galwayguy

My 1.8 had a head gasket change 3 months ago - MLS, new rail etc. It has been running well since but now I have a strange problem. Starting from cold the engine overheats within 10 minutes & the coolant bottle fills. If I release the cap the level drops to normal & the engine will run a little over temperature with the fan constantly on. The bottom hose stays stone cold. The Landrover manuals diagnose this as a thermostat fault so I checked the new type in line stat & it was operating. Because the problem continued I removed the internals of the stat so it is, in effect, permanently open. The engine will idle all day with the cap off & the bottom hose will eventually warm up. I have removed & physically checked the water pump & the engine was correctly bled including the jiggle valve. There are no signs of HGF, no coolant loss, no mayo etc & there are no signs of exhaust gas leaking into the coolant. If I clamp the hose between the stat & the top radiator hose then the bottom hose heats up. Any ideas please ?

So after a head rebuild my Freelander started first turn & all seemed fine. But after a while I heard a terrifying sound & turned her off. The timing belt has tracked to the rear of the sprockets. It seems fine except for the section of belt between the crankshaft & the front (exhaust side) crankshaft sprocket is touching the rear cover - hence the noise. So is my belt tracking too far back or is the cover sitting too far forward ? I can't see any obvious way to adjust belt tracking & the rear cover bolts are tight but there still seems to be a lot of flexing. Any ideas please.

Thanks everyone. All clean & back together but with another problem & another thread !

Following the brilliant advice here - thanks to all involved - I need to remove the residue left by the old head gasket. It was one of the new MLS type & it has left a grey residue, presumable the stuff that bonds the shim to the head. It's hard to remove & I obviously don't want to scratch the alloy.

I have a coolant leak that produces a fine spray onto the back of the alternator on my 1.8. It seems too high to be HG & appear to be close to the exhaust manifold. Is there anything else, apart from a cracked head, that could be leaking in that area ?

I had the same thing with my older Freelander. There are two adjusters on the rear of the hood above the rear window. Each has 4 click positions that move the top of the hood out. There are also two bolts in the tailgate that adjust the angle of the rear screen. Also the two rear sockets that, both the hood & hardtop lock into are height adjustable. It took quite a while to get mine to fit & I still have to apply a little pressure to the top of the window, when I close the tailgate to ensure that the window rises behind the outer seals of the hood.