75 KV6 breather freezing?
 

Hello,

I have so far enjoyed around 200mi of trouble-free driving with my fixed transmission. However, as we are closing in winter, the car is going back to the shop to get a new thermostat equipped, as the car still has the original thermostat installed. My 45 had an iffy thermostat during last winter, and that was definitely not fun, so I thought not to redo my mistake in that regard.

However, I‘ve read from numerous forums, that the breather piping on the KV6 engine has a tendency to freeze and in worst case, cause a quite of a headache and an expensive repair bill. Is there a way to make this problem disappear? I have the mask cover for the car, but as it is the cars first winter this north, I am worried that it won‘t be enough.

Users in the Finnish Rover forum (Rover Friends Finland) have told this issue occurring, and so far no one has provided a permanent fix for this. Apparently there has been a shop in Finland that has equipped KV6s with a breather pipe heating. No concrete proof has shown me exactly how they accomplished this and I remain quite disbelieved about this solution ever existing. And when I asked about this solution on the forums, I just got replies from LandRover people giving me absolutely no good answers at all, ugh!

I also bumped across a thread that suggested fitting the engine with LR Freelander 2006 KV6 breather pipes, as part of the BD127EX service campaign. However, the BD127EX to me sounds more like a British ZIP code, than an actual part number. And google seems to think that too, as the code provides no concrete search results. Am I onto something here or am I completely wrong? Can the 75 even be a semi-reliable car during winter, or do I have to whip out the 45 again?

PS: I wouldn‘t ask about this, if the car wouldn‘t spit so much water out of the exhaust on every cold start. Last winter we had temperatures below -25 Celsius, so the water has a very high chance of freezing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hello Samu,

I would strongly advise you to rethink your plan. Does you gauge reach the mid position after about a mile of driving? Have you activated the instrument pack diagnostics to monitor the running temperature of your engine accurately? It should be in the low nineties. If it is and you have no coolant leaks in the 'V', leave well alone!
Although I admit that I don't live in Finland we do have freezing temperatures here in the UK and in seventeen years ownership of my KV6 I have never been aware of frozen breather pipes (only one breakage which is fairly common).

Simon

Not as extreme as the North of Finland but minus 20s are not that uncommon here. I think the greatest danger facing our cars in the winter is the cam caps blowing when the crankcase pressure is too high (blocked breathers). One winter I heard of three owners with flying cam caps and in two cases terminal loss of oil, common for all three were temperatures below minus 20.

I’ve cleaned out the gauze filters inside the cam covers and drilled out the smaller 1.5 mm breather outlets (they will be blocked), which I see as preventive maintenance. Check the breather pipes are not cracked, our local Rover garage drilled (expanded) the breather pipe to throttle housing fitting.

Seals instead of cam caps are suggested as they provide less room for expansion - I’ve heard of several cam caps blowing but never seals.

I worked on one V6 which had the cold air Shannon tube routed towards the exhaust to provide warmer air, reducing the risk of freezing inside the throttle housing. (Not unknown for the throttle to freeze & very exciting when this happens). Earlier SD1 cars had a similar arrangement for winter driving, guess Rover engineers never thought about earlier clever designs.

Good luck

A strip and lube of the throttle body is preferable to worrying about breather pipes, the throttle bodies can freeze stuck (open) in very cold weather.