Today I drove my 2002 l200 down to Kent for the day and back and occasionally the temperature gauge would rise into the three quarter mark but drop back to half. When I got back it's had filled the expansion bottle to the top and out of the rad. Is this normal and also someone told me to change the thermostat. Any recommendations

Hi Tony,

Could be a couple of things....

Not sure if 2002 has EGR. if so bypass this first.....
Try Rad cap too and clean out rad etc , to check you have no blockages

Unfortunately this could end up being the Head gasket....but it may not be.....

Are you getting any bubbles or oil in coolant? Mine used to climb a bit on up hill driving. Have pretty much replaced the whole cooling system and the head now. Probably didn't need a new head but I figured due to mileage it couldn't hurt!

Well when I brought it it had a new head and the head gaskets been done already. I haven't seen any bubbles so I don't think so. I've been told it has a egr Valve but I'm not sure about blanking it off though.

Get your coolant changed and rad flushed out....could be crud left in there from previous gasket change....

Ok thanks for your help il give that a try also would you recommend putting in a cooler running thermostat

All a cooler thermostat would do is make it warm up slower as far as I'm aware... ( I may be wrong though....)

you say it had a new head and gaskets before you got it ......... do you know if the cause of the previous head failure was addressed or have you just inherited the problem that the previous owner couldn't fix ?

Not 100% sure there needs to be an underlying issue , as we have heard of very low mileage trucks with headgasket issues....I distinctly remember billymadbiker saying he had one at pre inspection. ....

Think its more luck than anything.... ( or rather bad luck )

Where u from Tony? I would get rid of egt and cooler first if it were me

I think I'd be concentrating on the previous HG repair, was it a new head, or the original put back on, if so was it pressure tested and skimmed, if not I'd be starting with that.

I have a 2005 4life in my driveway that's had its oil changed every 5000 and coolant changed every 2 years and the head is away at 150,000, and it's simply not worth repairing.

There used to be a school of thought that you only hear about the bad ones and it was more or less confined to 2003 models, but I think that myth has been put to bed now and ebay is full of L200's from 1998 to 2006 with fried heads. My own personal opinion is that the old 4d56 cannot handle the commercial application, they don't fail as often in the shoguns, which I can only put down to the less aggressive gearing, and easier life.
I think the teller in this was the fact Mitsubishi completely redesigned the cylinder head in the new shape trucks, which have proven far more reliable.