Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Oh there's a 99.99997% chance that the head will be coming off, I'm under no illusions otherwise. I'm just not going that far until the gasket set has arrived - and it's not a million degrees outside as that's a job I really don't want to be doing in 20 minute bursts, I want to get in there and just get it done.

Given that the first major step to getting the head off is removing the inlet manifold, there's no harm in taking a peek in there to see if we do just have something daft like something physically stuck in the valve that we might be able to extract, I've seen stranger things happen. For the sake of ten minutes investigation it's worth a look.

These engines aren't £50 any more either, the days of replacement making way more sense than rebuild or repair are long gone. They're not disposable any more! Sure there are bargains still to be found locally if you know where to look/who to talk to, but the likes of eBay aren't likely to be the place to look. Also really wouldn't want to be swapping it for a 3.9 - not with how much more of a loading insurers put on anything vaguely resembling a performance modification these days. Our insurance is already daft enough because we're in a band E post code (which is why the Partner is the best part of £700 a year). This is only £170 a year and I'd rather keep it that way!

So long as there's no sign of bottom end issues once the head is off I don't think there's much reason to consider pulling the engine - access to it is just fine in situ. Plus just the same as back when I had the Mercedes with Schrodinger's engine if I did pull it I have nowhere to practically work on it when it's out of the car aside from the middle of the front lawn which I'm sure the neighbours would love. I'd also need to buy several tools that I don't have, nor really have room to properly store.

I really don't want this to snowball any more than it has to either!

I do find myself wondering if someone had just done an engine swap here and it was discovering that this one didn't run on all eight cylinders was what ended up with this car getting parked up in the first place.

[Zelandeth]

Definitely think we have something stuck in the seat on no 5 intake valve. When opening any of the others manually, they close with a nice sharp "clack" - whereas that one sounds decidedly dull when it stops. Sadly the "whack it with a mallet a bunch of times" treatment didn't do anything. Was worth a shot. It was notable when I had the intake duct to the carbs of that you can definitely hear the miss as a really rather loud pulse through the intake - so I'm increasingly convinced that is where our problem lays. Exactly what form that problem is in remains to be seen. Not really much else to do there until the gasket set arrives. I don't want to start taking things to bits until I've got everything I need to reassemble it as I'd rather not immobilise the car for any longer than I can avoid.

Wonder how much I added to the value today by giving the interior a quick clean? It wasn't really bad in terms of grime, but was really dusty and full of cobwebs, definitely looks better now.







I noticed while I was cleaning down by the radio that I could hear ticking - the clock has randomly decided to come back to life. I can't claim any credit for that whatsoever, it just decided to start working again.



Given that the environment in a car is about the worst case scenario for a mechanical clock to exist in I'm quite surprised it's going again to be honest.

[Gibbo2286]

Three possible things come to mind, the valve has had a coming together with the piston crown and is bent, the valve seat ring has come out of place (Assuming that's an alloy head) and .............some diy fitter has dropped a points screw down the intake whilst servicing and it's wedged in the valve seat (actually had one like that on a Jag.)

[Zelandeth]

It would actually be quite hard to drop something into the intake on this unless things were pretty well stripped down, thanks to the intake being basically the highest point in the engine bay - SU carbs are good at trapping errant screws too.

Though obviously if the carbs are off, intake manifold off etc it's a different story. Plus we've all seen how unlikely places a dropped screw can go. I still think bouncing off the slam panel and managing to go down a dipstick tube has to be the wackiest one I've personally heard of.

A dropped seat is probably my number one suspect at this point. The heads are definitely alloy (think the whole engine is actually), as it something had gone so horribly awry with the timing to allow valves and pistons to meet we'd have seen other carnage. Though of course not impossible it's happened, stretched timing chains are a known issue on these engines.

[CitroJim]

Yep, engine is all alloy

[Zelandeth]

Yep, engine is all alloy

Thought so. Pretty sure I remember one of the claims to fame of this power unit being that it was only barely heavier than the two litre four cylinder which was the main workhorse of the range at the time.

[CitroJim]

Yep, engine is all alloy

Thought so. Pretty sure I remember one of the claims to fame of this power unit being that it was only barely heavier than the two litre four cylinder which was the main workhorse of the range at the time.

Indeed yes, by the standards back then it was remarkably light... A Buick design - one they let Rover have as the thought of an all-aluminium V8 was just just too way-out for the average Yank who then firmly believed - and many maybe still do - that the ONLY metal to make an engine out of was cast-iron...

And it went on to be one of the all-time greats...

[myglaren]

The one they chucked into the Morgan +8 I believe?

[MattBLancs]

I thought the tale about the Buick / Rivet V8 was it was pressure from the American steel industry that caused the advanced and very light all alloy V8 to go on the back burner? Then also thin wall casting developed/improved and the steel blocks got a bit lighter too?

Fair enough about avoiding a "performance" upgrade to stop the insurers getting their knickers in a twist!

[CitroJim]

I thought the tale about the Buick / Rivet V8 was it was pressure from the American steel industry that caused the advanced and very light all alloy V8 to go on the back burner? Then also thin wall casting developed/improved and the steel blocks got a bit lighter too?

I'd not heard that one Matt but it makes perfect sense... I'm wondering now if the old 'Americans believe only cast-iron can make a proper V8' may have entered the realm of folklore and urban legend and the real reason lost in that - as so often happens when the hard truth gets embellished and becomes the accepted...

I believe the Buick/Rover all-alloy V8 was used in some Buick vehicles for a time?

Thin-wall casting was a massive advance...

[xantia_v6]

The Buick version of the engine was in production for a couple of years I think. There was also an Oldsmobile version which had the same major dimensions, but with almost no parts interchangeability. I knew someone who rebuilt an Olds version but found that Rover manifolds, gaskets and I think crankshaft did not fit.

I believe that after GM improved their thin wall iron casting process, it was just cheaper to make iron engines, and alloy had no marketing benefit in the USA.

[Zelandeth]

Have to admit that the only real thing I can remember about helping a friend working on a 60s American engine (think it was one from the GM stable) was how absolutely freakishly heavy everything was. Getting the inlet manifold back on was basically a two man job as it weighed as much as a small moon.

[Zelandeth]

Some parts have arrived.



Head gasket set and fuel pump rebuild kit for the Rover.

Have established that the slightly worrying clacking from the top end at idle isn't actually worrying. The pulse back through the intake from our duff valve was making the metering piston in the right hand carb bounce. Refilling the dashpot has stopped it.

Probably be next week before I get a chance to start pulling things to bits as we've got family on holiday from work this week so have social obligations which are getting in the way of vanishing for hours to take cars to bits!

Another box arrived earlier today for the vintage computer collection.

Finally found one of these.





Okay...let's rephrase that. Found one that was at a price I was willing to pay, rather than the £150-200 these seem to regularly be going for on eBay these days. The £50 buy it now this was listed at was rather more my speed. I kind of expected the sale to be cancelled and it to be relisted with that as a starting price rather than buy it now, but no...it actually turned up. Colour me surprised.

Finding this catalogue cutting folded up in the battery compartment was a bonus.



£415 original purchase price, somewhere around £850 today. Not cheap, but a hell of a lot cheaper than a fully fledged laptop if the basic functionality did what you needed.

The larger and backlit display of the NC200 definitely gives it a head start over the NC100 in usability terms.



Quite impressive the functionality they managed to get out of a Z80, 128K of memory and a decently useful set of utilities crammed into ROM on these systems.

[CitroJim]

Never knew of the NC200 Zel! Quite a device and like the old PPC series, it had a decent keyboard, definitely a plus point!

I suppose it was a bit like my favoured device, the Chromebook. Does all I need from a small laptop at a very economical price...

[Zelandeth]

They know don't they...

Had planned to get the Caddy valeted and up for sale properly on Monday. We needed to do an IKEA run this afternoon, and it was the obvious choice as it saved me having to put the seats in the Partner down (for all the three seconds it takes).

It rewarded me by halfway there dropping into limp home mode and flashing the glow plug light at me - which is this era of VW's equivalent of a flashing check engine light.



Great! Especially as the code readers I have won't talk to this.

I've seen this symptom twice before on SDI engines...and on both of those occasions the fault was found to be catastrophic failure of the high pressure fuel pump, which also wiped out the rest of the fuel system due to contamination with shrapnel. Very much hoping that's not the case here, or it will be the end of the road for the car most likely as the repair costs would be totally uneconomical.

It may well just get ignored for a week or two as I really want to get dug into the Rover's running issue this month. I also need to properly advertise the P4 more widely as I've not had much interest so far.