wet plugs

Hi all,
I dont have a landrover but my mate who has,nt got the internet has. I know a little bit about cars and he rang me the other day nearly crying saying his freelander had packed up on him and could i look at it, he had left it at the side of the road and went to the nearest pub.
Its a R reg and its either 1.8 or 2.0 petrol.
This year he has spent over £3500 on repairs on this lovely machine, headgasket,clutch,ball joints,exhaust etc etc.
Anyway i went and got the keys off him and went and had a look, i tried starting it and it fired up all be it coughing and spulttering so switched it off and looked under the hood, first of all checked the dissy cap and made sure all was well there then i took the black plastic cap off that covers the spark plug caps to make sure all was well under there. What i was going to do was start the beast and pull one cap off at a time to see if all plugs were working. When i pulled no1 off it was full of water! i soaked up as much of the water as i could and dried the cap then sprayed with wd40, the next one was exactly the same and so on.
I dried and sprayed them all and bingo it fired up and drove sweet, well as best as i guess it ever did.
Now as i was standing there thinking what a load of Bo.....cks that water can actually get in there i noticed that the caps were not sealing the hole and would,nt push down any further.
So my question is he has only had his landy back from the garage a month and they replaced the top end of the engine when they did his head gasket, i think they have either put the wrong plugs back in ie too tall? or they have uesed the wrong caps ie too long? I was wondering if any of the experts out there had any thoughts on this or if any owner has had any problems with the same kind of thing.
Sorry if i have waffled om just trying to give you all the info.
Thanks for any help

Dont know the full cause????

The plugs are deep seated, was it power washed under the hood at any stage.

The water could have just been in the plug cavities, is he losing coolant?

If the cylinders had water in them it would bend the con rods and wouldnt be driving

Hi,
thanks for the reply, The water isnt in the engine its just sat in where you see the top of the plugs.The water when i pulled the caps off was almost to the top of the plugs. We had a lot of rain last few weeks and he has been through some large puddels but then so have i in my peugeot 406 and i dont have any problems.
We kind of know how the water got there i was just a a stunned that a landrover ie something that is supposed to go off road through mud and sorts packs up as soon as it starts to get wet.
Surely water should,nt be able to fill up the bores where the plugs are sitted? or am i wrong.
It almost looks like the caps dont seal and any spray under the bonnet will run past the caps and onto the plugs.
Anyway thanks for your help.
cheers

It shouldnt have water in there, even after a water course

Did you remove the plastic strip that says Land Rover/Rover

My guess is that the garage who fixed it were sloppy with the coolant/water.

To take the head off drains all the coolant from the upper part, they probably never dried out the parts?????

So long as it runs fine now I would not worry, keep err lit!

I have had that prob before - seems to be condensation exacerbated by having a plastic engine cover.

The Mad Hat Man said:

I have had that prob before - seems to be condensation exacerbated by having a plastic engine cover.

Click to expand...

The cover on the V6 is more substantial, the 1.8 cover is far from water tight

Acording to some on here he got off light as the doors should have come off as well, God i nearly said 'anarl' i've been on here too long.

HI,
my mate took it back to the garage and they got the workshop book out and everything is as it should be, he went and looked at another and it was the same.
Just looks to me like a **** design.
Now its all dry down there its driving fine so i told him to get rid of it asap, he is looking for a discovery dont know if there any better.
Anyway thanks for the comments gents have fun in your landrovers
Cheers