Thread: Head Gasket on Td5

No worries, anytime. Go well!
My 68yo father in law helped me take it off! He stood on the cowl and sat his butt on the windscreen while I took the front!
I got a 19yo plumber from my congregation to help lift it back on!

Hi all,

Thanks so much for all of the valuable information (particularly the pictures) on this job. Your enthusiasm inspired my wife and I to undertake this job by ourselves (it's her car after all) and so far (3K km post new gasket) there don't appear to be any problems.

My main concern about the job was that I did not realise that the alternator had swiveled up meaning that when I put the head back on (with the intake manifold already in place 'cause I was trying to be smart) and tightened up the head bolts, the intake manifold was resting on the alternator and I did not realise this until I tried to put the little spacer bracket back on the alternator and it just wouldn't fit! I had to use a lump of wood with my dead-hit mallet to knock the alternator down to the left from under the intake manifold to get the bracket back in place.

I was terribly worried I was going to have to re-torque the head bolts but my local friendly independent assured me that if they weren't in tight enough, I would have had problems before now - something about pressure leaking where I don't want it!

The head was fine (some evidence was found of combustion extending post the gasket rings or something like that) although head shop guy told me he had to re-seat the valves as the tolerances from the factory were right on the outside of the acceptable limits and once he took a touch off the face, it was no longer within specifications - overall with everything done the head job itself was $600.

The other small concern I had was that when I was using the rotary tool with a wire brush to clean the old gasket off the face of the block (I know, it was a risk but I was getting frustrated), some of the little wire pieces started to dislodge and ended up down in the cylinders. I tried to suck them out as best I could with the wife's vacuum cleaner but who knows if I got them all.

Anyway, all appears to be going OK at the moment (fingers crossed) and we have done a couple of trips away with the camper trailer already without incident so we might be OK!

Thanks to all who contribute here and for helping make Land Rover ownership what it really is - "turning drivers into mechanics" (I'm a dietitian in my 'other' life).

Sheldon

PS. 2003 Discovery Td5 with 172,000 on the clock. We only did the job as we recently acquired the car and the post-purchase fine tooth-comb inspection by independent revealed "evidence of cooling system over-pressurisation" which they then concluded meant that most likely the head gasket was cactus. Whether this is true or not I don't know but the job is done now anyway . . .