A key reason my Defender 110 was parked up and eventually robbed of body panels was because the 10P-type Td5 engine was in bad condition. This high-mileage engine had multiple issues, not least of which was a cracked cylinder head, resulting in engine overheating.
There are two types of Td5 engine. This earlier 10P engine was fitted to Defender and Discovery models from 1998 to 2002, when it was superseded by the 15P which had lots of improvements and refinements. While the 15P is less prone to cylinder head problems, they can still arise. But at least the cylinder heads do not move in relation to the engine block, because the earlier plastic locating dowels were replaced with rigid steel dowels.
Availability of replacement Td5 engines remains pretty good due to the continuing number of Discovery 2 vehicles that are beyond economic repair because of body and chassis rot. So the replacement of a bad Td5 engine can still be less expensive than repair or rebuild of the original unit.
In the case of my Defender 110, the route to getting
