03 Land Rover Discovery complete engine overhaul (Page 1/1)
joesfiero JUL 03, 01:08 PM
Hi,
I purchased an 03 Discovery II for my wife last month as we needed the room that an SUV could afford on a low budget with a 3rd row. I put tons of research into the decision to buy it because I know how horrid they are on reliability but I think I have a plan.

I bought the truck with just over 100k on it with a known overheating issue. For cheap. No big deal, I know of the head gasket issues so I figured a quick head job and get her back on the road. I was wrong.

I diagnosed the issue with a chemical block test that showed combustion was leaking into the coolant. A pressure test showed the coolant system held 18PSI for 20 minutes without dropping over a half a pound. Sounds like a typical head issue, no? My machine shop said both heads were warped pretty good but were crack free and were decked for straightness. I put it all back together and started it up, the first thing I did was run the block test again, failure, it was still leaking combustion. I verified by driving it until it almost overheated again.

So I did a little research and found an excellent article here that details what actually happens inside these engines that cause them to fail including pics of a block they cut in half. Long story short, the block cracks behind the liner near the head bolt causing the failure. The fix is to replace the liners with new top hat liners to seal the combustion from getting behind the sleeve (a design flaw, its detailed in the blog).

The good thing is that its a pretty permanent fix. If done right you should never have any problems again with that motor other than regular non block related stuff. I have located the new sleeves by Darton and placed several calls to machine shops which I will try to narrow down tomorrow.

My plan is to do as much of the actual work as I can. I will try to document with pictures the engine removal, teardown and even removing the old liners myself . I will try to get some pics as I work.

-Joe
GreenPlatypus JUL 04, 09:08 PM
These trucks are much better than most people let on. I sold my Disco with 270k on it and still going strong, except for the cracked flywheel. Like any premium luxury vehicle, they demand lots of attention and maintenance. Keep up on the oil and coolant leaks, it will leak and cause other problems. Keep an eye on the front drive shaft. They are pretty pricey, and do fail, I've seen a few punch holes in the transmission. Being 10 years old, the rear axle shafts are getting weak, try not to stress them. If you plan on off roading the truck, carry spares. And by all means, off road it. It will surprise you. Oh yeah, keep a few crank sensors, another common failure point, like Fiero ignition control modules, they got hot and stop working. I've done so many, I've got it down to a 5 minute job.

For such a fantastic truck, they really failed on it. The engines really let them down. They used them for years, but never got them right. Best thing they did was start dropping the Jaguar V8's in the trucks.
joesfiero JUL 04, 11:26 PM
The truck is really nice, I like everything about it except its reliability. The engine is an obvious failure in many ways as its common failures are typically major repairs such as head gaskets and the cracked block that I have.

Preventative maintenance is one thing but things like rebuilding the front driveshaft often, replacing the transfer case, replacing head gaskets and fixing ABS module electrical issues on a majority of these things, many times before 100k miles is the reason they were named the least reliable luxury SUV on the market.

I do love the look, the interior and all the materials used except maybe the few bits of cheap plastic like the cluster bezel and things like that. Otherwise Its a fun sporty SUV, I doubt Ill ever take it offroad but I know their capability. Its also probably the only vehicle that cost almost $40k 10 years ago that you can get for under $2k now with relatively low mileage due to its reliability issues.

By installing the top hat sleeves I should be able to correct possibly the biggest design flaw as well as have a chance to start with a fresh rebuild on the motor that should last me quite some time.

I don't have any pics right now but I do have the motor out and in my garage. I began disassembly and actually found a cracked oil pump outer ring. Scary stuff, that probably also explains the lifter tick as the motor warms up. Hopefully once I get the crank out its good and just needs a quick polishing and bearing replacement

Pics to come soon

-Joe
Blacktree JUL 21, 01:51 PM
I was considering putting a Range Rover V8 in my Fiero, until I learned about the block / sleeve issue. From what I hear, the flanged sleeves (and machining the block to accept them) isn't exactly cheap.

Edit to add: I've also been told that due to the asymmetrical head bolt pattern, those engines tend to have head gasket failures, because the heads get tilted to one side when you torque the head bolts. Apparently, the fix is to actually omit some of the head bolts. Do you know if this is true?

[This message has been edited by Blacktree (edited 07-21-2013).]

carnut122 AUG 14, 09:12 PM
Just drop a Chevy V8 in it and be done.
joesfiero AUG 15, 05:46 PM
You know, I priced out what it would cost me to swap an LS 5.3 motor into it because that would net me a more reliable engine and more power but the trouble came with the trans bell housing not matching, not being able to swap a different trans in it because of the transfer case/4wd setup and no adapter plates available.

To answer your question Blacktree, the pre-2000 motors have the lopsided head bolt pattern, there are twice as many bolts at the bottom of the head than at the top causing the head gasket failures. They did fix that by eliminating those extra bolts and making an even bolt pattern.

The sleeve job should end up costing me about $1500 or so with all the new parts. The only work I cant do is machine the block and put the sleeves in but from calling around I should be able to get that done for under $600. The rest of the parts and all should amount to $900. I have a heavy workload right now so I want to get this thing done so my wife can start driving it but Im not sure I will be able to do it all anytime soon. Ordering the sleeves has turned out to be the biggest pain right now so I have to work on that first.

-Joe