Defender 200tdi head gasket?

[dannyspeighty]

My defender 200tdi has been burning about 5 litres of oil a week for months now and i had put it down to the piston rings. Now it has started overheating and there are signs of oil in the water. there is no sign of water in the oil (creamy oil)

Could this be the head gasket or anything else? Can the head gasket go without creating the creamy oil?

if it is the head what parts do i need to replace? on the bulkhead sign of the rocker cover there is a bit of mental sticking up with three holes in. Does this denote the gasket size.

thanks

[western]

could be a internally cracked head, get the engine pressure tested tp confirm, the head gasket should be replaced with one of the same thickness, as you've found the tab with 3 holes in it, that denotes the gasket thickness -- there's a table in the tech archive giving sizes.

[dannyspeighty]

could be a internally cracked head, get the engine pressure tested tp confirm, the head gasket should be replaced with one of the same thickness, as you've found the tab with 3 holes in it, that denotes the gasket thickness -- there's a table in the tech archive giving sizes.

Thanks western, I have been through and flushed all the coolant pipes out and notices that it almost seems to be chuffing smoke through the coolant system. There are no other blockages that i can find so it must be something internal. Do you think that a craked head/faulty head gasket could cause me to be burning so much oil as well?

[western]

mine was using water but no oil contamination, so yours could well be a similar fault, a pressure test should confirm, any good garage should be able to do this.

[Orange]

The thickness of the head gasket is shown by the number of holes in a tab on the fuel pump side of the head. The holes are actually in the head gasket itself and are located somewhere around the lift pump. They might be quite hard to spot if your engine is oily and dirty like mine was...

My engine was 'chuffing' through the oil filler cap and dipstick tube (over pressurising the crank) and I put it down to knackered piston rings after dismantling everything else. It wasn't using (burning) oil in the same sense as yours, so I would not suspect the rings in your case (unless it's chuffing out of the oil filler and dipstick). Mine disposed of about 4 litres of oil between Devon and Kent!!

Ralph's idea of a pressure test is probably the fastest way to diagnose the problem...

[mrFrog]

A compression test, dry and wet will tell you about the state of the rings and valve seating, it may also show headgasket weaknesses where two adjoining cylinders show low cylinder pressures.

A leakdown test (Leakdown test) will give you more information but is more complex to perform and requires special adapters as well as an air compressor.

You can also get fluid which you drop into the coolant which will change color if exhaust smoke is mixing into the coolant.

Hope this helps.

[Les Henson]

I tried to edit your link so it would work MrFrog. No go for some reason.

Les.

[Retroanaconda]

http://www.se7ens.net/faq/7faq.htm#LeakdownTest

[mrFrog]

I tried to edit your link so it would work MrFrog. No go for some reason.

Dunno why it was all over the place, probably pasted it in twice !!! (I've fixed it now)

Retroanaconda

Thanks, that's the linky linky

[dannyspeighty]

right, the sun shone for a few hours yesteday so i got giddy and striped the head off.

i have noticed that the second cyilinder (from the front to the back) is full of oil and maybe a bit of water. The head gasket has two breaks in it. one going towards the back of the block and to a hole on the right hand side and the other going towards the front of the block again on the right hand side. into another hole. (i guess these holes are water/oil ways)

The other three cyilinders are dry as a bone and seem ok.

so my question is now i have got this far using a very helpful article in the technical section of this site. Is what i have put above what people would expect to have seen?. could this be the cause of me burning so much oil or could it still be the piston rings? and how do i go about cleaning the head\what do most people use?

thanks for any advice i am a novice at this so as much detail as i can get is appeaciated.

[Aragorn]

not sure if this will work on a TDI

but an engineer once told me to fill the bores with derv and watch them

if the rings are in good nick the derv should stay there, or only drop a little bit, if one particular pot is knackered that will drain much quicker than the others, and if they're all done, it'll tiddle right thru

[dannyspeighty]

not sure if this will work on a TDI

but an engineer once told me to fill the bores with derv and watch them

if the rings are in good nick the derv should stay there, or only drop a little bit, if one particular pot is knackered that will drain much quicker than the others, and if they're all done, it'll tiddle right thru

Not a bad plan, anyone got any experience of doing this or if it will work?

[Les Henson]

When you remove a cylinder head it's quite normal for residual water to end-up in the bores. Oil from inside the rocker area of the head will also run down the head bolt holes when you remove them and end-up in the same place. Go by the colour of the piston crowns - if they are all the same, then you are unlikely to have a problem other than a blown head gasket. If you were burning water, then the piston crown will be steam cleaned. If you were burning oil, then the crown would be heavily sooted in comparison to the others - as would the relevant exhaust port in the head. Checking for a step in the top of the bore - as in this picture will tell you how worn the engine is.

If the piston crowns are all the same colour, I would clean the deck and bores, clean the face of the head and check it for distortion, then put it all back together.

The notches that Orange refers to are actually punch holes. Replace like for like.

Les.