Land Rover Repair: Overheating, coolant system, temp gauge

Question
I have a 2000 LR Disco, It has 63,000 miles and has been maintained well.  It started to overheat today (or the gauge told me so) only thing I noticed was when I cranked the car that the gauge went to the bottom (very bottom, and the light came on) and stayed for a second then went to cold(were it should have been) then I drove it a peice and it slowly came up and then it almost moved to hot, I pulled over.  I noticed that the heater wasnt blowing hot either, any ideas?

Answer
Hi Joey,

be careful not to drive the car too far with the temp gauge maxing out.  The cylinder sleeves can loose their welds and drop, thus ruining your engine.

It sounds like a bad plug somewhere.  Could be the rad, could be the heater matrix (source of heat for interior of Disco).  A local garage could pressure test both the rad and the coolant system to determine if a blockage is the cause.  Rad replacement can be done with a recore or even a rebuilt to save money.

You'll have to check if the thermostat is working properly.  Flushing the system would be my next step and use new coolant.

Best of luck,

JohnMc