2011 5.0 head gaskets

M32H32IS said:

How’s this temporary fix working so far?

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so far, so good. no misfires. no hot coolant smell. runs and pulls great. it gets driven everyday around town.

we've even taken it out of town to the farm for the weekend. 2.5 hours each way. mix of freeway and county/country roads.

just did my first oil change on it since purchase. no coolant in the oil.

i've been putting off getting the new tires she needs since i wasn't sure what the engine was going to decide what to do, but may pull the trigger on that as we go into winter.

M32H32IS said:

I threw a reman engine in and got about 50k miles out of it. Now I’m having a junkyard 5.0 rebuilt by Euro Amp and I’ll toss it in there along with their metal cooling system parts.

If this fails I’m buying a D110 and turning the LR4 into a sight target at the ranch.

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50k mi is pretty short life for a reman. What happened?

powershift said:

50k mi is pretty short life for a reman. What happened?

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Haven’t cracked it open yet but I believe a head bolt has loosened. Based on what I’ve read and conversations I’ve had, they should’ve used heli coils BC the soft blocks are extremely prone to thread degradation after a reman or rebuild.

If I were a betting man that’s where I’d place my wager.

M32H32IS said:

Haven’t cracked it open yet but I believe a head bolt has loosened. Based on what I’ve read and conversations I’ve had, they should’ve used heli coils BC the soft blocks are extremely prone to thread degradation after a reman or rebuild.

If I were a betting man that’s where I’d place my wager.

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Sorry to hear that. That sounds like a defect or workmanship problem. Where did you get the engine from?

powershift said:

Sorry to hear that. That sounds like a defect or workmanship problem. Where did you get the engine from?

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Ronda - a local shop that focuses on JLR 5.0/3.0 and AMG remans

When you find yourself staring into the abyss...

Noticed a small amount of coolant loss from the reservoir over the last couple months. I'd say about 1/8th inch every few weeks. Had the entire coolant system replaced about 6 months back. Took it back to the LR Indy for some other work (radiator fan and PCV valves) a little over a month ago and they did a pressure test on the coolant system that came back without a problem. Talked to the folks in Seattle that do head gaskets and timing chains and then got a second opinion from Green Oval down in Portland, OR. The Seattle shop said the amount of fluid loss didn't seem like anything to worry about at this time, but that they could do both the head gaskets and timing chain for around $10k. Green Oval's guy said that he'd never seen a head gasket repair solve the problem on the 5.0L engine and that when they start losing coolant it usually means there is something deeper inside the engine going on. Basically, time to swap out the engine with a lightly used (30-40k mile Jag 5.0L) along with everything else that goes with it.

Right now, it drives fine and I really would like to keep it for as long as possible. It doesn't make any sense to do a timing chain and head gaskets on an engine that fundamentally isn't sound. I'll drive the current engine until it fails if I'm looking at replacing the engine anyway. I'm willing to do the right thing by the one that's in it now, but not if I just have to replace it.

I think if your head gasket is failing you should be able to detect that by testing the coolant for combustion byproducts. I got a tester to do this, but have yet to do it, because I too have slow coolant loss and recently refreshed cooling system (now several years old) but only 25k miles. I'd keep an eye on the level and keep topping it up - keep a log of how much you're losing over time, to get an idea of whether it's steady or accelerating.

@ftillier Good dogs and good rigs, they never last as long as we'd like.

I'm not going to worry about it too much right now. I don't see any signs of overheating and the performance is good. At 14 yrs and 140k miles, I expect all sorts of things are going to start failing. Right now, it's functioning as intended. Maybe I'll just enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.

coincidently, the misfire on cylinder three just came back on my engine. i'm going to have it looked at as soon as i can. but, looks like a new remanned engine is in my near future.

the K-Seal fix/bandaid lasted 7 months. not bad, i suppose.