My Dad is losing/using water in his his freelander, has to keep topping it up weekly. He is very car minded (ex stock car driver).But this one has hi, stumped.

1. engine oil looks/seems ok..level not rising either.
2. no white smoke from exhaust.
3. no visible leaks or stain marks.
4. Fitted a new cap cause it looked knackered.
5. Engine runs ok, no probs.

Has anyone any ideas or experience on this.?

Cheers.

on a kseries, would say 100% headgasket

Ray

thats he thinks.....but would there not be signs other than water loss?

head gasket

sequence of events:-

swan vesta, insurance claim, cheque, something japanese

99/100 times.. headgasket..

Headgasket, defo.

Has he checked the oil level recently? It's probably going up and turning into Helmans finest at the same time

he was gonna change it anyway...i suppose when he takes the head off, the signs will be there on the gasket.

i would keep an eye on the coolant header tank as it will probably start showing little traces of oil shortly.i did an 03 1.8 freelander head this week and that followed the same pattern losing water for a couple of weeks then a couple of temp rises then oil drops in the header tank.

if he's replacing the gasket, make sure to get the landrover uprated 2 part gasket,

Ray

yeah cheers, he did mention something about that.

I did the headgasket on swmbo's mgf a couple of months ago guess what when I got the head of nothing wrong with the gasket!

It was using coolant no other signs of headgasket failure you could see a small amount of coolant leaking down the block under the inlet manifold but only when cold. (So you assume headgasket)

The inlet manifold gasket on the mgf is made of rubber it had gone hard at each end around the coolant holes and leaking!

Have a very good look at each end of the inlet manifold for signs of leaking! Could save you a lot of time and money!

Dave..............

cheers, ill let him know

Take the plugs out and look at them and also shine a torch down the hole, if there's water getting into the cylinder, there'll be a shiny clean one.

Have the water pump checked out and replaced when we had rover 400s everytime the headgasket had failed the water pump had showed signs of leaking

UNLIKELY to be the the head gasket.

To find the cause of the problem you really need to do a pressure test with the system stone COLD.

On the Freeland installation external water leaks are much more common than the Rover saloon car range. On the Freelander range the installation was to an extent bodged and is much more prone to airlocks than the saloon . Ford also failled to carry ouy a number of improvements MG-Rover carried out on the saloon range -- for example better quality hose clips, extenal PVS permostat, vacumm filling.

The first thing to do is check for leaks at the corner of the inlet manifold gasket, the inlet manifold gasket has a limmited life -- after 4 or 5 years most start to weep at the corners MG-Rover did a revision of the gasket and of the nuts & studs and the tightening procedure.

Other major suspects are the raddiator, water pump and thermostat housing.

However if it were mine and could find nothing obvious I pour some K-Seal in -- it won't need much roughly 1/4 of a can.
Also when topping up make sure the correct coolant is used -- if it is pink/orange then OAT antifreeze/coolant is required. If it is green/blue then conventional glycol antifreeze/coolant.

http://www.kalimex.co.uk/section.html?secpath=01.04.&pgid=17


See also
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=65234
Rescued attachment 17.jpg

Official MG-Rover Inlet manifold Gasket procedure & Part Numbers

[Edited on 21/5/07 by britishtrident]