Thread: TD5 head gasket

Originally Posted by shack

I also pulled the head off another motor, the head looks to be in excellent condition.

However, for the Mechs out there... Check out the "anti squish" on this one!

And it had a 3 hole gasket, but of course the other pistons stand proud is much better than this one, and no, there is no gudgeon pin or big end play in it.

Mike from Brittanica Restorations had this exact same issue in his latest rebuild(300tdi, but still relevant).
He also checked for big and little end play and found nothing.
When he first inspected the rod, it 'looked' OK on his incident ... but after he found anti squish too .. he reinspected the rod and found it bend by that tiniest amount to cause the issue.

TLDR; double/triple check the rod for any amount of distortion for it to cause that problem.

Good call on the rod!

Thanks for that.

A quick question on piston protrusion, the LR manual says to use the average of the 2 Heights gained from each piston as the piston protrusion, NOT the highest single height.

It's that correct ??

E.g.

.46 +.53 = .99
.99/2 = .495.

Protrusion = .495

Use 2 hole gasket.

If not, then highest height is .53, use 1 hole gasket.

Originally Posted by shack

Head is off, gasket didn't look too bad, but I was still able to drive it a number of km after filling with coolant.

This is the damage to head, does that look like it's got too hot to salvage?

Of interest is that all of the head bolts would have been loose enough for my 12 year old to undo.

Can't really see much damage, maybe some granulated coolant on the valve stem, the loose head bolts could have been re used the first time so losing their elasticity 2nd time round. Pressure test and light skim would be good but more than likely your local machinist wont have a blank plate made up.
Highly likely if it had metal dowels fitted that it let go initially due to the loose bolts.

Originally Posted by shack

A quick question on piston protrusion, the LR manual says to use the average of the 2 Heights gained from each piston as the piston protrusion, NOT the highest single height.

It's that correct ??

E.g.

.46 +.53 = .99
.99/2 = .495.

Protrusion = .495

Use 2 hole gasket.

If not, then highest height is .53, use 1 hole gasket.

Originally Posted by discorevy

Which one!?

Highest AVERAGE protrusion?

Highest SINGLE protrusion?

Yep, not concentrating, you need 1 hole gasket