Thread: I think I might have killed the engine .

Hey folks . Long story short . On my way back towing my jayco van passing Mooney Mooney all of sudden “low coolants” warning came on and “engine over heated” came on as well and it went back down after 5 seconds I have. I where to stop so I kept on driving for about 3-4 min and the car just stop and all these code came on looks like all the coolant gone . Had my whole family in the car it was not a good feeling got stranded on the high way . My car is 3L sdv6 hse 2011 model had about 1700000 kms on it.

Got it tow to my mechanic(a good friend) and had a look the whole plastic housing where the top rad hose connect to has snap off . For fs such a crucial component and it’s made of plastic .

Now looks like the car has no compression it will turn but won’t start . The engine oil looks fine to me but I might be wrong .

Anyone here had or seen a similar issue ?

Thanks in advance guys

Without any experience of doing so, I would expect the engine to be a straight swap. The 8-speed gear selector mechanism would have to be fitted and the CCF gearbox specs changed to the 8-speed, if that is indeed an option on your car's CCF. The gear selector may or may not be a straight swap, mounting-wise. If you have a diagnostic tool such as the IIDTool or one from BBS then connect it to your vehicle and see if an 8-speed gearbox can be selected.

There should be no problems with the can-bus but the wiring for the 8-speed from the main harness may be different to the 6-speed, noting that the gear selector harness would have to be changed. The MY11-12 L322 had both the 6-speed and 8-speed depending on the engine but might be fitted with different main harness to gearbox harness. A check of wiring diagrams for the 6 and 8 speeds in a D4, equivalent RRS or MY11-12 L322 would be appropriate, possibly best if both g/boxes in a D4 of the same year model. I have wiring diagrams for some models which I will check.

The 8-speed's front and rear tail-shafts should be acquired unless you can confirm them to be the same, possibly with the same part numbers. I can't recall if there is a removable gearbox cross-member but if so then they may be different.

Hopefully a workshop can provide real experiences with such a conversion.

Edit: Steering wheel paddles would be needed which opens-up a can of worms. I'd be inclined to just fit the engine.