not leaking into combustion, coolant or oil.
Didnt pay much for Disco, so will replace. Will cost around 3800.
At that price you'd be better off selling or scrapping the truck for a little bit of cash and buy another D1/D2/LR3
... You can get a 4.6L GEMS out of a wrecked Rover for 1-1.6k
$3,800 to repair? Who quoted that? Local indie Rover shops around here charge $2,400. And that includes machining the heads. If you have $3,800 burning a hole in your pocket then by all means, spend the money for the repair. If you want to do it yourself for a fraction of the cost, read this:
http://discoweb.org/forums/showthread.php?t=67575
Good question. I know when I did it myself for $900 that included new hoses, plugs, complete valve job, Elring gaskets, injector seals, Elias' instructional DVD, pizza, beer, and whatever other stuff I did at the time that I don't recall. Parts were all sourced from Tillery and PT, so quality stuff.
While I realise that a lot of the aftermarket parts are the same as Genuine, they aren't always. A lot of aftermarket stuff is junk. He is having the work done at a shop that uses Genuine parts.
Sure, genuine parts cost more, but that much more? There are not that many pieces in a headgasket parts kit. The gaskets themselves (incl. valley pan and some others) might be more expensive but the rest are all small seals, stretch bolts, and a handful of parts you don't even use during the job. I think I paid about $230 for my overkill kit from Tillery. All genuine parts can't cost more than twice that. If I'm wrong, please show me a link to a vendor that sells an all-genuine kit that costs more than $400. I'd be curious to see what it includes.
From what I remember Genuine plug wires are over $300 from the dealership vs $50 for aftermarket. One Genuine head gasket from Rovers North is $70...