The water escaped.

Hadnt driven the Freelander for a couple of weeks. I took it to work and it thanked me by sharting coolant all over my employers 17th century granite paved courtyard. Brilliant.

Turns out to be leaking from a plastic pipe fitting on the front of the cylinder head.
At home with the inlet manifold off, there is a plastic Y-piece that joins the rad top hose, another coolant hose and bolts to the head. At first I thought it was the gasket that had failed, so some ****ing about with instant gasket had it "repaired" but it leaked straight away again. Turned out that the plastic part is split on the flange where it bolts to the head and the crack is pretty much invisible until the coolant system pressurises and it opens the crack.

Its got a BMW logo and part number stamped on it so I banged that into google and ebay came up with loads of them - apparently this part is fitted to various different diesel bimmers.


Part number 1112-2247744. should be here before xmas. €30 odd with the postage.

Oh, forgot to say that the two hoses join by "quick release" fittings. Literally impossible to get them apart. You have to remove a wire clip then in theory they just pull apart but they were jammed solid - no way would you get them off in situ. I ended up undoing the other end of each hose and with the part in a vice, levering them apart.

I hope you cleaned up the spilage!
Not for the sake of the courtyard, but animals lick it up & it poisons them.

Having a problem with mine leaking too and hoping for a similar simple fix. Don't fancy having to do the hg again.
Did yours loose a small amount of coolant for a while before finally pishing all over your bosses courtyard?

Yeah, I was losing about half a header tank every two or three days and doing so for a few weeks. I was initially worried about the HG, but no sign of fluids mixing, but no sign of the water leaking externally.
Knowing now where its come from I guess the small amount leaked out while driving and dissipated under the car or evaporated off the hot engine block so it never left a trace on the ground.

Thanks, will check mine and hope it is the cause.

Alibro said:

Thanks, will check mine and hope it is the cause.

Click to expand...

Is yours not a K Series? With a BMW marking, presumably that's for a TD4.

LOL, your right Grumpy, wondered why I couldn't find that part on mine. Good news is I found a leaky hose so have it sorted and now just keeping an eye on things. Will probably order all new hoses for it as they look a bit past their best. At least the HG seems to be still OK.

Sometimes it can be the inlet gasket, and can be bought from Rimmers
http://www.rimmerbros.co.uk/Item--i-ERR6622
But better value would be this below.
http://www.island-4x4.co.uk/water-housing-head-elbow-freelander-lr006797-peq100870l-p-8085.html

Also link here from R40 forum
http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?p=1238066