Steal of a Deal LR4 - Part Deux

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LR4Slavo

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As promised - making a new thread on a new to me LR4 I just picked up.

She's a 2015 LR4, 3L V6 SC with 111k miles on the clock!

Story here is after the factory warranty expired, this LR was serviced by the same shop just outside of Boulder, CO for the remaining service life. In addition to the new brakes and tires mounted all around, the last major service included a ton of preventative maintenance including water pump, thermostat, crossover pipes, as well as some suspension bushings, transmission fluid and pan change. The total bill was $5200!

Not even 1k miles later that the truck sprung a coolant leak, low coolant light flashed on and the owner apparently brought it in. The truck was assessed for damage and I believe overheating with a blown head gasket was the result. Quite a bit suspect that this occurred within 1k miles of the aforementioned major service to prevent just this from happening. A few months pass and the dealership side of the shop posts the car on Craigslist on the owners behalf and it makes its way into my hands.
The good: She looks sharp, fairly clean on the outside, single owner with extensive service history, no title issues, is equipped with the OEM roof racks and rails and OEM hitch (no key though, not sure how this will work for removal), blind spot detection, Paddle shifters, LCD screens in the headrests with both Bluetooth headsets, 360 camera system and two key fobs.

The bad: the inside needs a ton of work, smells awful, carpet is stained everywhere, the drivers side door card is damaged in the jam area for some reason, paint peeling around the screen, also doesn't have the winter package that I've become accustomed to in the '10 LR4 which came with heated mirrors, front and rear heated seats, heated steering wheel and heated front windshield (though this one is more of a distraction if you ask me).

The unknown: obviously status of the engine and associated cooling components and air suspension (though likely not an issue, just a victim of it sitting for a while).

Looks like a good amount of the of the cooling components are unplugged under the hood and the battery is dead.

Charging up the battery now, and I'll use my GAP tool to run codes, re-connect cooling components, run vacuum through the system to try to identify the source of the leak and go from there, with likely a compression test and a hydrocarbon test on any of the coolant that I can pull from the system to check for signs of a blown head gasket.

Luckily, I have most of the tools required for a rebuild as a result of overheating if it goes in that direction, I'm cautiously optimistic that there aren't more severe issues such as a seized or warped block but i'm preparing mentally for that scenario as well.

Any advice is welcome and wish me luck!
 

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LR4Slavo

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There's a spring pin holding the green handle to the shaft - you can tap that out and replace with a new handle, which comes with fresh keys.
Oh sweet! I didn't think about that. I guess there's no harm just leaving it there also, if I ever need to pull it off I can just do what you described at that time - there's also the outside chance that the keys from my other hitch work on this one
 

Longtrail

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I went through the hitch issue also; I think it had been there since 2012 as it was completely and utterly stuck (and by stuck I mean seized stuck...). As mentioned there's a roll pin that can be removed to navigate around the lack of key, knock this out and the handle can be removed allowing access to the underlying shaft which can be pulled out (towards the passenger side (US)) and then turned anti-clockwise. In my case this shaft would not rotate and I had to lower the spare wheel and use a punch to hammer the locking pin. With the hitch out I tried literally everything to unseize the internal mechanism (penetrating oil, heat, brute force - days of trying)... In the end I soaked the whole hitch in muriatic acid to dissolve any rust and used locking pliers (mole grips in the UK) to eventually rotate and remove the locking pin (this is the part that faces vehicle forward (-ve X for engineers in the vehicle coordinate system)). With the pin out and lots of cleaning I finally got it back together with lots of grease... I bought the new handle/ key set here:


Good luck!
 

Longtrail

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This helped (3 minute mark he talks about the pin):


And this one for overall:

 

LR4Slavo

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I went through the hitch issue also; I think it had been there since 2012 as it was completely and utterly stuck (and by stuck I mean seized stuck...). As mentioned there's a roll pin that can be removed to navigate around the lack of key, knock this out and the handle can be removed allowing access to the underlying shaft which can be pulled out (towards the passenger side (US)) and then turned anti-clockwise. In my case this shaft would not rotate and I had to lower the spare wheel and use a punch to hammer the locking pin. With the hitch out I tried literally everything to unseize the internal mechanism (penetrating oil, heat, brute force - days of trying)... In the end I soaked the whole hitch in muriatic acid to dissolve any rust and used locking pliers (mole grips in the UK) to eventually rotate and remove the locking pin (this is the part that faces vehicle forward (-ve X for engineers in the vehicle coordinate system)). With the pin out and lots of cleaning I finally got it back together with lots of grease... I bought the new handle/ key set here:


Good luck!
Awesome info, thanks @Longtrail! I also noticed that the locking cylinder is stamped with a number. I wonder if I can get a key based off that? If not I'm doing exactly what you described.
 

ftillier

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I couldn't get just the key for ours, had to get a new handle. It kind of makes sense, don't facilitate theft. You'd have to get a lot of handles to get a specific key.
 

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