Steal of a deal on an LR4 with issues

[AGLR4]

I just removed the flange bolts and lifted the heads and manifolds out as a unit. The O2 sensor plugs are a little hard to get to but much easier than trying to break loose those manifolds in that tight space.

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[LR4Slavo]

I just removed the flange bolts and lifted the heads and manifolds out as a unit. The O2 sensor plugs are a little hard to get to but much easier than trying to break loose those manifolds in that tight space.

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That's what I was thinking, thanks for the confirmation

 

[LR4Slavo]

Quick update, spent a few hours this weekend getting the heads off to inspect the damage. The biggest pain was the removing the rear crossover pipe and the drives side oxygen sensor. Luckily, all of the head bolts came out without any snapping. Here is a picture of the passenger bank, no obvious head gasket breaches but you can clearly see the center two cylinders have had coolant in the combustion chambers:

Where as the drivers side cylinder heads are as I would expect to see them:

Next step is to make sure there is no warping on the block mating surfaces, if this checks out then she’s going to be saved, I’ll be sending the heads to the machine shop this afternoon.

The passenger exhaust cam timing was off so I was expecting some contact between those valves and the cylinder heads and that was obvious on the last cylinder, the machine shop will assess the damage to see if anything is bent and requiring replacement.


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[LR4Slavo]

Picture of the valve contact on the cylinder head:

Another thing that I noticed was chunks of debris in the water sleeves:

Not sure what that is but maybe coagulated oil or part of the head gasket.. it may take some work to get that cleaned out, concern here is that this stuff might be clogging other water passages that are not visible.


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[Stuart Barnes]

Wow, you’re cracking on with this. That’s a bummer to hear about the contamination of the cooling water system. If you’re planning to use a coolant flushing chemical to clean everything out once you’re reassembled then have a good look at the fine print. Some are not rated for certain alloys.

There’s lots of commercial products for this. Cummins, caterpillar etc all make them, or rebrand someone else’s they’re very effective if used correctly.

Either way good luck and I take my hat off to you for even attempting this.

Stu.

 

[gsxr]

Unless there is significant oil in the cooling system, and/or corrosion, I'd avoid using cooling system "cleaners" entirely. Fill/drain a couple of times to flush with water before the final fill with 50/50 mix of OE/dealer antifreeze, which is not expensive, and it's not an item I'd opt to save five bucks on after this much work & expense.

 

[LR4Slavo]

Unless there is significant oil in the cooling system, and/or corrosion, I'd avoid using cooling system "cleaners" entirely. Fill/drain a couple of times to flush with water before the final fill with 50/50 mix of OE/dealer antifreeze, which is not expensive, and it's not an item I'd opt to save five bucks on after this much work & expense.

I’m on the same thought process here, thinking the less invasive approach is the way to go, ie getting the big chunks out by hand and flushing it out a number of times with water then moving onto a 50/50 mix as you mentioned and then once everything is back together and there are blockages, running solvent friendly to alloys.


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[Stuart Barnes]

I’m on the same thought process here, thinking the less invasive approach is the way to go, ie getting the big chunks out by hand and flushing it out a number of times with water then moving onto a 50/50 mix as you mentioned and then once everything is back together and there are blockages, running solvent friendly to alloys.


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Absolutely. It’s just an ‘if’ you go down this route and the experience I have had with these products and just wanted to share.
In all honesty the debris you see could have come from when you lifted the head and just landed in a cooling gallery.

Flush a few times and see what comes out. If it’s really bad then you can always escalate things

 

[AGLR4]

Now that the heads are off, consider threading all the head bolts back in fingertight. That is the point that I discovered one of my holes had bad threads. As I tried to thread that bolt in it was obvious that it was going against resistance. A close look also showed aluminum shards in the bolt threads. The rest all screwed down to the same depth without notable effort.

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[LR4Slavo]

Now that the heads are off, consider threading all the head bolts back in fingertight. That is the point that I discovered one of my holes had bad threads. As I tried to thread that bolt in it was obvious that it was going against resistance. A close look also showed aluminum shards in the bolt threads. The rest all screwed down to the same depth without notable effort.

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Great tip! I will try that


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