Malcolm Collis
Member
- Posts
- 27
Hi - this is my first dabble on the forum so here goes:
I have a 2003 TD5 Defender 110 and have just spent the last year clocking up 32,000 miles driving around southern Africa. Besides other hiccups along the way I had a persistent but intermittent electrical fault that caused the temp gauge to flick to hot, or sometimes cold, and put the engine into limp for a second or two most of the time. On a few occasions this led to the engine actually overheating on long hot climbs. I think I may have cured this with a new engine temperature sensor fitted towards the end of the trip.
HOWEVER, in the last couple of weeks in Africa a new problem developed - oil in the header tank. From not using a drop in the previous 95,000 miles she was drinking oil which appears to have gone straight into the header tank - engine oil was uncontaminated and rest of coolant clear. I assumed a head gasket had gone and managed to nurse her back to Cape Town to be shipped home. On checking the web it seems the problem may be a cracked oil cooler (see below links) with the first link blaming African water!
Disco2 TD5 oil cooler - SA 4x4 Community Forum - The only forum for the offroad and 4x4 enthusiast
Oil in the expansion tank - LR4x4 - The Land Rover Forum
td5 oil cooler failure
She isn't due back in the UK until April but it would be nice to get an idea of what is actually wrong - head gasket or oil cooler (not sure which is the lesser of two evils!)
Thanks
I have a 2003 TD5 Defender 110 and have just spent the last year clocking up 32,000 miles driving around southern Africa. Besides other hiccups along the way I had a persistent but intermittent electrical fault that caused the temp gauge to flick to hot, or sometimes cold, and put the engine into limp for a second or two most of the time. On a few occasions this led to the engine actually overheating on long hot climbs. I think I may have cured this with a new engine temperature sensor fitted towards the end of the trip.
HOWEVER, in the last couple of weeks in Africa a new problem developed - oil in the header tank. From not using a drop in the previous 95,000 miles she was drinking oil which appears to have gone straight into the header tank - engine oil was uncontaminated and rest of coolant clear. I assumed a head gasket had gone and managed to nurse her back to Cape Town to be shipped home. On checking the web it seems the problem may be a cracked oil cooler (see below links) with the first link blaming African water!
Disco2 TD5 oil cooler - SA 4x4 Community Forum - The only forum for the offroad and 4x4 enthusiast
Oil in the expansion tank - LR4x4 - The Land Rover Forum
td5 oil cooler failure
She isn't due back in the UK until April but it would be nice to get an idea of what is actually wrong - head gasket or oil cooler (not sure which is the lesser of two evils!)
Thanks
