Thread: Head Gasket on TD5

Hi mate and welcome .
I would hope that nobody on the forum would comment on the rights or wrongs of the inspection before purchase as we have a "no name and shame" policy. Any negative comments will be moderated.

With regard to the damage , it is certainly now obvious that there was a coolant failure.

Until it let go there was probably no indication of what was to come.

Someone who knows more about TD5 heads may chime in, but I have seen worse damage than this on petrol alloy heads welded and machined. The question is whether there is more damage unseen.

Regards PhilipA

Sorry to hear... There's a thread here regarding changing to steel dowels when you put it together...would be worth reading as seems to be varying views on using steel depending on your model. Whilst I haven't had the problem myself, my brother had similar with older LR and he just replaced the gasket and kept going...he didn't get the head machined. I can't see the picture...at least the flow wasn't into cylinder. I'm not sure cost of checking head professionally.....I'm guessing that's your reference to speedworks. With these rigs a lot starts to wear around 260km, I had to do water pump, petrol pump and fuel regulator, shortly followed steering pump. Whilst you have things apart I'd also check oil cooler.

that head is not one I would recommend for re-use.


in theory a cooling system pressure test would not reveal a leak if it was caused by the way I suspect that head has failed. A good operating test and post test drive re-inspection might have but thats getting pretty rare with the time constraints placed on greasers these days.

happy to help out if you need a hand to get it all back together.

Replace the head with an AMC unit make sure you use genuine head bolts

Your car will likely need a new oil cooler as well, it has likely had the wrong coolant in it

Do it right and do it once

Sorry to tell you that 260k is about automatic transmission time as well

I just replaced my Td5 head with an AMC head it's definitely worth the cost, I paid $5k for the head and bolts etc use genuine bolts and get the block checked for straightness

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Hi mate and welcome .
I would hope that nobody on the forum would comment on the rights or wrongs of the inspection before purchase as we have a "no name and shame" policy. Any negative comments will be moderated.

With regard to the damage , it is certainly now obvious that there was a coolant failure.

Until it let go there was probably no indication of what was to come.

Someone who knows more about TD5 heads may chime in, but I have seen worse damage than this on petrol alloy heads welded and machined. The question is whether there is more damage unseen.

Regards PhilipA

Thanks PhillipA and lovely to be here, apologies for naming names, just still in the grief phase should move into acceptance and solution phase any minute now. Fell in love with the disco in the brief time i got to drive it so willing to go the distance to get it back on the road.

Originally Posted by Mort2

Sorry to hear... There's a thread here regarding changing to steel dowels when you put it together...would be worth reading as seems to be varying views on using steel depending on your model. Whilst I haven't had the problem myself, my brother had similar with older LR and he just replaced the gasket and kept going...he didn't get the head machined. I can't see the picture...at least the flow wasn't into cylinder. I'm not sure cost of checking head professionally.....I'm guessing that's your reference to speedworks. With these rigs a lot starts to wear around 260km, I had to do water pump, petrol pump and fuel regulator, shortly followed steering pump. Whilst you have things apart I'd also check oil cooler.

Thanks Mort2 i will look into the dowel dilemma. pretty keen to do long term repairs as i do really like the thing. So far have steering pump, fuel pump, trans service kit, radiator, engine mounts on order doing full cooling system overhaul also.

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

that head is not one I would recommend for re-use.


in theory a cooling system pressure test would not reveal a leak if it was caused by the way I suspect that head has failed. A good operating test and post test drive re-inspection might have but thats getting pretty rare with the time constraints placed on greasers these days.

happy to help out if you need a hand to get it all back together.

Appreciate the feedback blknight.aus yeh i suspect i just got unlucky with it. the way it's leaking now theres no way they wouldve missed it. Doesn't look like the coolant has eaten into the block, would it be fairly safe to assume it would be worth cracking on with?

Planning to overhaul entire cooling system with oem or genuine parts.

cheers mate