You wanna see what I've just taken out of one I'm swapping engines on, it ate the piston down to the rings and slipped the liner 10mm down the bore
Guess the owner might just have noticed something wrong with the motor then Chris? With the blue one it was just by chance I checked the oil.
Thought you said it was running smooth? On that video you can hear the offended cylinder popping only sometimes. So much for Bosch misfire detection......
Mine was running on 7 and blowing into the Vee when I bought it (as well as having a burst rear air spring) so I pulled the head off. I was curious as it was pretty obvious the heat shields had never been off the manifold and I found out why. Someone had removed the heads not long before but they had taken them off and put them on with the manifolds and heat shields still in place. As you can't get a socket on the bolt head unless it is right by the head, they'd held the head away from the block with a screwdriver and nicked the head right where the fire ring went on one of the middle cylinders. 8 thou off the head removed the nick and I put it all back together. 80 miles later it dropped to 7 and made the same noise but a compression test showed a lack of compression on one of the middle cylinders on the other head. Took that one off to find an identical nick in the head in exactly the same place......
It doesn't sound that bad in real life! Definitely worse with the filler cap off though.
So- the plan...
Today repeat all the diagnostics stuff I can on the blue one, move it out of the workshop. That'll have to go on the back burner as due to the nature of the problem, I'm not convinced its head gasket. Need a daily driver so...
Black one in. Strip the inlet manifolds off and play spot the blow. Probably do a comp test or at least pressurise the cylinders. If blow confirmed, get new heads and ARP's ordered. Strip off heads and prep for new ones. Wait patiently for heads to arrive. Fit.
You'll probably find that if you look very carefully you'll be able to see where the gap in the gasket is. I found a pretty big clue to the problem when I took the inlet manifold off when I was doing mine. That definitely shouldn't be there.......
Be nice if mine gives itself up like that. Still, 120 psi of shop air should wheeze through the hole quite nicely.
At least I'll have some company for the next couple of weeks in my "office". Way things are at the moment, it's probably vultures too lazy to circle overhead.
Orangebean wrote:
Way things are at the moment, it's probably vultures too lazy to circle overhead.
I must admit, I thought my SE was cursed with the number of faults I found with it but you seem to have bought the lemon of all lemons there. At least my SE would manage a couple of hundred miles before something else failed rather than finding everything all at once.
I think that's why the P.O. gave up with it. After the owner before him who did 200k plus miles and lavished tens of thousands of pounds on mantaining and improving it, it's been standing around pretty much for the last 3 years.
It's had the Turner top-hat short engine in it for 80k. Heads are likely original, so 80k for a HG on stretch bolts is about par for the course.
V8 Devs can't get the heads built until middle of next week, but Ray's dropping the castings off to the machine shop today so they can make a start on them. I did say I couldn't confirm the order until this evening, but he (nice bloke!) said they walk off the shelves anyway so he's happy to get a set knocked up.
EDIT- I did drop yours and Marty's names as satisfied customers. Not sure if that'll speed things up or slow them down!
Interesting...
Done another set of diagnostics on blue one. Sniff test (petrol and LPG)- zero combustion products in coolant. Compression test- all good. Can't do leak-down as broke gauge (!). Plugs- all similar colour, no steam cleaning effect. Oil flush, fresh oil and filter change. 10 mile run- no sign of coolant loss or oil contamination/ level increase. No overheating. No steam from exhaust.
If the blue one has been sitting around for awhile over the winter, then could it have been a load of condensation inside the engine which has mixed up with everything and created your look of more serious problems?
That's one of the avenues I'm thinking along Marty. Many short trips and a bit of sitting around. I've never seen oil that bad from condensation on any of the cars/ bikes I've ever worked on though.
What's also strange is that there's no settling out in the sample pot I drained. It's still a beige emulsion as per the pic on the previous page.
Coincidence that coolant level dropped as well? I don't usually believe in that kind of coincidence.
Ah well, as the black one's now just about to be wheeled into the workshop where the blue one stood after I've had a tidy and sweep up, the blue one's going to be pressed back into service with daily health checks on the oil/ water.
There are lots of places you could be losing coolant from. Now the one I can't figure out is, how come I've got a huge puddle of leaking coolant under the vapouriser, but the tank hardly drops at all?
Now, before I even lift the intake gasket, shall we play "guess where the head gasket is blowing"?
Nah- too easy....
At a rough guess, I'd go for number 5......
I think you're close :)
Here it is. If you zoom in you can see it...
You can also see where carbon is starting to build up on the pushrod. When I pulled mine apart it had been run for so long with the blow that there was a big lump of carbon on the pushrod. Mine had gone on the other bank so you can't see the pushrod in my pic but the bit of gasket had been blasted across to the opposite side.
Had enough for one day. Doing battle with the exhaust tins and got to the point where the disc cutter was going to come out. Thought it best to walk away!
I'm just hoping the block face isn't damaged. Really don't want to have to pull the engine, dismantle it and have the block faced.
It shouldn't be, not with top hats in there. Even if it is, it isn't important as the fire ring bears against the top of the liner.
(this is where he pulls the head to find the invoice from Turner was for a different car and there aren't any top hat liners in there.......)
Gilbertd wrote:
(this is where he pulls the head to find the invoice from Turner was for a different car and there aren't any top hat liners in there.......)
Turner documentation that came with the engine has the engine number in it so I'm not going to stress about that- yet :)