Further to discovering that my head gasket is fehecked, a workmate told me today about a tame Rover mechanic who works in a main dealer and takes on work in the evenings. Said workmate told me that yer man did the head gasket on his Rover 25 for £80 including parts. Obviously getting a 'very good deal' on the parts.......ahem........

So, I phoned him, and enquired about him doing my car - parts and head check/skim will virtually cost me £80.

The next bit confused me - wouldn't give me any indication whatsoever as to how much he would take for the job - said the head would have to be sent away for checking, fair enough. Oh, and he asked me to run the car up to him while he 'had a look' at it.
Correct me if I'm wrong - you don't take risks with a dodgy head gasket, especially on a K series. You get it fixed, end of story.

A bit confused, but not hugely upset. Definitely doing it myself - once I have the head off, I have arranged for my mentor to take the head to a buddy of his to check/skim after which he'll get in about the ports with his grinding stones and polishing kit.
I'll refit the head after all that has been done.
I'm certainly getting to know this little car

[Edited on 6/6/05 by zilspeed]

last time i did one the head bolts were about £70 on their own

http://sapmotorparts.com/shop/english/ list them for £32+vat

Dont forget that when you undo the bolts they go all the way through the engine....

And yes the bolts are a tad expensive. One of my mates cambelts went, and he rebuilt the engine himself. Just got someone to check the head surface. Bit of a pain to put back together and took him a while. Other than that, not too bad

David

Head bolts on ebay - £25 for a set of ten.

Not too bad

At least I get to match the head and inlet manifold - if nothing else - while I'm in this far. Might add 1bhp

ive just got rid of a MKIII toyota supra, where every other forum post was about blown head gaskets... obviously the 7MGTE has some stiff competition from the rover K as to which one blows itsself up the most!

Twin TURBO??

what the hello do you want??/

its more an blower then an engine??isn't it??

The correct standard head gasket is 16 pounds from Partco.
Bolts aren't normally required on these engines, the official factory line is/was they can be reused 3 times there is a prodecure in the workshop manual for checking if they are OK.
A skim is only required if the head is either warped through gross over heating or more likely has pitting corrosion around the bores through use of cheap or expired antifreeeze.

Normally any leakage of water into the oil and vice versa is down to the silicone beads that seal the waterways from the oilways leaking.

These engines are actually very easy to work on but the workshop manual procedures must be followed to he letter.

One other thing --- might be worth find a spare head even a scrap one --- the valve collets are tiny and easy to misplace and it is very hard to obtain new replacements.

It's worth getting an uprated head gasket IMO...DVA power supply them for about £32. they're a bit thicker and also come with the steel dowels to replace the sh*tty plastic standard ones (on earlier engines)

Certainly Sh*t myself re-using the head bolts.....they're bloody thin...and you torque 'em up a hell of a way!

Also..make sure you don't move the bottom end without the head bolts in place!

Zil u have U2U...

Minor update.

Cam locking tool and E12 female torx tool arrived yesterday. Head off this morning.

Clear evidence of a running decoke happening in no. 4 cylinder.
Rescued attachment Head Off.JPG

Oh, and here's the head gasket. Two failure evident around no.4, but it's knackered everywhere else as well.

Good news as well though. Spec of headbolts is that they all have to show a max. of 97mm standing proud of the block when screwed in finger tight. Mine are all sub 90mm.
Rescued attachment Fecked HGasket.JPG

Its suprising how much those bolts stretch when you torque them up...

Hope that manual came in handy

Definitely came in handy - all those little tips help. Cheers

Only one thing has gone wrong so far. The allen bolt holding on the timing belt tensioner has been Gorillad on to 3500lb/ft of torque.
It didn't stop me getting the head off - just took the cam pulleys off, but I'll need it fixed before I can put it all back together again.

I reckon a 'small' amount of local heat might help getting it off. That and a big f*^*^ing hammer

I now have the latest official Rover manual for the K series a lot of interesting stuff in it

Looking at the head gasket it looks like the antifreeze has not been changed regularly.

Re cam belt tensioner try an impact tool on it --- the type you hit with a hammer no the pneumatic or electric kind, sometimes the shock will jar the screw free.

If an impact driver fails to shift the tensioner bolt it may be possible to weld on a nut ? the heat from welding will help free the bolt and also being able to get a socket on will help

Hi John.

I have a compression treter here if you like and also i am sure that i can find my 1/2 inch drive torqe wrench too. Please let me know if you are interested.

Cheers

Brian

The initial torque setting is so low it really needs a low range 3/8" drive torque wrench.

Yeah - I knew that bit.

20n/m of torque.

I'm still cleaning and examining the head to establish whether or not it'll be going back on or not...

Get local engineers to pressure test then skim every time on an ally head. ITS WORTH IT.