| Relentless Head Gasket Issues- 2012 RR Sport SC | |
Hey guys-
A few months ago I bought my first Range Rover. It is a 2012 Sport Supercharged [5.0L AJ133 V8]. I picked it up for a little less than half price because it had a blown head gasket. I have done the same thing for other cars before; I buy them for half price or less and replace the head gasket and then drive them around for a year or two. I have never run into issues like what I have come across on this Range Rover. At this point I have replaced the head gaskets twice on the old block, installed a new block and installed the heads and it still won't run right. Maybe someone on here knows to do something I'm not? Below is what has been going on:
REPAIR 1:
After disassembly, the heads appear to be warped but not greater than 0.1 mm as indicated by the Land Rover repair manual. The block is totally flat. I lapped all of the valves, cleaned everything, replaced the head gaskets and head bolts with the proper parts, reassembled.
The car ran well for a minute or two, then started burning coolant and pressurizing the system. A leak down test shows that between the number 1 and number 3 cylinder there is leak.
REPAIR 2:
This time I sent the heads off to be machined and checked for cracks. The heads are now totally flat and neither of them are cracked. When they came back I reassembled with all new head gaskets and head bolts.
This time the car ran well for a minute or two and again started burning coolant and pressurizing the cooling system. A leak down test shows that between the number 4 and the number 6 cylinders there is a leak AND there is a leak between the number 5 cylinder and the cooling system.
REPAIR 3:
I bought a new engine (new to me) that came out of a 2011 Jaguar XF non-supercharged and I swapped the pistons from my supercharged engine into the block of the Jaguar engine and then I reinstalled the block into the car and then reinstalled the heads from my original supercharged engine onto the new Jaguar block. STILL it is burning coolant and pressurizing the cooling system exactly the same way it was when it was in other attempts. The leaks are now in places that are different from the previous repair attempts as indicated by the misfire codes.
The leaks that I have found through codes and leak down tests never seem to be in the same place so this makes me think there is something wrong with the way I am installing the heads. I have followed the instructions in the manual exactly (20nm, 35nm, 90deg, 120deg and pattern). These are possibly the weakest head bolts I have come across and it doesn't look like there are any head studs available for this engine. Does anyone have any ideas?
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20th May 2020 5:36am
