The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

No visible signs on the gasket. It has hardly been on the car 5 mins so i am not sure it made enough of an impression on the gasket. I will have a better look though this week.

I didn't hone the bores. Do you think that is the reason for the oil ? Was that my big mistake ?

There are a few things to take care of here, and they are really to do with experience.
Some of the long studs are supposed to have oil round them, also make sure that the tapped holes in the block are cleaned out as the stud will force oil out and between the gasket and block etc.
The faces must be chemically clean and dry from oil etc as the gasket has its own sealant and no other sealant of any kind added.
I wipe the face with a cloth soaked in thinners and if the cloth shows any discolouration I keep cleaning

58 lb ft for head studs/bolts not 55.

If the bores were not honed, there is a chance that they are too smooth to allow the new rings to bed in properly. Engines with this problem tend to use a little oil, but not enough to be seen as constantly blowing smoke. An engine shop should be able to check the bore for you, and a friendly one may be able to de-glaze it in-situ if it is absolutely necessary. If it wasn't blowing smoke, then it can't be too bad.

Thanks for the continued advice.

Martin - Where do you get 58lb from ? My Sprint repair manual states 55lb.

Trackerjack - I was not sure how much oil should find it's way around the studs but i do always run the studs in and out to remove excess oil before fitting using a rag to get the last of it out. I wipe the face clean but certainly don't use chemicals and was not aware it would make that much difference, but that's a tip i will now follow.

Do you think i should pull the block apart again due to the oil that seems to have found it's way on to the pistons, it's black oil so not the fresh oil that would come from any finding it's way from removing the head. You can see in the picture where i have wiped it off one of the pistons with a rag. I could use a honing tool or do you think this may bed in if i am not suffering from smoke . Can't be doing it much good though and don't want to crate more problems at a later date.

Martin - Where do you get 58lb from ? My Sprint repair manual states 55lb.

It does indeed.

This is a tip passed down through generations of Sprint gurus. OK, some people torque them to 60 or more but 55 is considered a bit on the light side.

It might be easiest to have an expert inspect the bores...he can probably tell you if the rings will bed in or not. There are lots on write-ups on the net on this subject - simply Googling "Piston ring Break In" or "Cylinder Deglazing" will return plenty of information.

Looks like the best option is to pull it all out again and strip and hone the block. Get a replacement head, clean it well , use a good quality gasket with up to 60lb torque and do some serious praying once it is all back together and i start it up !

All the head machine work done now and bores honed on the replacement block. Torque to 58lb and same gasket supplier Martin uses.

Ran it to temperature this afternoon and when it got to about 85 deg ( i was running with the cap off ) it dumped a load of coolant out of the expansion tank.

Where do i go from here ?

You say you ran it without the cap off....how do you know it was at 85 degrees.
How did it dump a load of coolant? just a bit surge with no boiling???


Put the cap on as it should be and run it up normally. See if it gets hot. If not, see if it drops any more coolant.

If not then it's fine.

I have an aftermarket temp gauge.

Now it's been to operating temperature i will take the top off tomorrow and re-torgue and try again.

Fingers crossed..

Noooo, don't run it to temp without the cap! The pressure cap raises the boiling point of the water, without that it is free to boil at the hot spots inside the engine.

keep going and don't give up !

The only advice I can give is that my engine went through crapton loads of oil before settling in. I suspect the valve seals are the culprit as a motorbike friend pointed out the classic symptoms. Lots of oil seeps down into the cylinders while the vehicle is left and on starting with lots of choke, it pushes this oil out of the exhaust and makes a mess of the shed floor. Once the engine is running, a little bit of smoke was left and this has slowly abated after almost 2000km. I went through 6 litres of oil.

When the expansion cap lets go, it releases a lot of pressure and water gushes out everywhere, even when the engine is running at the correct temperature. My slightly loose expansion cap worked its way off just after I arrived home and sprayed green water all over the shed floor. The cap must be on securely with a good rubber gasket under its foot. Moral of the story, don't take the cap off when the engine is warm. As the other guys have said, that extra pressure is vital to stop the water boiling

Looking at the pics of the oil and water in the cylinders, it doesn't seem like you had significant failure of anything. The oil and water just looked like they had run in there while the head was being removed, there is no emulsion, the quantities are small and you can almost see where the oil has run in.

Good luck anyway. I panicked about my engine and thought about stripping the head again, but letting the thing run for a while seems to have sorted out most of the issues.

stu

Thanks for the tips and moral support guys. I have re-filled and re-torqued today and used 2 different torque wrenches to get to 50 and then 58. I now have my doubts how accurate my wrench is so a mate will re-calibrate it this week or get me a spare. I want to know i am hitting the right number. If i have gone a bit too far i will just back them off atouch and re-torque again one by one but hopefully they are close to being 58 now.

It's probably better not to retorque them to a lower figure as the head gasket - most significantly the fire rings - will by then have been compressed by more than it would have been at the lower figure so I would suggest that you leave it at the highest figure, retorquing to the same at each major service.