Hi!
I live in Chile and have bought my dream Land Rover Defender 110, 2006 on the 10th March.

All was going swimmingly and I decided to drive it back to where I live in the south of Chile, Puerto Natales, a journey of 2,000kms. Alone.

after approximately 1,000 kms the engine overheated and I switched off immediately and let it cool down. The I refilled it with water, as all the water had been spurting out of the water reservoir (not the radiator), I noticed the water was orange with oxidation. I limped back to the nearest town that I had passed that day some 60kms away. I found a mechanic and they told me the head gasket needed to be replaced which we did. I also asked them to check the radiator which was full of gunk, so that was cleaned and replaced.

After trying out the vehicle on some nearby roads, I continued on my journey south. I did not have any problems, but I did notice it was leaking some oil, so I kept stopping and checking the oil and water levels. Only the oil went down a bit, so I kept topping it up.

I managed to arrive at my home in Puerto Natales. In order to find out where the oil leak was I sent the vehicle to have the engine cleaned. It was running well and I was happy again. That same afternoon, just as I was arriving at my house, there was a loud bang and the engine started banging. I coasted a few metres to my house and parked. I inspected the engine, took of the rubber cover and noticed that one (of the three) bolts was poking out.

I called a mechanic and he came out that night and we put it back in, also noticing that on the thread were small pieces of the thread from the head (aluminium). So he managed to get the bolt back in and secure but when I fired it up again the same thing happen, the bolt was pushed back out and the engine started banging.

I had to wait all Easter until today to get another mechanic to come out and look at it. We took off the head and the rocker half with the rocker arms and he noticed that the rocker arm was broken. So I can find a new rocker arm but I am worried that this is a product of another problem, not the problem itself.

I was wondering if anyone knows anything about his type of problem and can hint as to what else could cause a rocker arm to break. The break is inside the support. so one end of the rocker arm is wobbly. Would this alone cause all the problems I am having or is there something else causing all these problems.

Unfortunately I realise now that this defender had not been well looked after, and I probably made a big error in buying it :(

I will be grateful for any help anyone can give me. I have only had my dream car for 18 days :mad:
 
Welcome to Loonyzone :)

Sorry to hear you have problems. Copy this into the Defender section and someone will have the answers (not me....it's a bit modern for my limited experience)
 

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