Thread: Td5 making oil.

Well it's as I feared. The good folks at Massaro's tell me it's got a cracked head.

I s'pose the only mildly good thing about it is that I got drive a D5 for the day. I reckon after only a couple of hundred highway / metro miles I'd buy one in a heart beat IF, and its a BIG IF, I could afford it.

Bugger mate

OK now that I've found out the head is cracked I'm considering my options and am therefore asking for assistance. As I see it there are a few of them in order of perceived price from most expensive to least. Whichever option we go with will have to be pretty quick as we have a non negotiable departure date of 20 April.
All work will be done by Massaro's who are a local, reasonably priced and good dealer as I don't have the tools or space to do it. The engine is a 10P.

1. New head from LR.
2. New AMC head from Turner Engineering.
3. New AMC head possibly from SMS Diesel.
4. New head from somewhere else.
5. A known good second hand head from somewhere.
6. A head from a wrecker somewhere.
7. Get the current head repaired.

5 & 6 are probably the least desirable options considering the car needs to last a good while yet.
1 is out of our price range considering that we're on a limited and fixed income. The AMC heads are getting close to unaffordable too from what I can tell after limited research.

Thoughts and / or other options anyone ?

I was faced with the same dilemma a couple of months back.
My preference was to use an AMC head.
My vehicle had 360k on it, I ended up getting a replacement engine with 1/2 the kms on it. Ended up being a couple of grand cheaper than what I was quoted for a head replacement.

AMC head.

Supposedly it's beefed up around the fuel rails to prevent cracking.
I've bought an AMC 300Tdi head plus parts from Turners, fantastic to deal with.

x 1 on the AMC and Turners

I had a second hand 'reconditioned' head put on mine by a dealer. It cracked.
Bit the bullet and did the AMC one. The exchange rate is also a lot better now than when I did mine!

Loos like, after reading opinions here and more research, I'll be going for an AMC head. Today I'll ask for a quote for everything that I'll need bar the head gasket as I don't know what thickness I'll need as yet.
In the meantime I'm not driving it very far at all - don't want to wreck the bottom end with diluted oil. I reckon that there's probably about 750ml to a litre of diesel in the oil so it's pretty diluted.

Oh well, such is Land Rover ownership...

Thanks to all for your comments and PM's.

Well that's it. Head and everything else needed apart from the head gasket has been ordered from Turners.
A quick phone call and an e-mail set me straight with what I need.
By the time I get stung for GST it'll be less than $3k which is a lot cheaper than the LR cost for the same stuff - a little les than $6k.
Hopefully it'll get here pretty quick and I can get it done...