Last month during the short thread about Stag engines, Tom Jell
mentioned he was on the 4th engine in his Stag. As another Stag
owner I'm curious about what I have to look forward to. I
suspect the other Stag owners would like a respite from the
antics of the more mundane members of the family. So Tom, could
you describe what happened that lead to each rebuild?
In my case , it started off with an engine that had a obvious
ticking sound that to most observers was a valve/tappet problem.
Well, after many expensive and fruitless attempts to find the
source of the ticking, a corroded cylinder wall was discovered --
quite by accident, for the professional efforts at eliminating
the ticking created problems that dwarfed this original source of
concern. The corroded area on the cylinder wall was crescent
shaped -- just like you would get if a fluid had not quite
covered the piston. It would seem that coolant had been left to
stand in the cylinder after a blown head gasket. The corrosion
was deep enough to require resleeving. When I started to take
the engine apart, one of the timing chain tensioners was so far
out it was cocked down at a 45 deg angle. I feel a very dramatic
demise to engine #1 was only seconds away.
Tom, what's the variance on your 35K miles/engine average?
Maybe I should think of selling in about 30K miles.
-- Richard Hall
|