you are an experienced mechanic then these would be common sense but for an amateur they would be very useful. Overall I enjoyed doing the HGF repair - even though it took me out of my comfort zone. I learnt a lot about fuel injection, engine management systems and the many transducers that feed into the system. I used a good quality new gasket set - don't buy cheap here including new steel bolts. Please contact me if you want any pictures and if you want to borrow the hand made tools.

Kind Regards
Richard
[email protected]