Thread: 98 xedi - lseries head gasket

Thanks Woko - the omo-thought crossed my mind - but I wasn't brave enough to suggest it on here I've been spoilt with the wet-liner alfa engines - when you have the head off, you can clean out the water jacket from the top...

Should have enough room in the shed cleared this weekend to make a start. Looking forward to it. (it always starts that way...)

Cheers,

Scott.

When you put it all back together it is easy to get the injection pump belt and cam belt one tooth tooth out - so make sure you mark everything up - cogs and belts and transfer the marks across to the new belts.

Garry

Thanks Garry - sage advice Got the hippo into the shed yesterday - it's wading in a sea of removalist boxes, so I have to unpack enough boxes to get access to the doors and bonnet before I can start...

Looking at getting a faultmate MSV for the two hippos to help with troubleshooting etc (I have to recode some new alarm fobs as well) should have some fun tinkering with that. A real downer that they chose to encrypt all of the ecu stuff on the earlier cars... meh.

Cheers,

A little update..

Hooked my shiny new Faultmate up to the car last night - Recurrent faults on both the crank sensor and the #1 injector lift sensor. It needs both to run well, but at least one of them to fire - explains a few things.

The #1 injector lift sensor is open circuit when tested with a meter, should be somewhere in the range of 100 -300 ohms if the internets are to be believed. Will need to grab another one of those. Haven't checked the crank sensor yet in case it's worked loose - but expect it's dead too.

Nice bit of gear the faultmate - you can do all your ABS bleeding etc, rekey alarm fobs - check all the sensors around the car for this and that - the live feed off the ABS sensors is *very* handy for the ol' three amigos that usually requires pulling lead to the abs ECU and buzzing out all the inputs. The information you get from the Bosch EDC Diesel controller is a lot more comprehensive compared to the MEMS petrol controller....

A side benefit of all this - I was mucking around testing the 1.8k hippo we also have - had a couple of odd faults here and there but they cleared and didn't reoccur - but as it was dark outside (as it is wont to be at night) I noticed the Ignition Coil leaking spark all over the place - might go a little way to explaining the uneven idle. Add another thing to the list of bits to collect.

Cheers,

Have you got a RAVE CD workshop manual - if not they are available on this site under the Shop Menu (well worth getting but designed for use by Landie Mechanics and as such just have the basics. A Haynes manual is also worth getting - more for the dummies (like me) but fill in some of the information holes the Rave has in it.

Garry

I know what you mean Garry - I do have both. The Haynes one is particularly oily around the Petrol timing belt and ABS wiring diagram area

One area that has been helpful from the diesel point of view is the MGRover forums in the UK - once you get past all the posts about "increasing boost to 20psi" and "bigger injectors from xx car" and "cut the particulate / catalyst out of the exhaust" and "EGR Blocking plates"

I found the old myfreelander.co.uk pages with some service bulletins on the cars really handy too - you don't know anywhere *all* the service bulletins could be found do you ?

I've also done the weld-repair to the rear subframe on the petrol hippo - the diesel we just picked up is pristine in this area, no cracks or anything - even thought the car has had a harder life and done more km that the petrol... go figure. Popeye must have been on ratchet duty that day. Actually - I think I remember reading that the early cars were ok, and a contractor supplied incorrect subframe parts later in the production run leading to the subframe issue....

Anyway - I waffle - appreciate the advice Garry as always. Been checking out some of the pics around the forums of places you've taken your car (and beforethevisions pics as well) - awesome stuff. Ours lead fairly sheltered lives - but it's surprising how often the ABS / TC combination and extra articulation of the cars comes into use day to day in the overgrown wilds of suburbia.

Cheers,

I cannot help with the service bulletins. I used to use this forum a lot - was really helpful when I did my IRD soon after I got mine.

Land Rover Owner • View forum - Freelander

On here Woko seems to be the expert on the L series - he has put up some good information over time. Camel Landy (Mark) is another good source of information - he is UK based but is here quite often and also has been a great help.

Unfortunately my car has been very reliable , so I have only had experience with a couple of minor things (with the exception of early IRD/VCU failure) so I really have no experience with things electrical etc.

The little rubber hoses that take excess fuel from the injectors back to the tank fail (took me 6 months to find where the diesel smell was coming from) so check yours - easy fix. The original one piece coolant hoses fail but the new ones have T pieces and are clamped together and seem to be cheapest at the dealers. Handbrake levers on the actual rear shoes also break off - don't bother trying to repair - new is cheap. The wires to the hill descent button get chopped by the gear lever - I replaced the switch in mine with a 50c micro switch from Jaycar and re-routed the wiring fixed.

A problem I have at the moment is the gearchange (into first and reverse) is almost impossible when outside temp (not car temp) is above 25 degrees. The little bracket on the side of the gearbox where the slave cylinder is, either cracks or distorts not allowing full movement of the clutch so sometime you have top switch the engine off to get 1st and reverse - bracket is $25 and easy to replace.

You must follow the air bleeding routine in the handbook for the fuel system - take a shortcut and just pump it up with the bulb and your car will start and run - but will be difficult to start next time around. Lastly the car still runs Ok with the check engine light on in what some limp home mode - when the ECU detects a fault, it then ignores sensors and uses default settings in the ECU program - car tops out at about 110kph and requires 3rd up almost any hill but still quite drivable.

That is about all I have picked up in 7 years of ownership - mine is now 270,000km and is still tight, trim is in good nick even though it has spent most of its time outside (bonnet paint suffered UV damage), suspension is tight but getting a little noisy - probably grit from going offroad and steering is tight.

The two biggest things that impacted on the reputation of the FL1 was not developing the thermostat system on the petrol and putting in the correct front diff ratio as it managed to kill a few VCUs and IRDs.

Good luck with yours - I started to replace the belts on mine in June before it got cold, winter came along and then I was sick all Aug and most of Sep so it is still in the garage (RRS has to live outside ) with a jack holding the engine up with the timing belt off - hopefully the rain will stop soon (that is why I here now) and I can finish work on it - all belts, new front engine exhaust pipe, new clutch slave bracket, one outer CV and then we will be all operational again.

Garry

Originally Posted by garrycol

On here Woko seems to be the expert on the L series - he has put up some good information over time. Camel Landy (Mark) is another good source of information - he is UK based but is here quite often and also has been a great help.

Awwwww... Shucks.