What Orangebean said. Get a new one. At that price its not worth mucking around, especially as the end joints must be past their best. Can't get over how inexpensive in real terms so many mechanical parts are these days. Hafta keep remembering to check prices before putting serious work in. Especially on things that back in the day would automatically be considered un-affordable.

Clive

Several cycles of heat and penetrant blast on this sort of thing over a few days usually gets there for me. Get it good'n hot, not red tho', blast with favourite penetrator, I use Plus-Gas, leave to cool then blast again. Repeat a few hours later. Same again tomorrow. Doesn't hurt to spend a week on it, once in the morning once in the evening.

If it still didn't want to go my ultimate plan would be to make up a pair of overlapping clamp spanners with a hefty bolt to push them apart undoing wise and have at them with an impact wrench. Something will shift! But then I have the workshop facilities to make such things. Wondering if its time to get under, measure up, then make one for the tool-box in case of need. An afternoon in the shop making chips is, at worst, amusing. An afternoon under t'motor hammering, squirting and swearing is, at best, not fun.

Off topic but I have a bank of Mikuni carbs off an XJ900 on the bench at the moment halfway through the heat' blast treatment to free off two seized pilot adjuster screws. Customer Dork sheared the slotted head parts off the brass screws before screaming help! Fortunately there is nice little reservoir for Plus-Gas on top. Got the drain time down from never to overnight after a week of heat'n blast. When its down to under 4 hours they are going on the mill for new slots to be cut so ready for screwdriver time.

Longest one was a Bridgeport ram seized in its turret. Too big to heat properly but I set up with the ram on a decent slope and it slid down overnight of its own accord after 3 weeks of morning and evening treatment.

Getting rush headed on this sort of thing always seems to end in tears. Followed by a frantic search for someone who can manage an unorthodox fix. Done enough such fixes for other folk not to risk my own stuff.

Clive

Gilbertd wrote:

I couldn't find any mention of an Ascot edition either. I was going to buy the P38 bible but Amazon want £60 for it! Paint is Altai Silver (code 567) but it has a blueish tinge to it and it looks more blue under a blue sky but much less so on a cloudy day. V5 says colour silver too.

Looks like Ascot is a Land River badged push bike these days!

Prices for "Range Rover, The Second Generation" by Taylor are through the roof and into orbit these days. One optimist wants £165. Mine was £3.50 off E-Bay, free postage too, a couple of years back. 3 or four to choose from.

Clive

Great pictures. Thanks. Stolen to help me plan where best to lift car if doing work underneath. Axle stands and ramps don't give enough height for a proper view of where stuff is.

Clive

This forum seems pretty good for L322 information :- http://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/ . The official unofficial kid sister has had a 2003 TD6 for 3 years now and expected me to know about them!

Clive

I use a little plastic syringe to pull it out. Came with a two stroke oil pack for the strimmer I think. Holds 10 or 20 cc.

Clive.

Early ones don't have the flexi bit. Later ones do. Must be a reason why they put the flexi bit in but you don't hear of earlier vehicles being significantly more prone to manifold problems than later ones. Maybe to do with improving gasket security. With no continuous flange between all the ports its possible that things could be shuffling round a bit to accommodate different thermal expansion between the alloy head and steel manifold causing gaskets to loosen off.

Probably an edge case thing. Some did, some didn't and putting the flexi in was intended to shift the edge so the some did percentage got lots smaller.

I'd go for it taking great care to have everything properly lined up with no stress before and after welding.

Clive

Still got the old bolts? Give the threads on a couple a really good clean. Wire wheel on a bench grinder is best way but make sure the rest is sturdy and closely adjusted. Flexy rest and / or excessive clearance may well either jam things up or do the high speed ejection thing. Run a hacksaw down one side of one thread and repeat the clean up process to clean up the cut edges.

Try the bolt with the full thread first. Should screw in OK by hand. I pop a socket on to give something easier to grip or, if small enough use the screwdriver handle attachments I have for my 1/4" and 3/8" drive sockets. If at all stiff use the bolt with slotted threads as a clean-up / re forming tool. You can actually by thread fixing tools of this sort from the likes of Snap-On et al. But you really, really won't like the price.

On a job like that I'd make a proper set of restorers from scratch if really worried about condition. A little safer and a bit more effective.

Clive

If its a plain copper washer just anneal it and pop a bit of sealant on the bolt thread for good measure. It will be fine. I grabbed a mixed set in a nice box on special offer from a plumbing shop over 10 years back for emergency purposes. Yet to use one!

Copper is funny stuff to anneal. Most things its heat to red and cool slowly to anneal or drop in water to cool rapidly and harden. With copper either way leaves it uber soft. I prefer the drop in water bit as it comes out real clean.

Clive

The gear I currently have can sensibly lift it a foot, may be a touch less. Will do for fluid changes and basic servicing jobs underneath but not enough elbow room to sensibly cope with the more ambitious stuff the MoT man wants me to do. Apart from the rubbery bits chassis et al is looking distinctly scabby at the back and more than a few fasteners that need to be shifted soon if they are ever going to come undone. Probably do the prop shafts whilst I'm at it too.

So I really do need to find a way to get it a bit higher. Preferably with some flexibility in height setting so it can be adjusted for different jobs. Got one of those convertible creeper / roll around seat thingies in the white elephant box, just a LiDL temptation. Would seat mode be a more comfy alternative to crouching if I end up with a mid rise system?

Clive

Hmmn. Betting that someone optimistically ignorant enough to end up with a POS like that actually found a good engine for it strikes me as being a bit chancy. Seen such WTFHYD projects started or picked up in an "I can sort it mood" (Um, no you can't and the missus will kill you when she finds out what you've spent!) and none ever had a decently useable motor. Seller has got to know the potential value of the motor so most likely bailing at whatever he can get having got the project far enough along to discover that, although it runs, the engine is seriously ailing.

Clive

No worries. These things happen.

If it never re-appears a couple of quick notes on the replies I saw.

Excellent point from Chris about working crouched. Something I'd sort of considered and wanted some views on how serious a constraint it really is if I go for a mid rise system. Half the point of getting the car into the garage is to make working in short bursts practical. Be 63 next month and getting past 10 hour working on the car days. Doable if I have to but not to be planned for.

Pit isn't practical as there is about three or four foot of ironstone a foot or so down from the garage floor. Building Inspector wanted us to dig down into that for extension foundations. Had to bounce a jackhammer off it before he accepted it wasn't going anywhere.

Looks like playing with what I have is best place to start.

Clive

Definitely do the thermostat too whilst you are under there. Its a right PIA as there isn't quite enough elbow and arm room when you are lying on your back. Dunno if there actually is space to slide things in with the thermostat attached and pipes fitted but after my previous battle thats what I intend to try when the radiator goes. Still original on a year 2000 car so can't be much longer for this world. Maybe put it on next years preventative maintenance list.

There may be an issue with hose sizes. Back in 2015 I got a full set of water hoses from DLS whilst chasing small water leaks. Its looking as if some are slightly too large internal diameter. Top hose has the very tiniest weep from the end where it fits the radiator and inlet hose onto water pump inlet had a more significant leak. Both became visible when the car was running stationry during the aircon refill process. Top hose has spring clip clamp as supplied with it so I can't tighten it up. Not happy with screw types on plastic rads anyway as the forces aren't quite even and temptation is to over tighten. Water pump hose was so slack on the water pump stub that coolant poured out when I loosened the worm drive clip to re-adjust and re-tighten. Pulled up about as much as I dare now. Looks OK so far. I fitted the hose after re-doing the front cover and water-pump gaskets but before re-fitting viscous fan, serpentine belt and belt tensioner. Easy to get on the hose clamp screw that way but my chosen position made it virtually impossible to get at the screw with everything in place. Fortunately a combined hex head and slot type or I'd never have got at it. Magnet on a stick essential for fishing the spanner out of the bottom of the radiator cowl. Twice!

Clive

Not fancying mail order on such a relatively delicate component and wanting the security of local purchase for easy return if it wasn't up to snuff I paid the extra and got a Hella "OEM" condenser from EuroCar Parts. Possibly not the best move as brackets didn't line up properly making it a bear to fit. Worked in the end tho' so worth the effort.

Drier unions on mine were immobile until I heated them up. Should have shifted the air suspension pipe first as I melted a small hole in it and let the gremlins in. Very difficult to see whats going on in that area hence the big boo-boo. Thin wall alloy union nuts are very easily distorted so leaning on the spanners or mole gripping is not effective. Restricted space meant I need three spanners out of my collection to undo the unions as the various bends and angles weren't quite right. Finally christened the stubby combination set I picked up "that will be useful" 20 odd years back. If only there had been about 10 degrees more offset angle on the open end that one spanner would have done it all.

Clive

Green-oval-nut

I've just given up Lynx and joined the Nanocom club so maybe we could do a deal. I'm fairly sure it does everything on the ABS, not sure what comes up for traction faults. I could fire things up over the weekend and check but mine is a year 2000 car so significantly different to yours.

Where are you located? I'm in East Sussex.

Original Lynx needs a laptop to run on. As I recall matters installation is a bit of a fiddle and relies on the ODB port working correctly. I'm not sure how tricky it is to transfer to another computer. I don't really want to loose the Toughbook its currently running on. For something like this I'd be a darn sight happier with a physical meet, greet and successfully works verification before doing the money thing. In all fairness it does work fairly well and pretty much does what it says on the tin. Which, unfortunately isn't always what you thought it said. Also prone to dump you in the "WTH" kitty litter if you don't really understand the operating interface. One nasty is that it will let you deflate the air suspension and lock it into transport mode but can't unlock it so the car comes back up again. Free version of EAS Unlock sorts that but need to make up a lead! Essential accessory if you ever want to use Lynx to let the suspension down.

Last Update was version 2.6.2 back in February 2015. Nothing since despite a list of promises on the Britpart site that have now disappeared. For example rather incomplete on the HEVAC side. Can't test actuators or read settings properly. Appears to be abandonware now as the Evolution version looks to have a few more features including HEVAC actuator testing.

No technical back-up or assistance. Zilch. Nada. Not at all. No one at BritPart will talk to you, answer e-mails or even acknowledge that they sell the darn thing. Except. Nice helpline for registering the device so you can actually use it. Run by third party, nice guys on the phone when I've talked to them but even they can't get hold of BritPart if there is a problem!

Bottom line with Lynx it is what it is, does what it does and thats your lot.

As I understand it Hawkeye uses the same basic software.

Clive

Gilbertd wrote:

I'd suggest getting a stud kit for when you put it back together. The overheat could have stressed the threads in the block and the studs will put less strain on them than stretch bolts.

Not sure about that.

As I understand it the thing about stretch bolts is that they have a near flat section in the yield curve between the end of normal elastic deformation and the ultimate tensile strength point beyond which fracture occurs. Once you have the bolt torqued down enough and stretched enough to get onto the near flat part of the curve the bolt can be stretched a bit more with very little change in applied force. Until you run out of the near flat region. So when the engine warms up, so the alloy block and head expands more than the steel bolt or stud making them a bit longer, the stretch bolt puts very little more force on the head whilst the non-stretch stud should still be in the elastic region so stretching it applies rather more force. If the engine overheats the differential expansion between the alloy and the steel bolt or stud will be greater so the plain stud applies still more force whilst the stretch bolt is still on the near flat section of the curve so doesn't pull much harder.

Flip side is that the stud is working in its elastic region so it recovers to its original length when things cool down and the force applied remains the same for any given temperature. In contrast a stretch bolt has already yielded when it was installed so it now stays stretched at the extra length produced by the expansion of the overheating block. The stretch bolt is now permanently longer reducing the force on head and gasket at all lower temperatures. Hence stretch bolts have to be replaced if an engine has overheated even if the gasket seems to be holding.

Thread pull out solely due to overheating isn't a worry. If they pull out you have a pre-existing problem. A pretty major one at that. The tensile forces are transferred quite close to the top of the female thread. General rule of thumb is that an engagement depth of twice the depth of a standard nut will be more than enough to snap any over torqued bolt or stud pretty much where it enters the female thread for any reasonable combination of materials. Counter intuitively turning the bolt or stud shank diameter down to the thread core depth actually makes it "stronger" (as in harder to snap) than leaving it full diameter as it improves the stress distribution. Prof. J.E.Gordon illustrates this nicely in his book "Structures, or why things don't fall down" with a stress distribution plot superimposed on a drawing of a thrush trying to pull a worm out of the ground demonstrating that its no harder for the early bird to catch a long worm as it is for it to catch a short one. Has to pull for longer tho'. (Old book now but that, and its companion "The New Science of Strong Materials" are still about the best introduction to such things for the scientifically or engineering inclined reader.)

One day I shall find time to run through the maths on this stuff so sort out exactly whats going on with studs, bolts et al both stretch and non stretch. Too much variation in expert and common opinion. Week or two full time should do it!

Clive

Well thats turned out odd. Not used the UV stuff yet as leak has finally got big enough to see after running the engine during the air-con re-gas process. Appears to be coming from where the hose connects to the water pump inlet. Hose clip seemed tight but I've repositioned it and retightened it. Maybe that will have some effect.

Was surprised to get a steady stream of water out of the joint when the clip was loose. Sort of thing you'd expect if the hose is too large in diameter. Changed all the under bonnet hoses a couple of years back with OEM specification ones from a reputable supplier so should have been right size.

Clive

Thats the sort of thing I expect to be looking for. Might be getting easier tho' as last couple of journeys its been loosing a bit more coolant. We shall see.

Clive

Thanks for that recommendation. Hit the buy it now button on a dye & torch deal. Should be here by the weekend and hopefully I'll see some evidence.

Know all about the difficulty of cleaning out K-seal and the other jollops.

Clive

Been nooging around a minor cold engine coolant loss for the last 4 years or so. Takes around 20 to 30 or so starts to loose a pint. Pretty sure the beast came with sealer jollop in the system when I got it as the problem only got noticeable after I pulled things out to fix the front crankshaft oil seal. Obviously fitted new hoses whilst the system was empty. Loads of Hermatite on the water pump and front cover gaskets suggesting that Bodgitt & Bend Garages Inc had been inside and given up. Water pump looked to be a decent quality replacement not original. Periodically one of the usual under bonnet leak suspects gets enthusiastic enough to leave visible traces and gets fixed after which the loss drops off for a while. No evidence of heater matrix O ring leaks.

So do I go (nearly) nuclear by doing the heater O rings and fitting new radiator, thermostat and water pump or do I just throw in the bottle of K-Seal I got given by a mate with a guilty conscience over too many little freebie jobs. Main temptation is that the K-Seal is free and quick! Being honest its only the heater O ring hassle that is putting me off the nearly nuclear option.

Car is a model year 2000 4.0 HSE with 88,000 on the clock.

Clive