Rover Head Gasket Failure

[Driver]

I was pulling engines out of Chevys, Olds and Fords all by myself in my parents driveway before I had my drivers license for the mechanic next door who had a sideline rebuilding them. I'd then stab them back in and we'd get them running together. During the summer after i got my license I'd work in his shop he'd started to maintain by then. Mustangs, Camaro's Caddillacs, 442's, etc. I moved from a couple of lte 60's Chevelles to a Nova, to a Porsche 914, and then a succession of 67 and 68 Camaro's. The odd Toyota and Mitsubishi 4 cyl trucks I had I never had to do much besides brakes and the odd battery or alternator on. Regardless,  I have a friend who did extensive re-work on his LT1 after suffering head crawl on his iron block/aluminum combo. After the second blown gasket he wound up going back to a iron head (heavily reworked at certain F1 facility near Austria where he lives). You may have seen his 96 SS bombing around the AutoBahn out there some years back but I doubt it because you tend to not travel far. When a 4 door car blows past you at 170+ mph it leaves a big hole and he was trying to get it past the 200 mark but the best I ever heard was in the 180's.  The reverse flow cooling on the Lt1 didn't do much when he was running 17+ lbs of boost. So yeah that's second hand knowledge, just because it didn't happen to me directly doesn't mean it's not a valid point. I know I'm rusty as hell not having worked directly in that field for decades but christ sake everything's a fight with you. Chill out.

Rich, I know the Rover K was all aluminum, didn't remember from the few pictures I'd seen if applied to all though. Didn't mean to insinuate otherwise. for that matter, pretty dang sure all of the ecotec in other uses may be as well. Very few 4 cyl's these days are not. Unless there's a penchant for head gaskets to eat themselves it may be a isolated case, regardless, every locating dowel I've ever seen on a engine I've pulled apart, and the 4cyl's I can count on one hand, have all been iron/steel. Plastic? What we're they thinking?

Very interesting to think of though. Gasket crawl and dissimilar components... The modern LS series has a aluminum head mating to a composite (plastic) intake manifold.. wonder if they suffer dramatically from intake leaks or if the plastic expands pretty much the same rate as the other when the head start heating up.

[benyeats]

[quote="Driver"]
Very interesting to think of though. Gasket crawl and dissimilar components... The modern LS series has a aluminum head mating to a composite (plastic) intake manifold.. wonder if they suffer dramatically from intake leaks or if the plastic expands pretty much the same rate as the other when the head start heating up.
[/quote]

And the first ever mass market application of a plastic intake manifold was.........

Ben

[Driver]

Let me guess... a certain R-o-v-e-r  engine?...

[benyeats]

[quote="Guardian of the module"]

However,the most abundant reason head gaskets fail is due to the driver, by overheating (leaks,bad water pump,or thermostat,etc) and not catching it quick enough, or detonation from a poor tune,or corrosion from poor maintenance on the coolant system.(liquid cooled systems)

[/quote]

Correct, the K-series was designed for use in small shopping cars and consequently has a very small coolant capacity to allow it to rapidly reach high operating temperature, this was when the EU was expected to go for 'lean burn' technology instead of catalytic converters.  Anyway due to the small coolant capacity any leak quickly becomes serious and leads to the dreaded HGF.  The problem seems to be worse in the 1.8L version of the engine and made worse still when it is installed in big cars like the Landrover Freelander.

Ben

[Trigger]

I understand what you say Ben but this is a problem that almost all Lotus Elise owners with K-Series engines suffer from. Its not due to any coolant leak - and the lightness of the car shouldnt be causing the same issue that a Freelander would. Most Elises owners look after their cars really well - is it just the engines were never intended as a 'Sports' unit ?

[wisp]

Well I can say from all the recent research I've done and technical experts that are associated with Rover, that I've spoken to, the 3 main reasons for HGF on the K series are:
1. Thermal shock - especially in Atoms and the "other whatsit car" where the radiator is mounted further from the motor than it is in the original Rover cars. A different type of thermostat and it's location was introduced on later models.
2. Plastic dowels - originally fitted to prevent the dowel corroding with the aluminum. All later HG kits come with replacement steel dowels.
3. Single layer gasket - the fix for most of the industry is to fit the MLS gasket kit. One mechanic mentioned to me that a current Mazda model has changed to a single layer gasket and mechanical workshops are seeing lots of late model cars with HGF as a result.


did I hear some one from the land of "we're still imperial while the rest of the world is metric" and "we're still flogging CDMA in a GSM world" mutter something about another countries engineering stubbornness and their slowness at getting on the same page as the rest of the globe?

[rlucking]

I'll second wisp - I think the thermal shock is a big/major/whatever reason - the K series was originally designed to be very close coupled to the radiator, and works well when it is (freelander not withstanding!) and when in 1.1/1.4 guise.

The 1.8 was turbocharged in the 75 near the end (it was cheaper/as powerful as the KV6, and MGR was saving money), and I don't *believe* that has any particular problems...

Rich

[benyeats]

[quote="wisp"]
did I hear some one from the land of "we're still imperial while the rest of the world is metric" and "we're still flogging CDMA in a GSM world" mutter something about another countries engineering stubbornness and their slowness at getting on the same page as the rest of the globe?
[/quote]

3G networks are CDMA based so what's wrong with that

Ben

[Trigger]

Just for interests sake what do u mean exactly by Thermal shock and why does the distance to radiator make such a difference ?

Trigger

[benyeats]

[quote="Trigger"]
Just for interests sake what do u mean exactly by Thermal shock and why does the distance to radiator make such a difference ?

Trigger
[/quote]

Thermal shock is when a material goes from one temperature to another in a rapid timeframe. 

Lifted from an MGF website:

"The issues involved can be summarised as the following:

  1. The radiator has a larger cooling capacity than the engine requires (at least in northern Europe!).
  2. The radiator is located some pipe distance away from the engine.
  3. The thermostat is located on the intake to the water pump and therefore relies on the coolant by-pass to give it hot water to open.

These issues combine to cause the thermal cycling/ oscillations by the following mechanism:

    * Water returning from the radiator is so cold relative to the by-pass, it inappropriately closes the thermostat.
    * The engine in the meantime is still working hard and getting hotter.
    * However, the thermostat takes some time to open as the by-pass return coolant needs to warm the coolant at the thermostat, causing the engine to run too hot.
    * The thermostat then opens completely, dumping a bolus of cold water into the block/head.
    * Repeated cycles of hot/cold thermal cycling leads to the deterioration of the head gasket (at best!)."

[Trigger]

Ahh - thanks Ben - all makes sense now.

[wisp]

Ben, good one on the thermal shock  not so good on the 3G/CDMA statement.

I'm pretty sure 3G (3rd Generation) is a standard. The first network, in Japan, to achieve 3G was based as you say on a later version W-CDMA (the yanks are probably still CDMAone   ;) ). The W-CDMA networks are actually to 3GPP2 standard. Other networks to operate at 3G are based on EDGE (Enhanced GPRS) which is a GSM technology. These networks are 3GPP, not to be confused as being the same as 3GPP2.

[benyeats]

[quote="wisp"]
Ben, good one on the thermal shock  not so good on the 3G/CDMA statement.

I'm pretty sure 3G (3rd Generation) is a standard. The first network, in Japan, to achieve 3G was based as you say on a later version W-CDMA (the yanks are probably still CDMAone   ;) ). The W-CDMA networks are actually to 3GPP2 standard. Other networks to operate at 3G are based on EDGE (Enhanced GPRS) which is a GSM technology. These networks are 3GPP, not to be confused as being the same as 3GPP2.
[/quote]

I think you are being slightly pedantic, UMTS is generally accepted to refer to 3G services and is W-CDMA based.  EDGE is more like 2.5G as it is way slower than UMTS.

Ben

[NathanE]

[quote="benyeats"]
[quote="wisp"]
Ben, good one on the thermal shock  not so good on the 3G/CDMA statement.

I'm pretty sure 3G (3rd Generation) is a standard. The first network, in Japan, to achieve 3G was based as you say on a later version W-CDMA (the yanks are probably still CDMAone   ;) ). The W-CDMA networks are actually to 3GPP2 standard. Other networks to operate at 3G are based on EDGE (Enhanced GPRS) which is a GSM technology. These networks are 3GPP, not to be confused as being the same as 3GPP2.
[/quote]

I think you are being slightly pedantic, UMTS is generally accepted to refer to 3G services and is W-CDMA based.  EDGE is more like 2.5G as it is way slower than UMTS.

Ben
[/quote]

bag on your head?

[wisp]

[quote="benyeats"]
I think you are being slightly pedantic, UMTS is generally accepted to refer to 3G services and is W-CDMA based.  EDGE is more like 2.5G as it is way slower than UMTS.

Ben
[/quote]

Sorry, I made a slight mistake calling W-CDMA 3GPP2. It's not, it's also 3GPP/GSM. But what I meant still stands when I said the rest of the world was GSM and US was CDMA. By the US being CDMA not GSM I was referring to IS-95 (cdmaOne), 2G CDMA and CDMA2000. They are all 3GPP2. Not compatible and in competition with GSM. It's not the same network as the 3G W-CDMA(UMTS) that we know. In New Zealand we have both competing networks.