>lesnyd@monsanto.com writes:
>
>>PS - I don't mean to belittle the Stag. If it had a decent engine,
>>I'd get one for the family. It's just that there's too many horror
>>stories floating around!
>
>And they are all true: don't touch one with a barge-pole. Worse still
>was the one that they put in the Dolomite Sprint. This was the Stag V8
>block with one bank of cylinders cut away to make a lop-sided 1750cc
>straight four with twin carbs and a timing chain that may as well have
>been made of chocolate. It was also blessed with a cylinder head that
>welded itself onto the block so hard that the best way to remove it was
>to use a sledge hammer and buy a new one. The Stag had, therefore, twice
>the problems. Many happy hours, comrades, many happy hours....
This is the same motor as the early TR-7s. The problem with the heads was
them becoming welded to the head studs, not the block, and was due to
electrolytic corrosion. The only way to take them off was to get them up as
far as possible (maybe an inch, on a good day) and hacksaw the studs off,
which wasn't easy cause the studs were bloody hard. BL offered a warranty
repair for this. Mind you, the reason you had to take the head off was
because it had warped to shit. All in all, just a shitty motor. Must of
been built in the very back of the BL cave. You have heard the BL cave
theory, haven't you? MGBs, Rovers -- the good cars -- were built in the
front, where there was light. The first TR-7s, Austin Marinas, Spitfire
exhausts, things like that, were built in the back, where there was no
light. (Come to think of it, maybe the place had electric lights, but they
were made by Lucas) The rest were built in between.
Yers
Vern
_____________________________________________________________________
Vern Klukas I'm a little teapot
vernk@carver.dataflux.bc.ca or Short and...
ug141@freenet.victoria.bc.ca or
inkspot@carver.dataflux.bc.ca
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