Zel's Motoring Adventures...Volvo, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - Updated 28/09.

[Zelandeth]

Okay, new plan.  

Spoken to three alternative options for having the head looked at, one told me they "don't fuck around with old shit" one wouldn't be able to look at it until at *least* the end of November, and one was going to call me back when the machinist was back but never did.  

To hell with this, it's getting cleaned up and so long as it's straight (and it did look to be when I took it off) it's just going back together with a new gasket.  

The cause of the failure definitely looked to just be old age and corrosion of the gasket itself, and the engine was running fairly well even as it was, so there wasn't anything to suggest underlying issues.  Just an ancient gasket that had done its time.

If for some reason I DO end up having to pull it apart again it's about an hour's work so hardly the end of the world.  I'd rather waste a couple of hours of time than twiddle my thumbs until the summer trying to get someone to look at the head.

If it does on closer inspection appear to be warped, well then I'll curse a lot and come up with a plan C I guess.

[auntiemaryscanary]

7 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Okay, new plan.  

Spoken to three alternative options for having the head looked at, one told me they "don't fuck around with old shit" one wouldn't be able to look at it until at *least* the end of November, and one was going to call me back when the machinist was back but never did.  

To hell with this, it's getting cleaned up and so long as it's straight (and it did look to be when I took it off) it's just going back together with a new gasket.  

The cause of the failure definitely looked to just be old age and corrosion of the gasket itself, and the engine was running fairly well even as it was, so there wasn't anything to suggest underlying issues.  Just an ancient gasket that had done its time.

If for some reason I DO end up having to pull it apart again it's about an hour's work so hardly the end of the world.  I'd rather waste a couple of hours of time than twiddle my thumbs until the summer trying to get someone to look at the head.

If it does on closer inspection appear to be warped, well then I'll curse a lot and come up with a plan C I guess.

If you get stuck there is a really old school engine machinists a mile from me: W.S. Bates, NG3 6GD, 0115 9604407, no website.

Two old blokes and an apprentice operating from a lean too joined to a house. Said they were busy but skimmed and rebuilt my Doblo head in a week (it was a thing of beauty when they'd done it - too nice to put back on a shitty 17 yr old vehicle!). They don't do small talk.

A light skim would be no problem for them. They'd certainly tell if it needed anything more/ was knackered.

Happy to be local liaison if you want to use them.

[Verysleepyboy]

On 21/09/2025 at 01:27, Zelandeth said:

Okay, new plan.  

Spoken to three alternative options for having the head looked at, one told me they "don't fuck around with old shit" one wouldn't be able to look at it until at *least* the end of November, and one was going to call me back when the machinist was back but never did.  

To hell with this, it's getting cleaned up and so long as it's straight (and it did look to be when I took it off) it's just going back together with a new gasket.  

The cause of the failure definitely looked to just be old age and corrosion of the gasket itself, and the engine was running fairly well even as it was, so there wasn't anything to suggest underlying issues.  Just an ancient gasket that had done its time.

If for some reason I DO end up having to pull it apart again it's about an hour's work so hardly the end of the world.  I'd rather waste a couple of hours of time than twiddle my thumbs until the summer trying to get someone to look at the head.

If it does on closer inspection appear to be warped, well then I'll curse a lot and come up with a plan C I guess.

In case you haven't already tried them - give these guys a call: http://www.knightengineservices.co.uk/

Fairly local to you and have a very good reputation

[Zelandeth]

Cheers for the replies, I'll keep those in mind.  

Just going to push ahead with reassembly for now though unless I find anything that specifically gives me reason to suspect deeper issues during the cleanup process.

The last one has been a really rough one and my mental energy for trying to deal with new to me companies is kinda of at all all time low.

[plasticvandan]

A sheet of glass and some wet and dry is probably good enough if it's not cracked or warped.

[Bear]

I made a right angle and laser setup to check the Twingo head for high/low spots and warping...

[Christine]

 

20 hours ago, Bear said:

I made a right angle and laser setup to check the Twingo head for high/low spots and warping...

Skim reading that,  i though you were going to say angle grinder....! 

[Brigsy]

Steel ruler across the face, if its flat straight back on.

I never skim unless absolutely necessary. Ultimately to avoid cr increase as that can bring more problems to the table.

[Zelandeth]

9 hours ago, Brigsy said:

Steel ruler across the face, if its flat straight back on.

I never skim unless absolutely necessary. Ultimately to avoid cr increase as that can bring more problems to the table.

Kind of my thinking.  I know there's a pocket in the head for the exhaust valve as well, and I don't know how much clearance there actually is there.  

Probably fine, but I'd rather not make problems for myself!

[Zelandeth]

Did finally kick myself into actually doing something with this today.

Whoever last had the inlet manifold off apparently decided that rather than replacing the gasket that they'd just use about five tubes of blue Hylomar and smoosh it together.

After what felt like an eternity I got most of this crap off.

It still needs a last going over, but it's getting there and the vast bulk of the crap is off.

There were two small coolant passages that were totally covered by the goop.

There is some pretty gnarly pitting in one area, but it's just in between two coolant passages so I don't think will cause any real issues.

Then need to do the same on the head and clean the underside of it as well.

[High Jetter]

If they did that to the inlet, what's the head like?

[Zelandeth]

53 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

If they did that to the inlet, what's the head like?

Thankfully (aside from where the inlet manifold attaches) it's just a grubby head.  Being a plain metal gasket a lot of the usual scrubbing is actually dodged as the gasket doesn't disintegrate as the head is removed like composite gaskets tend to.  So it's basically just scale around the waterways and carbon that needs scraping off.

[Zelandeth]

Okay, I think this lot is as clean as it's going to get.

In progress shot.

Head seems perfectly straight as best I can tell with the equipment I have.  

All of the coolant passages in both the head and manifold were blasted out with the pressure washer as the manifold in particular was quite full of crap.

There's still some staining around the edges of the combustion chambers but it feels perfectly smooth and uniform, so I think will be fine.

The block was a disgusting, slimy mess.

Not going to win any prizes, but it looks a lot better after I unloaded a few cans of degreaser at it and then attacked it with the pressure washer.

There was a tiny bit of buildup around the water passages, but this was far cleaner than the head, and I think is basically just discolouration rather than there being anything of substance left there.

I'm currently torn between going to BL day tomorrow or trying to push ahead with getting this back together given I've got some momentum going.

[Zelandeth]

Well I'd hoped to get this back together today, didn't quite end up getting that far.  Did make some progress though.

Biggest holdup is that given there are a few areas on the inlet manifold which are pitted, I do want to put a bit of sealant on there to help the gasket out (a *sensible* amount rather than the several tubes worth that went on last time around apparently).  Discovered that my previous tube has turned to a rock at some point in the last year. 

Figured it would be something Halfords would have...nope!  Maybe I can grab antifreeze while I'm there at least.  Not a chance, any modern flavour I like, but not a single bottle of the old blue stuff...Well that was a waste of my time, and some twat has scraped the passenger side mirror on the Volvo while I was parked.  Great.  I'll go grab both things from elsewhere tomorrow - an hour and a half round trip I could have done without.

In better news, with the jammed valve removed, turns out we do have perfectly decent flow through the heater core itself.

Not even all that much crap came out.

The valve however is a block of aluminium oxide and rust and is beyond saving.  They're not expensive so I've got a new one ordered.  There should have been an O-ring between the two parts of the connection which was completely missing...so I'm guessing it was purely sealed by scale and rust!

I've flushed as much of the crap out the block as I reasonably can without pulling out the (clearly pretty new) core plugs.

It's a bit awkward to do a really good job of as the only real low point would be the water pump - and given those studs apparently like to snap, I'm not pulling that off if I don't have to.  All of the hoses come off the top of it so removing those doesn't really help much.

I get the feeling that someone may well have flushed the worst out when the core plugs were changed, given that aside from rusty coloured water for the first minute or so nothing really came out.  I was expecting to have to keep unplugging the drain tap.

I hadn't noticed the "40" stencilled into the side of the block before.  Anyone know if that means anything?

Elsewhere someone had asked what state the bores are in.  

This camera really doesn't enjoy stuff like this.

Looks good to me, no wear lip I can feel, and you can just about still see cross hatching in the right light in person .  Nothing ringing any alarm bells for me anyway.  Not that I really expected there to be.  The engine seemed to be running okay and didn't have excessive amounts of blowby or smoke, so really wasn't looking for any issues there.