The V8 Owners Forum -

Hello everybody, this is my first post so please be patient if I sound stupid. My Disco boiled over one night and started displaying head gasket failure, ie white smoke, lots of it. It actually obscures the road behind if being driven, not bad on tickover though. I thought ok, so what next, after pricing replacement engines or a head gasket replacement, I opted to try a cheap fix first, chemical repair.
Now, I have just gone to flush the rad with a flushing agent and on filling the system again ( supposedly 13 ltrs from empty) it seemed to be taking a lot of filling? I added 13 litres but didn't seem full? Check underneath for drippps, found dripping from near side exhaust box. Ok start and see what happens, well about 6 ltrs promptly shot out of the exhaust taking all the flush aid with it. Glad I was at the front end when it happened anyway car still ticks over but coolant is obviously going straight into one of the cylinders. Has anyone on here had this before? If so what happened next? Thanks for your time , I look forwards to your reply .

If you are lucky, it is indeed a head gasket. It's quite a big job to change because it's so damn fiddly to remove the inlet manifold.
Worth checking which head with a compression tester.

However, these engines are prone to block cracking, which leads to water loss too. And liner movement.

If time is free to you, then the parts cost of a head gasket replacement is pretty small, so try that first. Don't forget new stretch bolts for the head though!

Chris.

Thanks for the reply Chris, I am hoping its just the gasket but having had rover v8's before I am dreading a holed block what ever it is, its pretty bad for the water to run straight out and fill the exhaust!

There is only two places that the water can transfer from the block to the head on each cylinder bank, one is tiny hole at the front of the block, the other is the main water passage at the rear, in other words the deck is virtually dry. This means that there is hardly and area where water can get into the cylinders when the head gasket fails. I personally would not just change the head gasket without doing some sort of pressure test on the block whillst the heads are off, I reckon that it is doing to be a cracked block and a slipped liner!

Thanks Sidecar, not looking good then!