Rain has stopped play on my driveway but here is a little progress report.

I started taking all the engine bay apart this morning, there were no real difficult parts as most has come off before.  During the dismantle various problems began to surface.

History:

Bought the car with oil cooler failure, which the owner thought was HG.  Repaired and got the car on the road.  However the owner had been running the car short distances with blown oil cooler so flushing it was a bi.....

Despite swapping all the pipes, hbv, thermostat (which was buggered anyway) and radiator I could not find the source of a leak I had.  It only leaked when it ran and even then when it was warm.  I used a coolant dye to help diagnose which gave me nothing.

So, imagine my suprise when I find this:





And I start thinking

"Feck, all this prep for a head swap and the leak is a f&^%$£& hose"

At least the dye has it's uses after all even though it's a little late.  So I think oh well and carry on with the job, I might as well finish it.  Besides you never know......

So, I got the drivers side head and suprisingly found this:





As far as I know that is not a common place to have a HG leak, however it could not have been significant as is was not showing further the block.  Or at least as far as I knew.

I got the head off and imagine my language when I saw this:













At least the block face looks unaffected, on this side at least:



No wonder she was running warm, several of the water jackets are blocked 

Well the sun has come out again, so I am back out 

Cheers AA 

The other side was pretty much the same, the HG disintergrated although there was a lot of gung at the back of the passenger side which could be a mix of oil from the rocker cover (old) and coolant although there is no way for me to tell.

Right time for some fluids before I clean the block and reassemble the new heads. 

Cheers razzo

Anyway I have one of the heads now back on but I have had to put the 2.5 exhaust manifolds on as after a call to daz I realised I should have got the 2.6 gaskets......bugger.  I need the car finished by Monday so I had no choice.  But the rebuild has begun.

Well yesterday was a mix of ups and downs.  Both heads are now back on and fully torqued up along with the cams.  Getting the SAI pipes back in n the passenger side was emotional to say the least!  Oh and the bonnet struts are failing so the car tried to eat me!  I now have a nice scar and bruise on my back to show for it 

Tonight it's a case of getting the cambelt on and the rest of the gubbins.  But it's nice looking at a nice clean top end 

As I am back at work I have only been doing little snippets of work on her since the weekend.  Now the cam covers are on, the cam and aux belts are on.  Next is to refit the inlet after cleaning the breathers (the breather box got a lot of attention) the trumpets and reconnect the exhaust.  I have this afternoon off so it should be running by the time Kate gets here 

Kevin rightly spotted that the pitting was in an area which does not press up against the block. So I just cleared all the corrosion and filled it with a chemical metal which resists high temperatures and sanded flat with some wet and dry

You're doing well

aaronjb wrote on 13. Jul 2011 at 11:19:


Cheeky get 

That's why I only do small stages each evening after work.  The crohns makes me quite tired but I fight through in good military style.  Problem is I can forget things as a result of the fatigue.  On a bad day I come home from work and go to bed