Land Rover Repair: Overheating, upper radiator hose, head gasket

Question
QUESTION: My wife is on a trip to her parents currently about 300 miles north.  She called and said our 98 Disco overheated just as they were returning home.  Temp gage was pegged about 1/2 mile from the house.  Turned out the upper radiator hose cracked.  Father putting new hose on tomorrow and she is coming home.  What I am worried about is any possible damage that may have been caused during overheating or other hidden issues that may have caused it.  116k miles on it- I checked it over before she left didn't see anything but didn't inspect hoses with great detail.  Temp has been around 90-95 this week here.. Suggestions?

ANSWER: There is no way to know if you have done permanent damage to the motor other than to drive it and monitor what happens.

There is an article on overheating on my website, at www.robisonservice.com > service > rover > advice.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Well our Disco made the trip back home on a trailer.  Had thermostat change and new upper radiator hose.  After 10 min of driving they said temp guage went back up.  Brought it home on trailer.  Since then I have driven it twice about 10 min each time.  Temp reads normal to me.  Going to flush radiator tomorrow as precaution.  Any suggestions for flushing this or other things that could be an issue?  If it runs fine most of the time and only overheats once in a while can only think there is something floating around in there to block it occasionally.

Answer
There is a good chance you have an internal failure in the engine, a bad block or head gasket.  There is no such thing as "something floating around" to cause a problem.  That's just wishful thinking.

If you get on the gas and it overheats that's a sign of internal failure.

Best of luck with it

John Elder Robison

check my car blog at http://robisonservice.blogspot.com