Blown headgasket??

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Just had head back, no cracks but it was distorted by 8 thou which is 0.2mm So the gasket I need is a 1.6mm which is no holes. Not sure if I will get them locally, will have a quick phone round in the morning and if no good will order with hopefully next day delivery which could see me back up and running by thurs/friday.
 
revjames said:
Just had head back, no cracks but it was distorted by 8 thou which is 0.2mm So the gasket I need is a 1.6mm which is no holes. Not sure if I will get them locally, will have a quick phone round in the morning and if no good will order with hopefully next day delivery which could see me back up and running by thurs/friday.
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to your knowledge did it actually over heat excessively? - you can usually get away with just doing the gasket if they havent
 
yes it did. The P gasket went and i ended up on the side of the A55 with clouds of steam. I put more water in and it got hot again. Then the air locks and continual heating up more recently. So yes it has been very hot. I think I got off lightly. £30 for a pressure check £5 for a clean and degrease and £35 for the machining. Plus gaskets, oil, antifreezer etc the whole escapade will have cost less than £250 and that includes new rad, waterpump, P gasket and thermostat.
 
revjames said:
It better be! Nothing left under the bonnet to change now! might even change the head bolts while I'm at it - dont want to leave anything to chance.
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Well, go the whole hog now.

You can make even surer about a new Head Gasket if the faces of the head and block are chemically clean and dry as you join them up.

Clean the surfaces of head and block using a CLEAN cotton cloth and petrol. The petrol will remove 99% of oily traces, which are death to head gaskets.

Once the surfaces are wiped clean, and all solvent has dried off, then use a pristine clean cotton rag wetted with isopropanol (from the chemist) or neat methanol, (NOT methylated spirit) and wipe it over again. You will achieve a chemically clean and dry mating surface. Just the job.

THEN slap the Gasket on the block, dump the head on, and start bolting it down. Torque the head bolts / nuts in at least 4 progressive stages, always in the correct order.

Attention to detail does pay dividends doing a head gasket.

CharlesY
 
Thanks Charles - good advice. I will get some isopr.. isop... that chemical stuff from the chemist tomorrow. I was just putting the injectors back in the head and I thought I would check the glow plugs. I'm pretty sure that 1472 ohms is not correct but that was the lowest reading out of the 4! no wonder it was a little hesitant in starting the other morning when it was icy!
 
1 hole standard
2 hole 1.4mm
3 hole 1.5mm

Got this info off of paddocks website, I was imformed by them that the 3 hole is thickest when I bought that **** one off of them.
 
Thanks Ian but there are also 1.6mm ones available with no holes in them (apart from holes for pistons, oilways and waterways etc!) from most suppliers. Apparently there are differing block heights (depanding on year of manufacture?) I assumed that 3 hole was standard (my head hasnt been ground until now) but 1,2 or 3 is the standard depanding on the engine build.

So steer clear of Paddocks then? who do you recommend - I would prefer a geunuine LR gasket.
 
revjames said:
Thanks Charles - good advice. I will get some isopr.. isop... that chemical stuff from the chemist tomorrow. I was just putting the injectors back in the head and I thought I would check the glow plugs. I'm pretty sure that 1472 ohms is not correct but that was the lowest reading out of the 4! no wonder it was a little hesitant in starting the other morning when it was icy!
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Gosh .... but was it 1,472 ohms (i.e. about 1.5Kohms), or are we looking at a mis-read of the meter? Check them again please, and make sure the meter is set to OHMS, as in single ohms, not hundreds or thousands or millions of ohms! Were you reading ONE point 472 ohms?

At room temperature a glow plug should show a resistance of a very few ohms, possibly even as low as ONE ohm or less. As the heat builds up the resistance will rise till it balances, but it won't be more than a very few ohms even when red hot.

Let me know!

CharlesY
 
Thanks CharlesY but I am an electrician by trade and those were the correct readings at room temp. I even made sure my hands werent touchiong the probes because that can affect the values. It has been starting remarkably well without them up to now!
 
Just put the head back together. Thankfully I remembered the copper washers under the injectors and bought new ones. Also new glow plugs measure approx 1 ohm which seems more reasonable and confirms my diagnosis of the old ones. Put the thermostat housing on but its too cold outside to be faffing about under a bonnet trying to stick an ead on so I'll wait til tomorrow now.
 
revjames said:
Just put the head back together. Thankfully I remembered the copper washers under the injectors and bought new ones. Also new glow plugs measure approx 1 ohm which seems more reasonable and confirms my diagnosis of the old ones. Put the thermostat housing on but its too cold outside to be faffing about under a bonnet trying to stick an ead on so I'll wait til tomorrow now.
Click to expand...

Did you get the gaskets sorted?
 
revjames said:
Thanks CharlesY but I am an electrician by trade and those were the correct readings at room temp. I even made sure my hands werent touchiong the probes because that can affect the values. It has been starting remarkably well without them up to now!
Click to expand...

Best way to check glow plugs is to wap em on a car battery for a few seconds (NO LONGER).The last 1 cm should glow RED!If it dunt bin it!
 
all seems OK now, a bit of a hassle faffing about with angular gauges and torque wrenches. I would sooner have 3 torque stages and go with that. At least you know where you are. Interestingly the LR manual said 40NM to start and then 2 stages of 60 deg. The Haynes book adds 20 deg for the 10 M12 x 140mm bolts at the end. The thing is they didnt feel that tight but I had to keep telling myself I was using a 600mm knuckle bar!

The valve clearances were way out after (I dont know what they were before though) I reset all 8 valves to 0.2mm. The head is closer to the block by 0.1mm to my calculations I hope that wont make too much difference.

Anyway, temperatures normal and heater hot!

Many thanks for the sympathy and helpful advice!
 
Just been to bangor and back (50 miles) went really well - no unusual temperatures and nice and warm inside. It seems to run a lot smoother. Perhaps thats because the valve clearances have been done? I'm sure they were way out. I didnt measure them but they must have been more like 0.6mm instead of 0.2mm. I would think that would make a difference to performance and smoothness.
 
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