countrywide
Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Location: Sunny South Coast
Posts: 1205
 
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CY wrote:Don't know the best way around this, perhaps have an expert with us to inspect the car and advise on what could be fitted to prevent trouble.
Just budget for a replacement revised head gasket gasket.
Here is some info on it:
The engine's head-gasket was made from a steel core plate with silicon rubber beads to seal water and oil ways rather than the more traditional materials. However, the redesign of the cylinder block to enable the capacity to stretch to 1600 and 1800 cc resulted in a lack of stiffness. This allowed movement across the gasket face and subsequent gasket failure. The design of the cooling circuit was also less than optimum, allowing a hot engine to be suddenly flushed with cold water when the thermostat opened. This "thermal shock" put more stress across the gasket face. These factors were particularly severe in larger vehicles such as the Land Rover Freelander.
The Freelander problem was relieved to a certain extent by a special pressure release thermostat which, with the aid of a spring loaded valve, allowed a small amount of coolant to bypass the thermostat at high engine speeds regardless of engine temperature.
A modification made in an attempt to reduce the rate of gasket failure was to replace the plastic dowels with steel dowels in the cylinder block top face this helps reduce the head movement relative to the cylinder block. The rubber sealing beads were also modified to give improved attachment to the gasket core plate.
More recently, Land Rover have released a reinforced MLS (Multi-Layer Steel) head gasket for the K-Series engines, which until mid-2005 were fitted to the 1800 cc petrol variants of their Freelander model. A modified oil rail was also developed to be used in conjunction with the gasket to improve block stiffness. Time will tell as to whether the improved design will cure this fault of the K-Series engine, but many professionals and enthusiasts now recommend this new design over the standard gasket as fitted by MG-Rover. To date, the results appear to be good.
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