Sprint headgasket - Now VXG project thread (pic heavy)
Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 4:59 pm
Well, we all remember that fateful thread, don't we - "Have you had a blown Head Gasket?"
Of course, I had to utter the immortal:
After my failed experiment in products that didn't quite deliver (well aware of the pros and cons before people jump in, by the way - I was just intrigued by the idea and wanted to do my own test - thoroughly flushed out now):
I had to succumb and do the 'right' thing - change the headgasket! No amount of re-torquing the cylinder head, flushing the cooling system, bleeding, kicking and swearing would stop it dumping coolant everywhere and generally acting like a rather fine kettle.
So.....a gasket set was procured and I firstly prepared the car by letting it sit for a week whilst I waited for the rain to ease. Welcome to England!
Anyway, it eventually held out a little so stage one - Deploy the tools:
Observe the target:
Study for weaknesses:
......and GO!
Started with easy bits like pulling all the plugs, leads, hoses and accessible parts to just make everything easier to get at and work on.
Off come the K&Ns:
...and the intake manifold:
Quality finish to the ports, eh? Nicely matched
No wonder the factory blueprint engines made 135-150BHP and the final 'stock' figure was 127BHP.
With all the ancilleries stripped, fuelling system out of the way and miscellanous hoses cleared up, that was the end of day one.
At this point, everything is rather simple. It's just a case of taking your time, working on anything that's suffered the tests of time to ease it out gently rather than shearing it off and storing/labelling the odds and sods so it doesn't turn into a guessing game come reassembly.
Next day, time to hit the three wheeled motion:
This allowed me to drain the coolant properly from the block to facilitate the fitting of the new gasket - too much risk of any contaminating the mating surfaces if left untended and also I didn't want any coolant in it come first fireup.
I also immediately found out what was causing the odd rattling that had been bugging me a few days before taking it off the road:
The crank pulley nut was finger loose when it should be up to 120ft.lb........Someone's been here before methinks...
Time to ditch the studs and nuts:
By using two spanners and a nut you can wind the studs out of the head without messing around and minimal fuss.
This is a neat touch in the Sprint engine - you can hang up the timing chain pulley (which unbolts from the cam) to a purpose-made fitting point, to allow you to remove the head without messing the chain or timing about, also removing the need to readjust or refit a tensioner.
So the head comes off.
Underneath I found the issue straight away and to boot there was a recent gasket fitted, raising my suspicions as to what might have happened.
The surface of the head looked to have seen much better days, although I couldn't see any obvious blows, with the 3rd & 4th cylinder chamber having blasted white plugs, it was clear there was a problem.
I started to pull apart the valvetrain, labelled it all and stored it.
At this point, to restore the Himalaya-like landscape of the cylinder head, I took it to Headline in Milton Keynes, for a skim and pressure test. This would make sure that the head was not only flat and level but also leak and crack free.
They're a great bunch there and very friendly - he showed me the level check of the head, demonstrated how to observe the high and low points and where the blows were occuring. Loads of great tips!
After this, I concluded what I initially thought - someone has, at some point, let it boil over but kept at it and got it really, really hot but not attended to the problem. Once it got to the point where it could no longer maintain temperature at all, or run, they stuck a new gasket on it assuming that'd fix the problem.
Unfortunately, the gasket couldn't handle the level of damage to the surface of the head and failed within a very small timeframe. The fire rings were undamaged, to give an idea of how bad it was! Just blowing clean past (water into the combustion chamber, no oil contamination).
A few days later and I had it back:
Much improved.
Then it was just a case of flatting back all the surfaces, reassembling the valvetrain, torquing everything up and making sure the cam rotated freely.
Shims and buckets back on:
Rocker gear, cam and plug tubes reinserted:
Exhaust manifold mating surfaces cleaned up and flatted back - no gasket on the Sprint.
More conferring:
....and with a bit of help from my friend Mr. Torque:
Voila!
Would look great as a V8...
After all that, reassembly really was just a case of bolting it all back up, ensuring all mating surfaces were clean and everything was assembled to the correct torque.
Getting there:
I recovered my battery from the Toledostag as that's been it's source of power whilst this has been off the road. Unfortunately, it was flat as a doornail - it's been abused a bit and despite being charged frequently, doesn't seem to like being off the car.
It had barely any power to crank the motor over, even with the plugs out. After spinning it over a few times until a good 50PSI was showing, it could barely maintain 50RPMs. I politely told it that I make the rules and on the final crank it caught on full choke and thundered into an erratic, yet running, idle.
After a few seconds and burning off all the oil in the chambers, it settled into a smooth 1000RPM burble.
Very smokey, due to oil on the manifold and a missing exhaust downpipe bolt (past its best, the bolt) - but running!
I let it run up till it was warm to the touch then shut it off - this is still sans coolant - and allows the gasket to 'cook off', seating properly and allowing the adhesives to work. It also gets a bit of heat into the cylinder head studs and bolts, so they expand and everything settles.
I was then away for a few days, doing something involving silly hats and bits of paper, so, after an early rise, I set about finalising the work. It's a little cold out today - 3 degrees if that and a bit of windchill but no matter, I have my Santa Pod cap to protect me!
First port of call was to retorque the head studs, nuts and bolts:
I was really suprised by how much they'd slackened off by - I guess the combination of the gasket compressing, heat expansion, the studs, bolts and nuts all settling adds up a fair bit. They all needed a good half a turn if not more to clamp them up.
With that done, I could renew the oil filter (having previously drained the old sludge) and refill. My Sprint has the spin-on conversion that uses Fiesta filters so none of this faffing about with spring-loaded paper cartridges:
A familiar container makes an appearance:
Then I pulled off my broken thermostat housing and took a moment to inspect and clean everything internally, as well as checking the already-new thermostat:
With that done, I could refit all the hoses and refill with the correct antifreeze and coolant mix. Yay!
Remarkably, with the Sprint holding 5.4 litres of coolant, all 5.4 seemed to go in without any issue - I kept the hoses low to fill them and the heater on hot. Hopefully there won't be too many airlock issues.
And done:
So after this, I decided it was time to be brave again. I knew the battery was still dead as a doornail (it was when I last used it and now it's been sat for 5 days) so I jammed the choke on full (haven't refitted that yet!), popped the dashpots up and down a few times with the fuel pump on to get some fresh fuel in and pumped the throttle a few times.
The battery really wasn't having much of it though - again, it barely had enough strength to get the engine going 1 rotation, let alone 2. Grind, grind, grind - sigh. I let it sit for a moment and dumped some more fuel down it.
Flicked the key and the engine turned about half a rotation, if that, groaning laboriously - then caught! It ran up to a 1500RPM idle and banged along, not pulling on all cylinders at all but running.
I let it 'idle' for about a minute, then switched it off. A quick post-flight showed no real leaks to speak of (barring one from the expansion tank hose, which is now renewed) from either the oil or cooling systems.
A quick check showed that one of the plug leads (silly deep-head plug tubes!) wasn't seating properly so I yanked it out and jammed it in, resulting in an audible click - that'll be the miss, cured, then!
Flicked it over again and it burst into life straight away this time:
This time I let it run for about 3 minutes, enough to get the thermostat open and get some heat into the pipes and radiator. All hoses seemed warm so water was clearly going around and everything was operating. Turning it off, I removed the bung in the thermostat housing and topped it up as per the manual - although it only needed a little.
At this point, I checked the dipstick and there was no water in the oil and vica versa, so off to a good start. After a while I ditched the choke and the engine idled really nicely at 850, with a quick fiddle on the idle screws. I'd forgotten how quick it could rev up and as before it sounded great with that big ol' hefty draw through it's SUs.
So, tomorrow morning, it's first rite of passage. I'll retorque again (just to be safe), do some last minor checks and fitting.......then take it on it's first run up the road - get the brakes, suspension and steering all freed up and some warmth through it.
Time to get it hot and see what happens, really - Only problem is that I want to keep it now. So much potential and it's such a little trooper, it always runs when it shouldn't! Hmmm!
Of course, I had to utter the immortal:
Any guesses what happened about a week later?Lewis wrote:No, never, on 7 of them!
In fact, I'll just fire up the Sprint now...<poof>
DAMMIT.
<touch wood>
After my failed experiment in products that didn't quite deliver (well aware of the pros and cons before people jump in, by the way - I was just intrigued by the idea and wanted to do my own test - thoroughly flushed out now):
I had to succumb and do the 'right' thing - change the headgasket! No amount of re-torquing the cylinder head, flushing the cooling system, bleeding, kicking and swearing would stop it dumping coolant everywhere and generally acting like a rather fine kettle.
So.....a gasket set was procured and I firstly prepared the car by letting it sit for a week whilst I waited for the rain to ease. Welcome to England!
Anyway, it eventually held out a little so stage one - Deploy the tools:
Observe the target:
Study for weaknesses:
......and GO!
Started with easy bits like pulling all the plugs, leads, hoses and accessible parts to just make everything easier to get at and work on.
Off come the K&Ns:
...and the intake manifold:
Quality finish to the ports, eh? Nicely matched
No wonder the factory blueprint engines made 135-150BHP and the final 'stock' figure was 127BHP. With all the ancilleries stripped, fuelling system out of the way and miscellanous hoses cleared up, that was the end of day one.
At this point, everything is rather simple. It's just a case of taking your time, working on anything that's suffered the tests of time to ease it out gently rather than shearing it off and storing/labelling the odds and sods so it doesn't turn into a guessing game come reassembly.
Next day, time to hit the three wheeled motion:
This allowed me to drain the coolant properly from the block to facilitate the fitting of the new gasket - too much risk of any contaminating the mating surfaces if left untended and also I didn't want any coolant in it come first fireup.
I also immediately found out what was causing the odd rattling that had been bugging me a few days before taking it off the road:
The crank pulley nut was finger loose when it should be up to 120ft.lb........Someone's been here before methinks...
Time to ditch the studs and nuts:
By using two spanners and a nut you can wind the studs out of the head without messing around and minimal fuss.
This is a neat touch in the Sprint engine - you can hang up the timing chain pulley (which unbolts from the cam) to a purpose-made fitting point, to allow you to remove the head without messing the chain or timing about, also removing the need to readjust or refit a tensioner.
So the head comes off.
Underneath I found the issue straight away and to boot there was a recent gasket fitted, raising my suspicions as to what might have happened.
The surface of the head looked to have seen much better days, although I couldn't see any obvious blows, with the 3rd & 4th cylinder chamber having blasted white plugs, it was clear there was a problem.
I started to pull apart the valvetrain, labelled it all and stored it.
At this point, to restore the Himalaya-like landscape of the cylinder head, I took it to Headline in Milton Keynes, for a skim and pressure test. This would make sure that the head was not only flat and level but also leak and crack free.
They're a great bunch there and very friendly - he showed me the level check of the head, demonstrated how to observe the high and low points and where the blows were occuring. Loads of great tips!
After this, I concluded what I initially thought - someone has, at some point, let it boil over but kept at it and got it really, really hot but not attended to the problem. Once it got to the point where it could no longer maintain temperature at all, or run, they stuck a new gasket on it assuming that'd fix the problem.
Unfortunately, the gasket couldn't handle the level of damage to the surface of the head and failed within a very small timeframe. The fire rings were undamaged, to give an idea of how bad it was! Just blowing clean past (water into the combustion chamber, no oil contamination).
A few days later and I had it back:
Much improved.
Then it was just a case of flatting back all the surfaces, reassembling the valvetrain, torquing everything up and making sure the cam rotated freely.
Shims and buckets back on:
Rocker gear, cam and plug tubes reinserted:
Exhaust manifold mating surfaces cleaned up and flatted back - no gasket on the Sprint.
More conferring:
....and with a bit of help from my friend Mr. Torque:
Voila!
Would look great as a V8...
After all that, reassembly really was just a case of bolting it all back up, ensuring all mating surfaces were clean and everything was assembled to the correct torque.
Getting there:
I recovered my battery from the Toledostag as that's been it's source of power whilst this has been off the road. Unfortunately, it was flat as a doornail - it's been abused a bit and despite being charged frequently, doesn't seem to like being off the car.
It had barely any power to crank the motor over, even with the plugs out. After spinning it over a few times until a good 50PSI was showing, it could barely maintain 50RPMs. I politely told it that I make the rules and on the final crank it caught on full choke and thundered into an erratic, yet running, idle.
After a few seconds and burning off all the oil in the chambers, it settled into a smooth 1000RPM burble.
Very smokey, due to oil on the manifold and a missing exhaust downpipe bolt (past its best, the bolt) - but running!
I let it run up till it was warm to the touch then shut it off - this is still sans coolant - and allows the gasket to 'cook off', seating properly and allowing the adhesives to work. It also gets a bit of heat into the cylinder head studs and bolts, so they expand and everything settles.
I was then away for a few days, doing something involving silly hats and bits of paper, so, after an early rise, I set about finalising the work. It's a little cold out today - 3 degrees if that and a bit of windchill but no matter, I have my Santa Pod cap to protect me!
First port of call was to retorque the head studs, nuts and bolts:
I was really suprised by how much they'd slackened off by - I guess the combination of the gasket compressing, heat expansion, the studs, bolts and nuts all settling adds up a fair bit. They all needed a good half a turn if not more to clamp them up.
With that done, I could renew the oil filter (having previously drained the old sludge) and refill. My Sprint has the spin-on conversion that uses Fiesta filters so none of this faffing about with spring-loaded paper cartridges:
A familiar container makes an appearance:
Then I pulled off my broken thermostat housing and took a moment to inspect and clean everything internally, as well as checking the already-new thermostat:
With that done, I could refit all the hoses and refill with the correct antifreeze and coolant mix. Yay!
Remarkably, with the Sprint holding 5.4 litres of coolant, all 5.4 seemed to go in without any issue - I kept the hoses low to fill them and the heater on hot. Hopefully there won't be too many airlock issues.
And done:
So after this, I decided it was time to be brave again. I knew the battery was still dead as a doornail (it was when I last used it and now it's been sat for 5 days) so I jammed the choke on full (haven't refitted that yet!), popped the dashpots up and down a few times with the fuel pump on to get some fresh fuel in and pumped the throttle a few times.
The battery really wasn't having much of it though - again, it barely had enough strength to get the engine going 1 rotation, let alone 2. Grind, grind, grind - sigh. I let it sit for a moment and dumped some more fuel down it.
Flicked the key and the engine turned about half a rotation, if that, groaning laboriously - then caught! It ran up to a 1500RPM idle and banged along, not pulling on all cylinders at all but running.
I let it 'idle' for about a minute, then switched it off. A quick post-flight showed no real leaks to speak of (barring one from the expansion tank hose, which is now renewed) from either the oil or cooling systems.
A quick check showed that one of the plug leads (silly deep-head plug tubes!) wasn't seating properly so I yanked it out and jammed it in, resulting in an audible click - that'll be the miss, cured, then!
Flicked it over again and it burst into life straight away this time:
This time I let it run for about 3 minutes, enough to get the thermostat open and get some heat into the pipes and radiator. All hoses seemed warm so water was clearly going around and everything was operating. Turning it off, I removed the bung in the thermostat housing and topped it up as per the manual - although it only needed a little.
At this point, I checked the dipstick and there was no water in the oil and vica versa, so off to a good start. After a while I ditched the choke and the engine idled really nicely at 850, with a quick fiddle on the idle screws. I'd forgotten how quick it could rev up and as before it sounded great with that big ol' hefty draw through it's SUs.
So, tomorrow morning, it's first rite of passage. I'll retorque again (just to be safe), do some last minor checks and fitting.......then take it on it's first run up the road - get the brakes, suspension and steering all freed up and some warmth through it.
Time to get it hot and see what happens, really - Only problem is that I want to keep it now. So much potential and it's such a little trooper, it always runs when it shouldn't! Hmmm!
) and it runs real sweet at the moment. Ran it up for about an hour in total today, partly to get some charge in the battery and secondly to get it nice and hot, get the oil up to temperature and so on. Heater works great too!
