Hi all,

I bought my 1995 defender 110 in march this year, not the best example by any stretch but it has a good solid chassis and relatively low mileage (81000). It was advertised and having a small oil leak which after a short period of ownership i discovered was actually multiple oil leaks (all from the engine). I decided the best course of action was to replace every gasket/seal on the engine and give her a full service at the same time.

Bonnet removed and preparing for engine removal


Engine out


What a defender looks like with no engine


Engine onto stand and the strip down begins


Front of engine cleaned up ready for rear timing belt cover to be reinstalled


New timing belt kit fitted


I then removed the rocker cover, rocker shaft and push rods ready for cylinder head removal (note injector number 3 is stuck in place)


Which was duly removed after this ebay purchase (bosch injector puller)


Cylinder head off


Honing marks still present


Cylinder head as it came off (sprayed with carb cleaner and left to marinate)


In the mean time i set about measuring the piston protrusion to determine which head gasket thickness to use (you can just put the size you took off back on but I'm pedantic)


Peak protrusion was 0.73mm which equates to a 3 hole gasket (same as id took off)

It's looking pretty good. Where were the oil leaks? Sump?

Cylinder head after first pass of cleaning, i forgot to take a pic of the final result but it wasn't much different to this.


New Elring head gasket


Block surface cleaned ready for new gasket


Once the head was back on i moved on to the rear of the engine, here the rear main seal is about to go on (turners engineering seal)


I did do the T-Seals as well but didn't take any pictures.

Rear main seal pushed home showing protective cap ejected


I ordered a genuine P gasket from land rover, which is made of tin. The one that came with my elring gasket set was the old style fibre gasket.

did you fit a gasket to rear main oil seal

New clutch kit, clutch fork, filters and a few nuts bolts and washers that need replacing to finish the job.


Clutch friction plate and alignment tool


Boost gauge installed


Engine is now back in after some fun and games. Ive done about 500 miles in the last couple of weeks and i can confirm no more oil leaks! (although i did have a fuel leak but that was sorted after tightening up the suspect connections.

3 bottles of red line mtl which should be going in this weekend.


Would have been done last weekend but the drain plug is stuck fast and was opening the jaws on my 32mm fan spanner. Ive ordered a 32mm socket which I'm hoping turns up in the post this week! hopefully will improve the 2nd to 3rd gear change which i have to take slow or i can feel it nick the gear (no noise though).

cowasaki said:

It's looking pretty good. Where were the oil leaks? Sump?

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Yeah, oil was coming out of the bell housing plug hole and there was a stream of oil on the front of the bell housing which suggested a sump leak as well.

jamesmartin said:

did you fit a gasket to rear main oil seal

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no, i used sealant instead of the gasket which is what turners advised. still have the gasket which came with my gasket set.

The thing that haunts me to this day is that my Head Gasket is a Britpart one. This is before I knew anything. No problems yet. Pray for me.