Starting Probs After Changing the Head Gasket

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as this is a techie thread, can the tratta boys go back to the barn.

The timing or locating dowels need to be checked.
With the crank mark at 12 oclock position the cam sprockets should read, left to right:

(Exhaust-in).......(exhaust-in)

The inlet sprocket should have the locating dowel at 4oclock, exhaust cam sprocket dowel at 8oclock.

With the belt off, valve springs will rotate the sprockets to their lowest resting potential by about 30degrees.

What compression is showing? 9bar when cold is good.

As for spark, check the resistance of the old and new rotor arm.

Like I said

Just to make sure - are you set up like this? All pistons should be half way. Only you mentioned earlier that rollpins were facing each other????? - not 4 and 8 o'clock as shown here.

Good thumb nail Rocket, pic is a thousand words.

With the cam carrier off, on reassembly the dowels are slightly offset from this?
This enables both cams to be lower at the dizzy cap end, in other words no valve spring pressure.

This facilitates the clamping of the cam carrier, and subsequent tightening sequence.
IIRC, haynes doesn't state this, workshop manuals will mention it.

After assembly they are rotated to the relative position, 4oclock, and 8oclock, only the large washer masks their positions.
As you are well aware, the OP'er needs to take the belt back off and re-allign each cam independently.
 
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Thanks to all with the tips and the comments,

'My Freelander lives'.

In the end I went back to my basic engineering training and proved the valve timing against the actual piston position and proved everything was spot on.
I striped down my compression tester and proved that it was reading low so kicked it in the bin.
I then gave it a go with easy start which will usually at least burn your eyebrows off but not even a pop or a fart.
Despite having a week spark I tested the coil which gave me 1.2 ohms resistance on the primary winding the book says 0.7 so I persuaded my local auto factor to let me do the same test on a new one and actually got 0.7.
I fitted this and a new set of leads and minutes later she was purring like a pussy cat.
A month ago I drove the car to my house with an overheating problem it started easily so the coil should have been fine. With my new head gasket set I have changed the following:
· Water Pump
· Thermostat
· Cam belt
· All filters and fluids
· Coil
· Distributor, Rotor arm and leads
· Pork Chop on the rear diff
· Stripped the sump out
I gave all parts a massive clean including lapping in the valves checking the spring fee lengths.

This afternoon I gave her a work out on Dartmoor in the snow and proved all the electric traction gadgets do work. And yes I had a lot of fun.

I am definitely hooked
RC
 
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