Gurgling and leaking

The new water pump cured the squeaking, but the work led to a new problem -  the coolant was gurgling in the heater matrix and gas was collecting in the thermostat housing, despite re-purging and refilling the system several times.  The fault causing the collection of gas was the blockage of the self-bleeding system, which comprises a pair of thin hoses from the thermostat housing and from the radiator top, joining in a plastic unit and then running into the outboard bottom connection of the header tank.  This piping allows gasses to circulate from the high spots of the engine and radiator and be purged to the header tank.  The hoses and plastic unit had bunged up when they dried out during the replacement of the radiator and water pump.  Replacement of this hose system poses a small problem – the part is no longer available for the RRC 300Tdi.  It is available for the Discovery, but the hoses have different lengths and won’t reach.  However, on the Discovery part, the hoses are fitted to the plastic unit with removable clips rather than the permanent crimps used on the RRC part.  By removing the clips and hoses form the new part and cutting the crimps on the RRC part, I was able to fit the RRC hoses (after cleaning them out with flexing and hot water) to the new plastic unit, using the new clips to secure the hoses.  Gurgling solved…

Of course, you know things are never that easy for me, and just a few days later one of the hoses to the heater matrix developed a leak.  It had been rubbing against the back of the head for some time and eventually wore through.  Both hoses and the steel pipe running along the left side of the head were replaced (that transpired to have rusty ends), so now the coolant is staying where it’s meant to.

Still too little trouble…

A couple of days later, there appeared to be another leak from the engine bay.  It was immediately apparent on opening the bonnet that this was a fuel leak from the injector spill rail.  The braided hoses between each injector perish and fail very quickly on these engines, so I have bought a one yard length of this hose to fit new sections whenever needed – the steel parts are fine and this is a much quicker, easier and cheaper way of fixing the problem.  It also means I can treat the same issue on my 109’s 200Tdi whenever it occurs there too.