Thread: Td5 head question

Generally speaking .. you would assume it's been done at least once considering the age of the vehicle.

How many klms on the car?

I remember when brother bough this patrol('99 4.5lt petrol), and first thing I noticed was that the head looked to have been done not long ago.
My mechanic is a Patrol guy, and I remember him saying the same thing when he popped the bonnet too.

I assumed that from all the talk on the interwebs, that Patrols were supposed to be bulletproof, so seeing that it's head had been 'done' seemed strange.
ie. if Patrols were bulletproof, why was did it have head works done to it?
Brother found out a few months later when it started oveheating, and hard to find out what was causing it(initially we thought the non working viscous hub, but later prove to be wrong on that). Needless to say he sold it less than a year later!

You can see 'differences' in the colour of similar metals so if its not clean, give it a clean up and note the differences between head and the head cover(or top). Look for excess goop pressed out of crevices near head/block areas.

It's the kind of thing you 'just notice'.

Same thing happened with my D1 Tdi.
When I first saw it, popped bonnet, engine bay area pretty clean, first thing I noted was the head looked to have been done in the recent past.
Initial thoughts were .. did some dumb@$$ do the job, and will it fail on me, or was it done by someone that knows how to do them properly?!
Then the more I pored over the vehicle, the more I noted that the other things that had recently been attended too, were done properly, and that this owner I was getting it from didn't shy away from getting quality work done.
Even small stuff, like tyres(new, and Yokohama, fuel pump, brake booster .. all done not long before even tho the guy had it up for sale(it was his daily).

Anyhow, nearly 70K klms later now, still running fine ... except for my incompetent mechanical work!

Thanks Arthur, its just done 252,000km so IM looking to get into preventative stuff as I plan to keep the old bus for quiet a few more years yet. I will be lookinginto a freshen up for the old girl in the future, so just goin g through bits and pieces now. Cheers mate.