Yesterday I got to drive the Rover home. It's been a long three weeks without it, that's for sure, but with Mike having a lot of other work on and me not being able to help with this particular job I just had to wait. All in, it cost around £250 which is cheap when compared against booking it in at a garage which would have set me back somewhere in the region of £700 locally which I simply couldn't afford (and probably would have made me replace the car, in all honesty).
It wasn't just the head getting done. Shortly before the head gasket let go I had acquired a second-hand metal thermostat housing for very little which I hoped would cure the leaking plastic one the car has been afflicted with all the while I've had it. Mike kindly offered to do this at the same time as the head work. Mike was also generous enough to take some pictures as he went along so I could do this update on the work.
The first job was to dismantle the thermostat housing which was in pretty good shape, thankfully. It was listed as being from a 1.4 K series engine but not which model of vehicle, it looked to have all the holes where I needed them to be so it was deemed better than what was currently on the car.
Then... there was a problem. So, it turns out there's different fittings for different housings. I did not know this, I had assumed - perhaps foolishly - they were the same across the range.
The coolant hose on my car is not perfect so I wasn't too alarmed when Mike modified it to make the new housing fit.
He did a lovely job cleaning the housing up and fitting it with the new thermostat. As you can see, we now have two pipes with flanges that won't fit together.
Never fear, jubilees and radiator hose is here! You can't see any of this at all when the inlet manifold is fitted and it has proven to be a very successful leak cure as I no longer have any loss of coolant down the back of the engine. Hoorah! In this shot you can also see the block face before anything was cleaned up. With the head and inlet manifold fitted it's much harder to get the thermostat housing in place.
The head received a 4 thou skim, was pressure tested and had one of the spark plug holes fitted with a helicoil to resolve the missing thread (which is why it spat a plug out back in February). The head and cam carrier both received a thorough clean and the block, before anything was refitted, was also cleaned thoroughly. Then the new MLS gasket and head saver shim along with some Wellseal was all refitted in the order and on the advice of another friend (hi, Adam!) who rebuilds K series for a living. We had thought the dowels were metal but it turns out they were plastic. The metal ones in the kit were fitted in their stead. So this picture, I think, is the head gasket on the block.
And this would be the lovely clean head fitted to the lovely clean block. In addition to the head gasket and a head-save shim, all the head bolts and camshaft seals were replaced
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Camshafts and cam carrier fitted. There was sign of some oil starvation beginning, I am told, because some of the oil ways were a bit gunged up. This is hardly surprising really, the oil that I only changed last year and about 5,000 miles ago was already coal black when it came out. Hopefully having all this work done will prevent any serious oil starvation issues manifesting.
Then everything was buttoned up. A new inlet manifold gasket was fitted along with the new alternator belt that we hadn't done when the cambelt was done.
Happily, once everything was plugged in, the car didn't play silly buggers with the key fob and started with no bother. With that done, oil and coolant were both treated to a flush which the coolant system didn't really need but the oil very definitely did; the flushing oil went in nearly clear and came out jet black. After that, fresh coolant and oil were put in - 2 oil filters used for that, one for the flush, one for the new oil - and a little patience was employed to get a stubborn air lock out of the coolant system again. At one point when the oil was drained it looked just like a brain in the drain pan.
With everything done that could be I took the car for a short test drive around the block near the unit just to make sure nothing was going to go seriously wrong too far from home or the unit, gave everything a check and then drove it home. The coolant system now reliably pressurises, I get no water vapour or just water out of the back box, the engine is very, very quiet and the car drives much smoother.
I suspect the head had been on the way out for some time because the car had started feeling sluggish. Nothing ever manifested and a compression and gas test revealed nothing amiss, just one of those where you have to keep going until something breaks to show you what the problem is. I'm being very gently-gently this week while I listen for new noises and keep a nose out for any new smells. So far, so good, but it's only been 20 miles. The one thing that is nice is being back behind the wheel of it again, I've missed driving this car very much and I've missed the independence it offers me.