no heat in cabin, coolant loss, roof leak, boiling water in expansion tank all related?

[Vinnygoldini]

I have a cabin flood situation for a long time maybe the past 4 years and couldn't figure it out why? I taped the sun roof and used those Flex Seal Liquid to seal the trims on the roof thinking that it should prevent it from leaking when it rains. And yes it usually flooded when it rains. However, this year something different happened. There was no rain but still flooded last night. 3 days ago, my T- bleeder valve broke off completely. I have heard hissing sound somewhere under the hood for a while now but just didn't know where it came from. I guess now I now it was the T-bleeder valve cracked and then completely broke off 3 days ago. Car was not even able to drive. Luck that i got some tools in my car, I took the left over plastic from the other tube and connected the black plastic tube to the remaining t-bleeder valve and the car was able to start and drove home for 3.9 miles. Pix below. Some of the valve must have been melt and probably still in the cooling system. I bought a brass union to connect those tubes together. Car drives fine now. However, it over heated after about 25 min last night. Temp gauge going up so I just immediately pulled over and turned off the car. The water was boiling, I slowly loosened the cap to release the heat and some of the steam water. (its mainly just filtered water now, because I tried to change coolant so I drained all the coolant and poured filtered water in nowadays) I Tried pouring water in the expansion tank. it just doesn't fill up. Water always goes down quick and nothing left in the expansion tank. This has been happening for the past 6 months actually. It just doesn't hold the water. When I opened the passenger side door, whole bunch water splashed out. I wondered wth and where the water came out it wasn't raining. This morning, I opened the passenger side door, more water came out too. I immediately thought it must be the water from coolant expansion tank. It just leaked into the cabin. I took some pix below. I found that silver tube and the black tube was dripping but not squirting yet. If its not those 2 tubes, it must be a major leak under the passenger side floor. I don't know how to open it. There is no way I could find where the leak is without any professional equipment. I guess that 4 years of roof leak into cabin was a mistaken thoughts, its just a leak somewhere along the cooling system, it just leaked into the cabin mainly the passenger side.

So where should I take the car to for inspection? Rover dealership? They may charge a lot just to inspect it and sometime, they may not even be right. I'm pretty sure I have to replace some tubing. How much ? I guess no way to know until I find where the leak is ? Any suggestions ????

1 more thing, I left the coolant expansion cap open and the smaller screw looking cap open as well, the temp gauge stays in the middle the whole time for 2 hours of driving no problem. But yes I see water steam keep coming out. I just kept adding a lil bit filtered water in. The car drives fine, no lights came on.

2006 LR3 with 64500 miles only. Ya I don't drive a lot.

 

[ernest jarvis]

Check out the AC drain lines. Don't think its your problem but could be
a contributing factor.
Look for an independent Land Rover repair place.
In the Houston Tx area the go-to place is British Unlimited.
I got a 2006 LR3 last year with 100k miles. So far so good,
just minor problems. The Nav computer under drivers seat does
not power on. Something in the wiring we can't find yet.
Good luck.

 

[NorthwestDriver]

Your temp sensor won’t read anything if there is no coolant in the system. Someone in the LR4 forum just reported how they drove their car without coolant and didn’t realize it because the temp gage was reading normal.

Sounds to me like there could be a leak in the heater core or hoses. I’m still getting familiar with these vehicles, but in every other vehicle I’ve owned the engine cooling system and passenger heating system are tied together. The core is also typically located above the front passenger footwell. It makes sense to me that this could all be explained with a leak near the heater: flooded floor when it’s not raining, low engine coolant. Not sure about the other stuff, but I’d start there.

You also need to get proper coolant into your engine. Distilled water will still rust the block and heads, engine coolant prevents corrosion in addition to lowering freezing temperature. If you’ve been running exclusively water for 6 months this is likely to be a contributing factor —maybe the heater core has rusted out or some particulates have eroded a line. Lastly, use distilled (not filtered) water. Filtered and tap can have minerals that will result in deposits.

 

[Vinnygoldini]

Thank you so much for these suggestion!! I thought I could do all maintenance on my own but it seem that changing coolant is more challenging than I thought. All the bad thing started when I changed coolant. I changed all the oil (there is like 7 places of oil) on my own without any problems. I think the cooling system is a lot more difficult than we normally think. I'm now pretty much the engine block has been over heated. Many bad things will happen in the future. I may have introduced air pocket in it and used filtered water is another bad thing. I will never change coolant on my own for any future cars.

 

[roverman2010]