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Rover Metro 111 farting noises & history lesson


N Dentressangle

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Started fixing this yesterday. There are a couple of good pages out there:

http://britpics.co.uk/rover100/page2.php

I stripped it down first to remove the cambelt. I'll be replacing the cambelt and tensioner anyway, so it seemed to make sense to start the job here. All is pretty much the same way as the HBOL describes it, although when you mostly work on Land Rovers it comes as a bit of a surprise to find the engine seems to be mostly built of dozens of M6 8mm head bolts.

Nut on the crankshaft yielded to my favourite breaker bar, with the help of Mrs D's foot on the brake pedal and the car in 5th.

Took a while to get to this point, partly because I'm lazy but also because I'm not used to working on modern crap with millions of hoses, wires, bits of plastic and tiny bolts:

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With the tensioner unbolted and gone I moved over to the HG section of the HBOL and merrily disconnected everything from the exhaust and inlet manifolds. You can remove the head leaving these attached, so that's what I did. I'm not sure how much work it actually saved - the stupid pointless stay brackets under the inlet manifold were a cunt to get at and will probably be a cunt to reattach, and the type of multiplug BL use on these things is also a piece of arse.

Anyway, eventually I got through to the exciting bit and undid the head bolts using the reverse tightening order, and pulled the bugger's head off:

X7L1vav.jpg

I've cleaned it up a bit for this shot, but it all looks OK to me. The liners are standing slightly proud of the block, as they should, and a good wipe over should see it fit for duty again:

adbM1DA.jpg

Moving on to the gasket itself, it's hard to see where the failure actually was:

OPJodxR.jpg

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However, the coolant did come out pretty clean - I was expecting Amoco Cadiz quantities of oil plus a few dying puffins in it - so I suspect the few globs of oil in the expansion tank were the beginnings of a weep and eventual more severe failure. Maybe some of you here have more K series OMGHGF experience than me?

The head looks in decent shape too:

B2ofHVI.jpg

again with nowhere obvious where leaks had occurred. The dowels on the other hand were plastic, and not the tightest fit in the block. The engine had never catastrophically overheated either, although that was a possibility I was aiming to dodge by biting the bullet on this job now. Maybe it's simply 25 years of use causing hardening and eventual weepage of the neoprene part of the HG?

So, my current plan is to rebuild without skimming, in accordance with the advice here:

https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/pages/choosing-the-correct-k-series-head-gasket-kit

The fire rings on the head have made no indentation, and the liners are sitting nice and proud so I think it should be good to go as it is. I bought all the bits from the lovely people at the website above:

5GcLlKB.jpg

New improved OEM-Q Elastomer gasket (can't use the flash MLS ones on the 8v, apparently) plus new head bolts, water pump and thermostat. Oh yes, the thermostat. WTF were BL thinking putting the thermostat there?

So, all criticism n comments welcome, as well as advice and insults for what I've probably fucked up.

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btw, the size 12 reverse torx head bolts looked set to cause me some issues. I had the reverse torx sockets for a Saab NG900 I had years ago, but that size was 3/8" drive. My low range torque wrench is 1/4" drive. I've got a few different adapters, but nothing to go up from 1/4" to 3/8".

Step forward https://www.grfasteners.com/ who supplied the rather wonderful bits of magic below:

4036548871228.png?quality=80&bg-color=25

https://www.dwtoolshop.com/gedore-carolus-2907720-adaptor-and-extension-set-6in2?gclid=CjwKCAjwsMzzBRACEiwAx4lLG0YcGhIOkvpp1fDf-uC_HzY_uu13tyqL0Bxatd5QvM_-LDWlGSAfjhoCS4oQAvD_BwE

Sorted. For ever!

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So, off we go with more fun and laughter, courtesy of your friends at Austin Rover.

First off, the thermostat. I repeat, in what world is this a good place for the thermostat housing?

KEZLQWY.jpg

A fucking stupid one, that's what. And what kind of fuckwits decide to have the housing simply push fit with an O ring into the back of the water pump on one side and the top hose on the other? Fuckwits who wanted to be signing on soon, I suppose. Well, they got their wish.

Anyway, here's the oily muck inside the (plastic - wtf?) thermostat housing:

2PBbbah.jpg

and the shitty old thermostat, which doesn't actually seem to have a little failsafe hole. Weird. Anyway, it's in the bin now:

wRbnuAW.jpg

With that all sorted and refitted, I got stuck into the water pump:

Lh5UtAb.jpg

Millions of stupidly small bolts later, it looks like this:

 

l2ugb2B.jpg

This car has definitely had a cambelt, but for some reason they didn't do the waterpump at the same time. It's all pretty caked up with shit around the facing. The pump looks OK and spins fine, and didn't seem to leak:

KkEyRci.jpg

but then given the propensity of these things to shit their cooling systems, I reckon it's worth replacing the lot once you're in there.

Cup of tea time now (I said I was lazy), then we'll get the pump back in and start work on re-fitting the head! Woohoo!!!

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Good work! I love and also am slightly anxious whenever I have a car with the k series.
 

I do like how they pushed certain concepts quite far. Ok a gulf apart but a semi F1 style approach to the warm up cycle and cooling.  a light power unit. Fast warm up so don’t have much coolant beyond what is essential and minimal excess. Like on an F1 car it doesn’t need an awful lot for circumstances to go out of spec and you have a problem with cooling. This is also probably one of the only times a metro has been compared with an F1 car ?

 

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1 minute ago, HMC said:

This is also probably one of the only times a metro has been compared with an F1 car ?

 

There's a great article on the K series here - https://www.aronline.co.uk/engines/k-series-engine/ - I'm a big fan of them.

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1 hour ago, N Dentressangle said:

And what kind of fuckwits decide to have the housing simply push fit with an O ring into the back of the water pump on one side and the top hose on the other

I'm really hopeful this is what is leaking on mine. I bet it bloody isn't. Maybe I should actually have a look.

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12 minutes ago, egg said:

I'm really hopeful this is what is leaking on mine. I bet it bloody isn't. Maybe I should actually have a look.

If it is, make life easier for yourself and remove the inlet manifold so you can get to it properly. The inlet manifold gasket on the 16v is prone to water leaks anyway, so you might kill 2 birds with one lot of vicious swearing

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I actually agree - conceptually the K is a nice little thing, and much smoother than the wheezy grumbling A series it replaced.

But BL's problem was always money, and not enough development + heavy costcutting pressure = crap like the K series cooling system. In hindsight they would have been better to just resurrect the OHC A series project. Ford managed for many profitable years using dated but reliable tech, wrapped in pretty bodyshells.

Anyway, all faces n bolts etc cleaned up and new waterpump with new seal fitted (you can just see the flattened old one embedded in its groove on the old pump), and all torqued up to the correct 10nm:

0LxWjcf.jpg

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2 hours ago, Skut said:

Could always fit a 82 degree PRT from a Freelander to replace the inlet stat. Works flawless on my 16v.

IMG_20191015_155554.thumb.jpg.2ce3cdfc10fb30503fe26b88205f36ff.jpg

Is that suitable for all the k series family/ how did you adapt the existing hosework? I’ve got a 114 and a 45 1.6 so wondering about options there.

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3 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

WHats the advantage of this stat over the usual one on the back side of the water pump?

Thanks mr B for the k series capers link. 40 pages, that’s my evening rather than the pub basically.

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4 hours ago, HMC said:

Is that suitable for all the k series family/ how did you adapt the existing hosework? I’ve got a 114 and a 45 1.6 so wondering about options there.

I followed on online guide off MGRover. Org which is fine if you don't want to use the stock airbox ever again. As I did it became a bit of a plumbers nightmare as it sits between the starter motor, the cooling fan and below the stock airbox. It should work on all K series as was designed for Freelander and 88 degree versions were used on 1.8t 75 and the TF. I can PM in more detail if you want. 

IMG_20191015_165228.thumb.jpg.c4b7977cd10a73ad79bcfef878e1745b.jpg

IMG_20191015_164827.thumb.jpg.f7782e6d879078e0f7f0a270633725bd.jpg

2 hours ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

WHats the advantage of this stat over the usual one on the back side of the water pump?

In theory as its on the outlet it 'sees' temperature change more quickly and releases coolant accordingly managing temperature gradients better. As its the dark grey Freelander version it starts to open at 82 degrees as opposed to the usual 88, and it reacts to pressure as well in case you floor it when cold. 

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6 hours ago, cobblers said:

About 15 more jubilee clips to leak and/or pop off

I looked at using a PRT when I did our MGZR.  I seem to recall a lot of the theory about K Series HGF was 'thermal shock' caused by the small amount of coolant in the engine getting very hot (very quickly, rapid warm up, lower emissions and economy theory) and then being hit with cold coolant.  

Anyway, when I pulled the head of, I found a MLS gasket that had rusted through.  I could see that coolant had been escaping into a cylinder (no oil and water mixing when yoof finished it off on the M4 at full chat ).  I think K Seal or some shiz had just about been holding it together.

i was in experiment mode, so I cleaned block and head very well, with wet n dry 1000 grit, checked the head for level with a stratight edge, threw an new BG Gaskets elastomer gasket on, with new exhaust and inlet manifold gaskets.  

I Re-used the stretch bolts, but ground their tips off to prevent any bottoming out.  That was a bit nerve racking cos I had no clue as to how many times they had been re-used.

that was 50k miles ago, been right as rain ever since

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Gotta be honest that external stat looks like a right bodge to me, as cobblers says its a load more pipes to split and jubilees to fail. As for 82 vs 88 deg, I can't think of a practical reason why 82 is 'better' than 88, if the cooling system is all behaving itself it could regulate to any temp setting, I would rather have 88 myself!!! I suppose a few degrees lower operating temp might give you an extra 30 secs before damage gets done if the impeller drops off the water pump or something.

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4 minutes ago, Isaac Hunt said:

I cleaned block and head very well, with wet n dry 1000 grit,

Is that the best way to clean it all up, do we think? I've got a brass wire brush on the cordless drill, if that's not too brutal...

Herr Kugelsack, I'm not even halfway through your tales of woe, but learning plenty about the oily diarrhea machine, so thanks for recording your sufferings so diligently.

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5 hours ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Gotta be honest that external stat looks like a right bodge to me, as cobblers says its a load more pipes to split and jubilees to fail. As for 82 vs 88 deg, I can't think of a practical reason why 82 is 'better' than 88, if the cooling system is all behaving itself it could regulate to any temp setting, I would rather have 88 myself!!! I suppose a few degrees lower operating temp might give you an extra 30 secs before damage gets done if the impeller drops off the water pump or something.

Thanks - maybe a better use of my time would be to drill some holes in the original stat or do a second completely unnecessary head gasket change for the sake of a rubber grommet. 

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