Bollocks!

many tanks

iannotts said:

Mseries3 DIDNT get the same treatment, he asked for a quote to wich i had no reply to send as I, for the time being, have stoped suppling parts.

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Then i applogise as I never got told that! Although a PM telling me would not have gone a miss

Mseries3 said:

Then i applogise as I never got told that! Although a PM telling me would not have gone a miss

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Still no need to call me a bellend mate

iannotts said:

Still no need to call me a bellend mate

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I agree - I did come over a bit strong Was kind of angry at the time with a little **** of a brother throwing bottles of lucasade at my head Sorry

are we all :love: again, now

Ah POS bad luck mate. Where did the engine come from, was it sold as good working order?

A few pointers and tips from what I have read in your post: EVEN if the head is perfectly flat, I would take it down and get 1 or 2 thou skimmed off it, not sure if you actually went for a skim in the end or not but I would advise it. Then that’s it perfectly clean, and isn't full of scratches you have just put in it with EMERY!!!! The skim will clean it up and leave it like new. Also as you have a leak the combustion gasses may have left a track in the head which would need repairing if it’s not bad - scrap if it's deep. I don’t know what stage it’s at now but I would be tempted to get the full shebang done. I would get all the valves done, new guides and seals. Might as well recondition it fully when it's off saves you having to take it off again to sort leaking valves etc… if they take 27 for a skim you will be on a couple of quid per valve, seals cost pennies and guides are a quid each or something. Then you will have a reconditioned head and it will go very well!

As for checking the head a steel rule would be enough to let you see distortion, a piece of glass will also work, new glass that modern glazed units are made with is very flat and will let you detect distortion.

If the head does have a crack I would NOT rebuild it, I would wait until you can get hold of a replacement head. You want to rebuild it and know that’s it, you might get 1000miles out of it then it will quit on you at the worst moment – (gf going into labour, need to get to hospital quick, while her dad finds out and is chasing you down).

Just a note: Do NOT use emery cloth; in fact you really ought not to introduce any grit into an engine ever. Files or steel wool for engines. If you are stripping something right down to bare components then going to wash it that’s a different story.

As for the rebuild process – CLEANLINESS – clean the head down extremely well, remove all traces of oil and grease. You want it IMMACULATE. Likewise for the head, you want to get it to the stage you can run your finger over it and the metal offers resistance it’s so clean. IPA will be great, you could even start with some standard cleaner have lots of paper towel ready to clean it all up.

For the torquing process have a piece of chalk and as you do one mark it, then cross it again each time you pass it so when her indoors distracts you, you know where you were and don’t do one twice! Do use new bolts, they say can be used three times - but how do you know how many times they’ve been used already? ALL bolts are elastic, i.e. they stretch and it’s the elastic property which pulls things together, the elasticity will eventually reduce simply through being used and more so through being stretched further when the engine is running, and temperature changes involved here. These bolts really do get a hard life.

Sean said:

let it tick over for the afternoon - what's the point in doing that ?

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I guess to glaze up the bores.

What he means is the head bolts are manufactured to a high tolerance and very specific heat treatments and coatings to provide a consistent friction value under the head of the bolt and a measured amount of stretch for degree of rotation after a set torque is reached. They only retain this integrity a couple or so times before the controllability and elasticity has been compromised enough that the bolt won't function as designed any more.

Standard bolts don't have such a controlled or tight tolerance to either dimensions, coatings or elasticity, so aren't used in such a critical area.

discomania said:

I guess to glaze up the bores.

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but he's only doing the HG

Hello,

Well it's all done and up and running again now. Thanks for the long post Disco I did have the head skimmed, and what a brilliant service. Collected, skimmed and delivered back for £27+VAT, I don't know how much they took off, it really doesn't look like anything. I used the same head bolts because I couldn't get hold of any new ones before tomorrow when I need to run the landy again. I'm hoping they'll hold out - they look like they've never been touched before, and considering the engine has only done 68,000 I'd assume that this is its first head gasket too. New temp sender and adapter also arrived today so that's in and everything is superb. I thought it was smooth before but it's certainly a lot better. The turbo spools a little quicker and it's made the whole thing a bit quieter (besides my exhaust of course! ) I'm off to Ipswich tomorrow, so that'll be a good 220 mile trip at no more than 65mph. I'll let you know how it does, so far, so good. Its a hell of a lot easier a job to replace the head gasket on a 200 than it was on my N/A. The head also weighs about a quarter of the weight of the N/A head too!

-Pos

oooooooooooo yer tite fooker you

Paul D said:

What he means is the head bolts are manufactured to a high tolerance and very specific heat treatments and coatings to provide a consistent friction value under the head of the bolt and a measured amount of stretch for degree of rotation after a set torque is reached. They only retain this integrity a couple or so times before the controllability and elasticity has been compromised enough that the bolt won't function as designed any more.

Standard bolts don't have such a controlled or tight tolerance to either dimensions, coatings or elasticity, so aren't used in such a critical area.

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No I meant exactly what I said. That is, the basic principles for all bolts are the same, they ALL hold using the same principle. I agree that these bolts are manufactured to higher standards using different processes but I still meant what I said.

pos said:

Hello,

Well it's all done and up and running again now. Thanks for the long post Disco I did have the head skimmed, and what a brilliant service. Collected, skimmed and delivered back for £27+VAT, I don't know how much they took off, it really doesn't look like anything. I used the same head bolts because I couldn't get hold of any new ones before tomorrow when I need to run the landy again. I'm hoping they'll hold out - they look like they've never been touched before, and considering the engine has only done 68,000 I'd assume that this is its first head gasket too. New temp sender and adapter also arrived today so that's in and everything is superb. I thought it was smooth before but it's certainly a lot better. The turbo spools a little quicker and it's made the whole thing a bit quieter (besides my exhaust of course! ) I'm off to Ipswich tomorrow, so that'll be a good 220 mile trip at no more than 65mph. I'll let you know how it does, so far, so good. Its a hell of a lot easier a job to replace the head gasket on a 200 than it was on my N/A. The head also weighs about a quarter of the weight of the N/A head too!

-Pos

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get another head gasket in and a set of bolts ready for when the HG fails again then....

evening "bell" :bolt:

The Mad Hat Man said:

evening "bell" :bolt:

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:doh:

Don't jinx me!!! I have confidence in them being alright. Is it the same principle with the head bolts on the N/A? Because I re-used them for three head gasket changes (quite ironically) but not due to them being stretched. The first time I dorbed a load of bloody silicon goo around the surface of the gasket - unaware that I should NOT have done this, the second time the gasket split into three layers and pretty much disintegrated (Britpart component). The third time, the elring gasket sealed and the bolts certainly kept everything tight, at least for 23,000 miles anyway and it was still alright

-Pos

i'll give it 10k miles mate
this is talking from doing exactly what you have done

iannotts said:

i'll give it 10k miles mate
this is talking from doing exactly what you have done

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I'll give your nice new starter motor about three turns

pos said:

I'll give your nice new starter motor about three turns

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thats not good

Just an update (if you're interested). I swapped the head gasket and installed my nice clean, skimmed head and I've driven 220 miles to Ipswich today with absolutely no problems. The power difference between the 12J and the 200TDi is unbelivable - what a revelation! It drifts up relatively big hills on the A1 at 65 with my foot just resting on the throttle - and no need to give it any extra juice to help it up either. It's used half a tank - so by my reckoning, that's 440 miles a tank which is a damn site better than what I was getting Oh, and here's a bit of landy porn:





I don't know what they sat the head in when they skimmed it (I assume some kind of chemical / oil bath) but it's come back immaculate and pretty much decoked!

-Pos