project 1980 Austin Princess

[plasticvandan]

11 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Makes more sense to do  what I'm doing at the moment tbh.  Head comes off the Princess this weekend, parts get ordered ready for putting it back together, got a friend helping with transport so I can get the head to the garage and back easier.  I reckon the Princess can be back together and working by the end of the month no problem.

Renault literally just needs the last exhaust part to arrive and I can throw it at an MoT and see what happens.  Then it's just a case of waiting and seeing which car is ready to use first and use that one.

I guess your individual circumstances must be a lot different to many on here,no transport for a month means eviction or starvation🤣

[vulgalour]

The big benefit to being self employed and working from home at play there, as well as having a supermarket within walking distance if I'm having a good day, or a short bus trip if not.  It also helps having almost no social life XD

[dean36014]

Have you had the block checked for straightness on the Princess?  You might have said it somewhere and I've missed it. It could be that the overheating episode the first time warped it hence the repeated failures afterwards. 

[plasticvandan]

Do they have wet liners in these? Does sound like there's something else going on.

[vulgalour]

I only got the head off this morning.  Knackered now, resting because of my health issues and I think I overdid it just a bit.  No wet liners on these.  Iron block with an aluminium head.

I'll be getting the head dismantled tomorrow if I'm up to it, I'm not up to doing it today, and then it can go to the local garage in the week, got a friend giving me a lift for that job which is nice of them.  The cold is really slowing me down a lot, any more than 2 hours out in it and I'm fucked so I have to be really careful.

[plasticvandan]

Took all my energy to change a battery in the cold so understand that. 

It is possible the block has an issue,would certainly be worth giving it a good check over before reinstalling everything.iron is a lot more resilient than ally of course,but do wonder if there's a hairline crack or something.

[vulgalour]

Totally agree with you on that.  Trouble is I've got no way of checking.  I physically can't remove the engine even if I had the engine crane up here (it's still down south at the old house) and it's a heavy old thing thanks to the gearbox-in-sump set up.  I can say the bores looked nice and clean, no ridges, no obvious signs of damage anywhere, no piston wiggle and aside from a bit of carbon deposits as you might expect, it all looked very normal so if there is a problem with the block it's deeper than I can go with it at home so for now it just has to be left alone unfortunately.

[plasticvandan]

Pretty sure there is a spray or something you can use on the block face that will show anything up,crack detector or something.seems rather a pointless exercise to keep changing headgasket, skimming heads without having checked the block.even using a steel rule and some feelers gauges to check for flatness would be a start.

[vulgalour]

I've done the steel rule and a torch thing on the block several times when the head has been off in the past, it's always been as flat as you can tell with that technique with no light shining through a gap from various angles.  If there's a problem with the block it's deeper than I can go with it this time around.  Remember, I'm moving house in a few months and my health still isn't great, there simply isn't the time, money, or physical ability to pull the whole engine out to get it rebuilt so I just have to do the head rebuild and hope for the best again.  My engine crane is still down south and even if it were here, there's no way I can move it on my own, the cylinder head is my limit physically.

I'm just going to do what I can do and hope that after the house move I'm in a better position to pull the engine then.  I know it's not the right way to do it, like usual it's the way I have to do it for now and I'll try and do it the right way later.  I wish it had given me this job when it wasn't winter, I can say that much with certainty.

[Homersimpson]

Its worth checking the head visually for any cracks before having it skimmed and maybe even having it crack tested.

My dad had a CVH sierra which would loose water and had bubbles in the coolant but no mixed oil and water and when I took the head off there was a tiny little crack which was opening up when it was warm.  Car was still usable but used a couple of litres ever 100 miles or so.

A replacement head sorted it out.

 

[vulgalour]

Already done the visual checks, it looks fine and it was fine the last time it was pressure tested.  The reason it's going to the garage is to be pressure tested and skimmed if needed.  The funny thing is, until Christmas Day the car never used any coolant.

[Angrydicky]

5 hours ago, dean36014 said:

Have you had the block checked for straightness on the Princess?  You might have said it somewhere and I've missed it. It could be that the overheating episode the first time warped it hence the repeated failures afterwards. 

+1, this is very common on the Austin A40 engines which are prone to HGF, they almost always need the block skimming as well as the head, if this isn't done it will just keep blowing.

My Princess (2ltr O series) is leaking oil from between the head and the block at the end nearest the clutch. I have bought a head gasket set for it but I don't want to go pulling it apart until it actually starts running badly or overheating. I don't want to go looking for trouble, there's no mixing and it sits rock steady on the temp gauge. This is my first experience of O series engines and with all the head trouble Vulgalour has had with his I am a little apprehensive! But have done 1500 miles without issue so far.

[Bmwdumptruck]

When the head was done previously was it retightened after a few hundred miles? My dad was a stickler for doing this back in the days when these were current models.  Every customer was told to return after a few hundred miles or so so dad or his partner could recheck the head bolts.   Years on I had a similar issue with the wifes Rover 214. 3 times I did it, first two by the book, new bolts, second gasket was an oe one too.  Third time I did two things different, after torqueing the bolts to the book with two lots of 90degree turns (IIrc) I then went over the bolts with the torque wrench and tightened them all down bit by bit till they were all as tight as the tightest bolt.  There was quite a variation between the bolts.  A few hundred miles later I retorqued them all back to that tightness, again there was quite a difference.  We ran it a few months then sold it.  A few years later the wife bumped into the buyer who surprisingly told her how brilliant it had been and how pleased they were with it…. Bloody typical. 

[plasticvandan]

On.reliant engines,which are all alloy,I soon found leaving the Haynes amount of 500 miles was far too late,it would have blown by then.i was advised by an old hand to do it based on hot and cold cycles,not miles,so ran it till hot,and retorqued next morning,I did this about 3-4 times before I didn't get any movement on the torque wrench.the amount of movement that I could get convinced me that driving it anywhere would result in it blowing again.

I've applied this method on every HG change since and touch wood never had one blow again. I also used to run it up for a minute or so with no coolant in the first time,to allow the lacquer on the gasket to melt which helps create the seal.having coolant sloshing around and potentially creeping across the gasket can prevent that.

Given that the princess was cooked badly when you got it (and who knows if it had happened or how many times before you got it) and several times since the hg has gone or leaked,with different and skimmed heads,it looks almost certain there is an issue with the block. 

[vulgalour]

All it's getting this time is the head test, skim if needed, and new gasket because that's all I can do.

Not disagreeing with anyone's advice here, I'm just limited on how much I can actually do.  I might get a few thousand miles/years out of it again, I might not, it's just the way it has to go for now.

[24vdiamond]

If your doing the head replacement yourself might be worth getting  tin of this if you can find any local, a nice misting over both sides gives a really good even seal without masses squidging all over the place

Hylomar 'M' Gasket Sealant Aerosol from Merlin Motorsport

[vulgalour]

Yesterday was rough, definitely overdid it.  Anyway, today I got the head stripped down and ready to ship off to the machine shop later this week.  There are some very minor surface scratches that I can see but can't get with a fingernail on one bearing surface, a bit of carbon build up on the valves, oil is a little black but devoid of chunks and sparkles.  I'll take the camshaft with me to the shop and get their advice on if any work is needed there.  Nothing has jumped out as being amiss to the naked eye.

The only other weird thing is the head gasket itself.  The metal rings in the middle are fine, but the rest of the material it's made of seems to have shrunk?  I've never seen it happen before, but it's like the gasket is just ever so slightly too small in every dimension except for where the metal bits of it are.

I'll let you know what the report is from the machinist when the head comes back. If need be I've got that spare head too so hopefully I can make one good head out of the two.  It's the best I can do for now.

@24vdiamond funny you should mention that, someone was asking me about copper gasket spray, I imagine that's the more modern equivalent.

[High Jetter]

Maybe show them the gasket too, see if they have an opinion?

[SilverMachine]

4 hours ago, vulgalour said:

The only other weird thing is the head gasket itself.  The metal rings in the middle are fine, but the rest of the material it's made of seems to have shrunk?  I've never seen it happen before, but it's like the gasket is just ever so slightly too small in every dimension except for where the metal bits of it are.

that is rather odd, if anything you would expect it would expand with being squeezed tightly between the head and block! maybe it shrank because its cold? i know that can happen with other things!

did you say quality of gaskets is hit and miss anyway? thing is with ebay is you dont know if new parts have been made to the same quality or if a genuine part is actually that, buggers.

also suprised that rimmer bros dont seem to stock princess bits!

other than that it dose sound like so far so good, but try taking it a bit easier fella, the cold isn't good to work in at the best of times, let alone when pulling engines apart outdoors! .......and you need a good thermal mug that wont fall over for your brew!

alas progress is progress! need to watch your buick video later am a bit behind...

 

[SilverMachine]

just found this, could be useful?

https://www.angclassiccarparts.co.uk/products/austin-morris-bmc/morris-marina-ital-allegro-maxi/engine-gaskets-seals/head-gasket-set-marina-17-ital-princess-ambassador-oseries-engine

also the company name, could be a good omen?

[24vdiamond]

Worth checking if the head has been skimmed is the length of the head bolts, you need a vernier or something really, screw a head bolt right into the block and measure from the block face to underside of the bolt head and then measure the thickness of the head where the bolt squishes to make sure youre getting plenty of squish when its torqued down! 

[vulgalour]

ANG is my usual for getting parts, they're often the only supplier with what I need in stock.

Dropped the head off at the garage and the vibe was actually really positive.  Some mild ribbing from the younger lads about the Princess being an ugly car, not had that in a while, but the guy actually doing the work seemed keen to work on something properly old for a change.  We'll see what the report is from them soon.  I did ask for a couple of other extra things to be checked over so I'm not expecting that 24-48 hour turnaround since there's more work than a skim and pressure test to do, just little things I can't check or fix myself that they can.  However, on initial inspection they didn't spot anything glaringly amiss and were happy that I'd done all the stripping down of the head for them, so hopefully it all goes very smoothly.

[vulgalour]

Got a call from the garage to tell me the head is ready to collect.  It's all good, no horrors.  They did the extra bits I wanted doing so it did cost a little more and take a little longer and that's totally okay.  I've now got to wait until Thursday to collect since that's the soonest I can get a lift over to the garage to do so.  In the meantime I'm hoping for reasonable weather and health so I can get on with finishing the exhaust job on the van for its MoT, chuck it in and see what it fails on.

[vulgalour]

Ready to be rebuilt.  Hopefully I'm going to get into it this weekend.

[SilverMachine]

1 hour ago, vulgalour said:

Ready to be rebuilt.  Hopefully I'm going to get into it this weekend.

supermarket veg crates are handy! i have a couple myself...

hopefully there will be a few hours of sun over the weekend for you! but please, take it easy!

also wondering if theres still any companies that will put new linings on your old brake shoes, and or refurb them for you? as i know linings used to be available to rivet on yourself!

[Angrydicky]

8 minutes ago, SilverMachine said:

supermarket veg crates are handy! i have a couple myself...

hopefully there will be a few hours of sun over the weekend for you! but please, take it easy!

also wondering if theres still any companies that will put new linings on your old brake shoes, and or refurb them for you? as i know linings used to be available to rivet on yourself!

Charles Johnson in Norwich are who I use for shoe relining. Nos ones probably cheaper if you can find them. 

[plasticvandan]

I would kind of hoped they had found something,in at least it might have explained why it blew. 

[vulgalour]

Okay, a more full story on what's going on with this head then.  Pressure test was fine, no cracks or similar identified.  Bearing surfaces in the cambox and on the camshaft were given a light wet-and-dry just to clean them up, otherwise fine. Valve guide stems are quite healthy, no damage there.  Original waxstat housing installed in place of the modification that had been done, apparently the pipe that was in there was a real bear to get out so I'm glad I didn't try that one myself.  Head itself needed the barest whisper of a skim, almost as though the last time it was done it was maybe not done well enough, but it certainly wasn't bad enough that you'd call it warped in the usual sense.

Today I've spent time cleaning the carbon off the valves, lapping them in with the old twizzly stick and valve grinding paste,  and rebuilding the valve train.  I hate this particular job and I hate the next job I have to do even more, which is setting the valve clearances.  Fortunately I do have the proper Churchill tool which does make it a bit bit easier and I don't have to sacrifice a cambox to make one.  Next job is feeler guages and micrometer to get all the valve shims to the correct thickness so that the clearances are nicely balanced and I can hopefully do away with that one noisy one.

From what we can figure out it seems that the cause of the head gasket failure is a combination of a bad gasket and possibly a less-than-perfect skim when it was done last, it's just taken a while for these two things to get bad enough to actually fail and of course I caught it immediately so we didn't go into mega overheating and mayonnaise territory, which is good.

[beko1987]

That's good then! Be nice if it was just a 🤷 one of those things and fine forever now. Reckon you'll tell any difference in how it drives once done or had it not blown in a way that reduced the already I'm sure amazing performance? 

Only one way to find out though 😂

[vulgalour]

It had better.  There's still plenty of steps to go wrong between now and then!

I should definitely notice an improvement in how it drives.  Boxing Day I could get up to 40mph pretty normally, but getting up to 60mph from there was hard work.  Sustained speeds above 50mph would be accompanied with the occasional stumble too so was definitely down on power.  If I can get that noisy valve to be quieter I'll likely get better performance from that side of things too.  I do think the piston rings are pretty tired, if I had more time (impending house move), more money, my engine crane and engine stand (still down south), indoor space (garage still down south) to work on it etc. I'd do something about that especially since I've got a full set of piston rings in stock.  Job for another day that one, I'll just keep sticking oil in and staying off the motorway for now, drive around the problems, that's the way to do it!