Practically Classics Forum

It's good to see that window regulators made of cheese aren't limited to Renault Clios. I have had to change at least 4 in 3 different generations of car over the years.

Regulators can at least be repaired. With practice I bet I could get quite good at it so I won't be throwing the old one away, I'll repair it and keep it for when the ones on the cars inevitably fail.
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The sun is shining, it's a lovely autumn day so I got on with probably the most important job on the HLS and decided it was high time to get the head off. After consulting the book and people with experience I came to the conclusion it should be a straight forward job.

The whole thing came apart very easily. No sheared bolts, only one skinned knuckle and I didn't have need to swear at the car or my own ineptitude once. This tells me I must have done something wrong because old car jobs never go that smoothly.

I'm still trying to figure out why, in addition to the proper gasket, there's silicone around the exhaust manifold. It's not going to work as a sealant in this application and I can't see the sense of it.


Because of the state of the threads on the downpipe clamp bolts I decided to leave the exhaust manifold attached to the car rather than the head and risk shearing bolts, this gambit paid off and once all the various bits and bobs were removed the head was jiggled until the seal with the block broke and it lifted free without hassle. The head bolts weren't seized or corroded, it was all very straightforward and not at all what I was expecting. No apparent damaged to the piston faces but very heavy carbon deposits just like on the plugs when they were first removed hinting I think at very rich running.


Water channels are a bit orangey and have silicone in them on the end the oil rather than the steam was leaking from. There was no silicone sealing the head gasket to the block or head so I'm wondering where this silicone has been put originally for it to get into the water channels.


With the head off you can see how the water channels have become almost completely blocked on the left of this picture, this is the side the steam was pouring out of. The right hand side showed that oil had got between the gasket and the block rather than the head and while the gasket shows no real sign of damage and was well sealed to the head, it was being bypassed by water and oil. I'm not sure why half the valves are white, they're covered in what looks like a white version of carbon deposit.


The only bolt that had any issues was this one from the exhaust manifold which has a partially stripped thread, none of the other bolts had any damage at all, or rust, or signs of being problematic.


The pipe to the lower left has some corrosion damage but not enough to worry me when it comes to refitting everything, I think that's one of the heater exchange pipe judging by where the rubber pipe that attaches to it disappears into the bulkhead. Other than that, it all looks pretty good.


I don't know what this goop is. Same side as the silicone blobs in the water channels in the block but it's sort of squidgy like soggy pastry rather than having the texture of silicone. It's only in one end of the engine too and only in the waterways.


So I think there's going to be a fair amount of crud in the waterways of the engine which will need cleaning out, ideas welcome on that one. There's very little indication of water to oil contamination with the only mayonnaise being on the stem of one of the head bolts and it was so minor it could have been caused just by condensation.

Next step is to check the head with the metal rule before deciding whether or not to send that off for a skim and then I guess I'll be stripping down and cleaning up the head before deciding what else needs attention in the engine bay. My gut instinct is that the radiator is blocked and the water pump might be shot. I planned to replace the water pump when I did the timing belt as the timing belt on the car was cracked and useless and a new water pump is about £10-15.

Any thoughts on what you think might be wrong from these pictures would be welcome, this is new territory for me so I'll be learning as I go along.

I'm a bit sadistic in that I quite like engine work. There is something immensely satisfying about taking one apart and putting it back together again.

I suspect the silicon type stuff is some form of radweld / kseal product that someone put in to try and get a few more miles out of the engine. As you have got some lumps of it out you can see if it dissolves in anything. I don't know what it is so I can't suggest anything but I would start with Phosphoric acid (cheap cola).

This is going to be my first attempt at any sort of engine rebuilding, I'm a bit nervous about getting things wrong but I've learned that if you approach things methodically and make lots of photographic reference and notes you can generally get a job done without coming unstuck too badly. My brother said that the red stuff looked exactly like Radweld too, he's seen a fair number of engines that have had magic potions put through them and it wouldn't surprise me if that's the case with this one. I think the radiator is blocked and/or leaking so I'll have to flush that out too. At least I have all the parts to do the top end rebuild and there's no steps, scores or unhealthy marks on the bores in the bottom end so I think this engine is repairable and should run lovely once it's all cleaned up.

If it's had Radweld in, then the radiator is probably blocked and the heater matrix too. It's something I would only use in dire emergency.

It's not congealed egg white is it? Common bodge back in the day to seal radiators etc.

As for the sealant on the exhaust manifold, as it's held on by bolts, I would expect it was used to hold the gasket in place while the manifold bolts were refitted probably.

Previous owner suggested egg white too, it makes a lot of sense and the consistency is right for it. Horrible, at any rate. I reckon there will be much flushing of coolant systems to get this all sorted but I'm up for the challenge.
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A bit more progress tonight, but this is it for now. Have bought some core plugs so I've a full set of those arriving in a few days. I'm planning to completely strip and rebuild this head but it looks like I'm going to need a cam locking tool to keep the camshaft in the correct place for some reason, I don't entirely understand this bit of proceedings beyond it apparently preventing me from smashing all the valves to bits against the pistons.

Spent some time scraping and scrubbing and wiping the thick layer of oil off the head so I could handle it without getting black greb on my hands and then on everything else. I'm not even sure how the engine has got so covered in oil, there's no obvious location it's been coming from, it's like someone has just sprayed the head all over with oil. Still, I'm happy enough with it so far and it's not taken a huge amount of time or effort to get looking this clean. The corrosion on the rocker cover came off very easily, it's made things look a world better to my untrained eye.




While I was shopping for core plugs and other potential engine bits, Dad had got all interested and by the time I came back downstairs he'd entirely decoked the face of the valves and the head. He'd also removed the few remnants of the head gasket that were glued to the face of the head leaving me to give everything a wipe over with some white spirit to clean the last of the residue off all the surfaces.


We checked the head with the straight rule we bought for the job and there's not a hint of warping in the face at all no matter which direction we put the rule across the head which is very, very reassuring.

Last job tonight was to pop out the silicone gumming up the failed core plug in the side of the head. There's two small holes in the core plug and the silicone hasn't sealed them up, it just has too corresponding holes in its surface. It's entirely possible that this failed core plug is the root of all the other problems and bodges on the engine where trying to seal it instead of replacing it has gummed everything else up.


There's no signs of pitting, cracks, or warping on the head at all, the whole thing looks very, very healthy. Dad is of the opinion we can probably just put it back on the car as is, but I think I'd rather get it tested first so I know it'll be good when it goes back on. So far I've spent about £25 on the engine. I need to spend another £40-60 to get the battery, points, spark plugs and water pump to get it all up and running again and that should, hopefully, be it.

TBH I'd not bother with a cam locking tool, not on an O series. If the bottom end is timed up correctly, the pistons will be low enough to miss any valve movement should you need to turn the camshaft. If that is timed up as close as so it stays put, (no springs pushing cam round) then on refitting, just line marks up, slip belt on. It's a nice simple job timing and fitting belt.

It also appears you were lucky, and didn't have an over eager ape tighten spark plugs up! Someone had on mine, meaning they were screwed so far down into the head a socket would no longer fit on snug enough to undo them, end result was 4 snapped plugs. Ended up having to smash the ceramic out to get an easyout in there to wind them out, so remember, they're taper fit and don't need to be over tightened

The spark plugs might not have had a primate applied to them, but at some point the cam sprocket has. For some reason the camp sprocket is on the wrong way around so the dimple you're supposed to line up the timing with is on the wrong face which means you have to turn things around in your head for a best guess at top dead centre, not a thing I could work around really. What has struck me is how easy this engine seems to be to work on, compared to some jobs I've tackled it's almost a joy.

Good work - you must be pleased with the progress.

Isn't it funny how your eye sometimes gets drawn to something in the background of the photos - in this case the newspaper - I saw a mention of Derbyshire and wondered where you lived - I'm in Derby and Terry G isn't far away at Rocester

Mike