Reginald Nutsack's K-series Kapers - ROVER 623 MOT GUFF

[trigger]

I used to sell Payen gaskets, They were excellent and all the garage customers used to ask specifically for them, we never had warranty returns, unlike the FAI ones we sold.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Well, I;ve had the head off this thing.

 

 

At first i thought it was suffering a bit of fire ring damage:

 

 

Bit after a proper good clean up I was chuffed to find that actually the head surface was totally mint.

 

 

 

I ummed and ahhed about buying a payen gasket as my feeling is that would probably be a better solution overall. Plus, I realised that the 2 months tax still in the window was still valid so i sent it off for a cash-in, which will liberate £40 or so and cover the cost of a new gasket. But in the end i decided f**k it, mainly for the reason that I had the MLS gasket sat there and waiting for a new one to arrive would probably end up in a 2-week delay to this thing running again. So this evening I have braved some proper shitty weather and chucked the cylinder head back on, torqued it up carefully (in 4 stages rather than the usual 2), timed it up and put the belts back on.

 

 

Like a fat-knuckled cretin I slightly damaged one corner of the new HG (just above the watre pump) while manhandling the head into place so I stooped to a new low and put a bit of instant gasket on the damaged bit of the head gask, no doubt it will piss coolant out of there or something but we'll see.

 

With a bit of luck, if I get a quiet evening tomorrow or Friday I might have it running again which would be nice!!!!!

[saucedoctor]

Good work sir. Fingers crossed.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

CAN I GET A REEEE_WIND

 

 

Got this honk of shit back together this weekend after a bit of faffing about. Didn't take many photos as who wants to see an inlet manifold getting lashed on? Anyway I reassembled pretty much all the bits onto the engine and trned the key. To my astonishment it fired straight up and settled down to an OK tickover. I tipped some badass french wasing soda stuff in the Xpansion bottle:

 

 

Then let it run for a while to see what happened.

 

What happened, was that although it didn't boil up, its still not happy. Although i ran it for ages with the expansion cap off, and it settled at a steady mid-point on the temp gauge I could not get any heat out of the heater, despite being able to see the heater control valve doing the biz in the engine bay. if i put the lid on the expansion bottle it very quickly started burping and farting bubbles through the cooling system, pumping the top hose up to 800PSi pressure and generally getting itself in a right tiz.

 

I think the coolant must not be circulating properly, to be fair there is still a lot of oily shiz in the water circuit and it wouldnt surprise me if that had bunged something up. I read about a 'jiggle valve' in the inlet manifold that sounds like a prime candidate for jamming itself up. I think I'm going to try and flush it through with a hosepipe to get rid of some of the muck. Also I think there are probably much better ways to bleed the system than the one I employed. Any tips?

 

I suppose I had it ticking over for an hour without it boiling up and the rad fan kicks in and out OK (no misfiring either) so thats encouraging, but i don't think i'm out the woods yet with it. On the upside it sounds happy enough and I haven't buggered up the cam timing or made some other schoolboy balls-up.

[Split_Pin]

Good stuff there, I love any K-series story that has a positive spin on it. Hopefully it will just be some gunk in the system, I imagine that the radiator will be full of it.

[saucedoctor]

Also I think there are probably much better ways to bleed the system than the one I employed. Any tips?

I assume you've used the bleed screw in the metal coolant pipe that runs for'ard to aft, above the gearbox? 8mm head. Good call on the jiggle valve too, btw - they jam up for fun under the best of circs.

[Lankytim]

I think that jiggle valve thing in the inlet manifold can be removed, it's well known to cause airlocks and when it's out it reduces the chance of thermal shock to the cylinder head when the thermostat opens and lets cold water circulate from the radiator

[Barry Cade]

Punch it out with a long screwdriver- they never work anyway,and especially after being gunked up.Are you getting a constant flow of coolant back into the expansion tank when it's warm? They're not bled properly until they do this.

[saucedoctor]

While I'm not disagreeing with LankyTim or Tiff, RAVE says "'a jiggle valve fitted at the start of the bleedline (to expansion tank) prevents pressure build-up in the expansion tank by regulating the amount of returning fluid'"

 

But yeah, they do stick. Not sure if I'd sack it off altogether, though.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

yeah i didnt get a steady return flow into the expansion bottle. I got a very unsteady one! After arsing about for an hour I drained the water (thought it might freeze overnight) but will try again maybe tonight. I didnt use that bleed nipple properly either, i should have taken that out while filling it right? Only read that afterwards! 5/10 MUST TRY HARDER

[saucedoctor]

yeah i didnt get a steady return flow into the expansion bottle. I got a very unsteady one! After arsing about for an hour I drained the water (thought it might freeze overnight) but will try again maybe tonight. I didnt use that bleed nipple properly either, i should have taken that out while filling it right? Only read that afterwards! 5/10 MUST TRY HARDER

 

Aye.

[Guest DMGRS]

Just joined to say cracking effort - not a lot of love shown for old Rovers these days.

I've had 400s, 45s, ZSs, 75s and a couple of ZTs for good measure.

Glad to see a 25 Commerce kicking about too - I'm about to take on a diesel Commerce that needs some TLC.

 

Following with interest!

[Barry Cade]

While I'm not disagreeing with LankyTim or Tiff, RAVE says "'a jiggle valve fitted at the start of the bleedline (to expansion tank) prevents pressure build-up in the expansion tank by regulating the amount of returning fluid'"

 

But yeah, they do stick. Not sure if I'd sack it off altogether, though.

Sometimes the guys who wrote RAVE spent their evenings in a warehouse, wearing paper suits listening to loud repetitive music. Not all K's have a jiggle- but its daft and causes more issues than it solves. It's a plastic ball in a pipe..probably designed by the guy who put the thermostat in the wrong place. I poke 'em oot and live without.

 

"The original design for the Rover cooling system (before production) did not use jiggle valves. These were introduced in order to take the header tank out of the coolant circuit during warm up. Fast warm up times were considered to be a critical requirement at the time"

 

 

"In addition to the three manually opened bleed points on the cooling system (water rail, heater and radiator) I think a timely reminder is of use to introduce a periodic test by owners to ensure the little jiggle valve in the inlet manifold of all MGF engines remains free and so allows air circulated up in the engine to automatically escape to the header tank.

Both plastic and alloy manifolds have a small bore hose that connects to a stub at the cam belt end of the manifold flange. This valve consists of nothing more than a plastic ball which is heavier than air and lighter than water. When the cooling system has no air this ball is held on a seat and so closes the path for coolant to the header tank from this direction. If any air percolates to the top of the engine, which it will if any is there, then the ball falls away from the seat and the air escapes to the header tank. As soon as coolant arrives the ball reseats.

It has become more and more apparent as cars age that this valve sticks on it's seat and so any air remains trapped in the upper part of the engine. This as we all know can cause spot overheating and even cause interuption to coolant flow and the results can be ....... unpleasant and costly!!!

A simple check periodically can ensure that the valve remains working properly.This involves removing the existing hose and I suggest it be squeezed with a brake pipe clamp or other similar device to prevent unnecessary coolant loss. Then have to hand a length of the same bore hose that can be simply pushed onto the manifold stub and long enough for you to be able to blow into it.

If the valve is free then you will be able to blow past the valve. If it is stuck then you won't be able to blow into the system. Loosening the valve involves removing you blow hose and poking a blunt probe down the manifold stub to dislodge the ball. Check again by blowing down to confirm it is now clear. Remember that the valve will stop any coolant loss so you only have to worry about the hose from the header tank."

[Mr_Bo11ox]

WORD, I've been mucking about with this today. First off I put the garden hose on the water system and rinsed out a load of rubbish. 

 

 

Started off a minging brown colour but eventually it was running clear.

 

Next i cleaned out the expansion bottle using white spirit:

 

Then I checked the jiggle valve and found it was jiggling OK so no problem there.

 

I filled the cooling system with water and bled it using the little bleed nipple above the bellhousing so all was looking good.

 

I fired it up and let it run for a while - not mega ages admittedly, maybe 15-20 mins?

 

Unfortunately its still not happy. Again the top hose was red hot and felt like it had 800PSi in it while the bottom hose was lukewarm at best and no heat came out the heater. Once the engine got warm its coughing and spluttering bursts of water and air along the return pipe into the expansion bottle and not settling down to a steady return flow like it should do.

 

I decided that the waterpump must not be doing its stuff - i had not removed it previously, just checked that it wasn't leaking and that it spun smoothly, which it did. I wondered if the impeller had fallen off or something as the water just does not seem to be circulating at all except maybe a tiny bit by thermosiphoning. I removed it (by torchlight!!!!) but it was OK as far as I could see.

 

Anyway I'm not going to put a used waterpump back on so I'll buy a new one and a new thermostat and cobble it all back together and keep trying.

 

On the upside the expansion bottle stayed clean and while I was running it with the cap off it didnt seem to be burping air up into the bottle so I think the HG is OK now. There seems to be some other issue stoping the coolant from circulating properly though. I had no problems bleeding the cooling system on the van so i dont know what to make of this one.

 

[RobT]

Does the thermostat have holes in the flange? I once had the same probably on a k-series, took it out and drilled two small 3mm holes then the coolant started to move around properly.

[Barry Cade]

Sometimes they are just a cock- is the rad an even temp? They can silt up, massage ALL the hoses whilst it's running, keep bleeding through the small bolt on the pipe. . Paitience.. and plenty tea.

 

Check this=another jiggle valve... can cause no heat/flow issues

 

http://www.rimmerbros.co.uk/Item--i-PCH003300

 

[mk2_craig]

Has anybody suggested crud in the heater matrix yet?  Not sure whether that would affect return flow to the header tank but worth whipping it out and giving it a proper clean-up, unless that's a load of dash-out grief.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Hey i'm slowly getting my shit together so lets have a news update on this POS

 

 

So last time this thing was up and running but the coolant was not circulating properly for some reason. I changed the thermostat and water pump but that made no odds to anything. Decided the radiator was blocked solid, so I towed it down the garage and chucked MORE MONEY at a new radiator:

 

 

Got the new rad off the bay for £43 delivered. It was a bit of a faff to fit but not too bad.

 

 

The old rad weighed at least twice what the new one did and was visibly full of crap so it seemed like a worthwhile swap.

 

Filled it up with water and started the engine. 

 

 

Now I found that the coolant circulates to some extent as the bottom hose now gets hot which it didn't previously. So that seems like an improvement. However, its still not right. I bled the system as best i could but when it gets hot with the cap on, the system pressurises itself excessively - the top hose is pumped up to 500PSi still and the pressure is such that you can see water weeping out of the head-block joint!!!!! Goodness knows what the pressure is in there for that to happen but its only supposed to be a few Psi I think. I have just bought a new cap as i think the cap is supposed to stop the pressure going beyond a certain value and that does not seem to be happening. With the cap off it does not over pressurise obviously and it generally seems happy enough, except that eventually there is a massive slow gulp that chucks half the water out of the expansion bottle. 

 

The head gasket might still be playing up and pressurising the cooling system, although when you run it with the cap off there is no tell-tale trail of bubbles popping up in the expansion bottle every so often so I'm not certain yet. 

 

This weekend I am gonna try again to bleed the cooling system with an upturned, sawn-off pop bottle to raise the water head on the expansion bottle and chuck a bottle of speed flush in as theres still a load of muck floating around the water system. also I'll put the new cap on. By then i will have replaced ALL POSSIBLE replaceable elements of the cooling system!!!! It has better start flaming working soon or something drastic is gonna happen which I doubt it will enjoy.

 

 

Annoying, as I think this would be such a brilliant little machine if I could get it running reliably.

[dollywobbler]

Is it worth trying to raise the back end of the car too? I've found that bleeding BXs is easier if the front is raised, so the rad cap is uppermost.

[Micrashed]

Makes you wonder how the hell they were filled / bled at the factory when new.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I've never had any bother with these previously.... don't know why this one is particularly troublesome.

[Bren]

Makes you wonder how the hell they were filled / bled at the factory when new.

Maybe they wer'nt.

[mat_the_cat]

Makes you wonder how the hell they were filled / bled at the factory when new.

 

They sometimes (often?) pump the cooling system down to a vacuum before filling - this checks for leaks if the fill operation is triggered by holding the vacuum level for a certain period of time. I remember a big fuss when I worked at QH where certain water pumps were all failing the vacuum test, yet passed our pressure test no problems. So ALL the vehicles on the production line had to be manually filled. That went down well* with Land Rover.

[DeeJay]

Mr B you have the patience of a saint with these ungrateful b'stards.

Dave.

[Bren]

I concur - your persistence is admirable.

 

Many of us would have weighed it in, and stood laughing as it was recycled into road signs.

[Parky]

Do,you have a Pela pump Mr B?

 

I saw somewhere on the MG Rover forums that there is a guide to bleeding the system using a Pela. Looks simple enough and seems to work well. I hope you get this sorted, it's a lovely looking thing and I am getting an urge for a ZR in my life

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yo Bludz! Check yo bad self one time. Safe!

 

Been back on this UNGRATEFUL SHITHEAP today. The sun was shining and I had high hopes. Set off up the garage with some K-series essentials:

 

 

A funnel to ram in the expansion tank, a bottle of SPEEDflush (caps courtesy of serial MGR mental case MGJohn) and a new expansion tank lid. Plan was to just let it run till it coughed all the air out, with the funnel letting it cough the air out without coughing the water out at the same time.

 

Unfortunately:

 

 

As the engine warmed up the level in the juice bottle just continued to rise and rise till eventually it just started chucking it out with the usual coffee percolator soundtrack from the expansion bottle. When the water level got quite high it got into a routine of popping a steady stream of little bubbles up from the expansion bottle. I had to face facts - the bastard was still pressurising the cooling system despite the new head gasket, inlet manifold gasket etc etc.

 

So fat I have replaced the head gasket, bolts, thermostat, water pump, radiator, IM gasket and various other gaskets. I inspected the head surface and it seemed smooth, uncoroded and free from warpage and checked the liner heights and they seemed OK too. I reassembled it with a new MLS gasket and head saver shim, torqued it all up carefully and the bastard is still pressurising the system and chucking its coolant out without ever having run properly. What to do? I could weigh it in but that would mean it had defeated me, and the odds would be against me if I ever took on another K-series HG, which id a task I would like to not be afraid of in future. Another gasket is a further £40 spend (plus no doubt other gaskets will need changing once I take it all apart again) and TBH whats the point in chucking another gasket on without fully understanding why this one hasn't worked?

 

I decided to rip it all to bits again.

 

 

Had a massive war getting the crank pulley off, despite the fact I'd only put on a month or so beforehand and had not gone mental with it. The flipping impact gun wouldn't touch it. Had to put it in gear, jam both brake discs and yark on at it with my big breaker bar. Give me a break FFS!!!

 

Everything else was pretty straightforward, much easier with the 1/4" drive socket set that I bought since the last time I dismantled this thing.

 

 

Yeah that looks good. To be fair that could be from the previous HG failure.

 

Drips of water running off this thing FFS.

 

Shortly:

 

 

Lets have a look at the head.

 

 

 

One thing I noticed was that this 'head saver shim' appeared to achieve piss all except flake off most of its surface coating all over the head surface. I struggle to imagine that could be the root cause of the problem but having this stuff flaking off in the key sealing areas round the fire rings can't help can it.

 

 

 

Looks like its been pretty much washed off by the hot oil. very poor.

 

The head surface cleaned up nicely with a wipe of a cloth!

 

 

I re-measured the liner heights as well. The thinnest feeler gauge I had was an 0.05mm (0.002") and along the rear side of the block i could get this in OK. Along the front side i struggled meaning that the liner height is less than 0.002 although i would say it is not under flush according to my calibrated fingertips. Spec is 0-0.005 although I suspect '0' is undesirable.

 

While I was looking at the head I wondered about the cam 'rack' which has a few oil leaks, which I could not be arsed fixing the first time round. The more effort I tip into the is thing the less acceptable a leaky cam box is, if I have spent so much time and effort on it and it still drips oil out its a poor effort innit. If I am going to have another crack at the gasket I ought to tackle these as well. 

 

 

 

 

Only problem with that is, to separate the cam rack from the head you have to remove these VVC actuators (which also leak a bit of oil actually, they need new gaskets). I took one off and immediately shat myself as I thought I had screwed up the synchronisation of the two VVC units. I might well have done actually, and need to check it carefully if/when this thing gets put back together. Got to do a bit more research on that, seemingly its not totally impossible to remove and refit these things at home but you need to know how to set them up afterwards which looks reasonably involved.

 

So what to do? I could follow Tiff's advice, jettison the MLS gasket and the shitty head saver shim and fit a Payen elastomer gasket which is seemingly a bit more tolerant of low/uneven liner heights. Thats £35 (assuming I re-use the bolts, which is dicey) plus I will need to get some VVC unit seals (£8 each) and some pukka cam box sealant, another tenner. I have already tipped quite a wad into this which of course I will never see again. 

 

Or I could just remove the new rad and water pump (They're bound to come in useful!!!) and weigh the damn thing in for  Ã‚£100. What does everyone think?

[Inspector Morose]

I can understand the quandary. I used to hate with a passion a mechanical problem that defied all attempts by me to solve but time has beaten me down to admitting defeat on occasions. Still pains me though. I'd call it quits on this one and move on. It's not like they're that thin on the ground. Then find a new project that you know the solution to and do that next to cheer yourself up!

[RobT]

A tricky one. If you do fix it, would it become your daily? Might be worth persevering with if so, otherwise just take a hammer to the ungrateful bastard!

[Pillock]

You already know you won't turn a profit on this but if you were only after the cashmoney you'd spend your days fitting 18" wheels to auction house Audi A3s and forging a service history before selling it on.

 

In short, get it going, don't let it beat you.