Thread: Overheating and Leaking 300Tdi

Hey All,

Long time and no post, seems I've been pretty busy of late. Hope all are wheeling well. Seems, however, that I am not..

My poor ol' Disco has sprung a few leaks. The issue raised itself as overheating the other day coming back from QLD, I stopped for an hour at a conveniently located Macca's and then popped the cap of the expansion tank.. Empty!! Hmmm, no sign of leaks at that stage... I had a full container of pre-mix coolant with me luckily (was in the trailer), I popped all that in and we got home the extra 170kms without any issues.

Ducked down the road to grab some decent coolant to do a proper flush and refill, no problems on the way there, started overheating on the way back. Heater was going cold when the overheating occurred. I figured maybe there was an airlock.

Drain the system this morning and start looking over all the hoses while the Disco was busy making a mess of the front yard. Seems I had a small hole in the heater return hose. As its this time of year I can't get hold of a new hose so I grab a brass joiner and some clamps, chop the hose and put the joiner in and throw the hose back on.

I began the slow process of refilling with coolant\water. It didn't take nearly as much as it should have, maybe 8 or 9 Litres, maybe there was still a bit left in there... Everything back together I start her up and slowly move her to the driveway so I could see leaks easier. Around the same time the needle started to creep up the gauge (from cold, not overheating) I noticed the Disco had done a bit of a wee. Bugger. After looking her over there were two places I could see leaks, first was at the beginning of the heater return hose (not at the join I put in), maybe I stuffed up putting that on. The second, larger leak has me a little stumped though. It appears as though its coming from the bottom of the water pump, but I can't properly see the origin of the leak, it's pretty tight in there.

Anyone got any ideas? The bigger leak didn't seem to exist before, but that's pressurised cooling systems for you... I am still a little worried the head gasket is gone... No sign of oil in the coolant or visa versa, but that isn't always the case. I am thinking the leaks may be occurring due to over-pressurising from a head gasket leak, but I'm no expert.

Any suggestions\hints would be more than welcome right now. I am meant to be back at work next week, but it's going to be seriously difficult without a car. Need to fix this as soon as I can, but getting parts at this time of year is painful.

Thanks all

Chris

I'm on the P gasket wagon. had the tell tale stain down the LH side for months never had any temp issues. Fixed it about a year ago only about an hour job.