Dear all,
I've finally admitted it, I have a engine problems. Here's the history (1500
Dolomite engine in 1200 Herald). Please
bear with me if you will:
Overheating - found a dodgy thermostat and replaced it. Fitted a temp gauge.
Still overheating - put it down to an uncalibrated temp gauge
Loosing coolant - fixed small leaks in pipes and thermostat gasket
Still loosing coolant, now as steam through rad overflow pipe - replaced rad
cap (getting hopeful here)
Still overheating and loosing coolant - decided to stop faffing about and look
at it properly. Checked compression
valves 1 and 4 about 160, valves 2 and 3 about 100. Exhaust more smokey than
normal when driving above 65mph.
At this point I decided the head gasket was blown (overheating, steam through
overflow, bad localised
compression) There was no evidence of water in the oil from the dipstick but
there was a lot of 'Mr Wippy'
emulsified oil in the rocker cover.
This is where I get depressed. Having put it all back together the compression
is just the same (possibly even
worse on valve 2) and now she won't even start.
The head was perfectly cleaned, valves all looked OK, clearances checked, no
evidence of seizure. I've gone
through the whole ignition system and can't find anything wrong. The only
irregularity I can find is that the first carb
seems to get a lot of petrol (flooding?) whereas the second is just damp with
it. No pipe blockages.
Has anyone any advice? Warped head? Sorry to be verbose but I'm sure you know
what its like - a lovely autumnal
weekend spent inside the bonnet to no avail. Makes you want to give up and buy
a moped.
Ben
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