It was a payen head gasket (I think I've been calling it permatex, but
meant payen). It has metal rings round the cylinders and should be a
high quality one. I paid extra for it and swapped out the standard one
in the decoke set. It came from TRGB.
I'm going to pull the head in a bit and hoping that it is either a gasket
failure or that the head nuts have loosened themselves. If this is the
case I will order a new gasket along with new cylinder head studs, nuts
and washers. I presume that the old studs can be easily removed with the
double nut technique?
I will also take care to re-torque the head once the engine is up to
temperature, should I loosen teh nuts a 1/4 turn and then retorque, or
just retorque straight away?
Also when tightening initally I was tightening each nut by a quater turn
at a time as recommended in haynes, should I tighten by smaller
increments than this?
cheers
John
--- John Kipping <johnkipping@inet.net.nz> wrote:
> Many years ago while trying to look after a Herald for a friend of mine
> the
> engine was changed at least six times so you have some distance to go
> yet -
> I would say your problem is a poor quality head gasket and quite
> possibly
> nothing to do with you. What make was it?
> John Kipping
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Hobson" <goalie_john@yahoo.co.uk>
> To: "Spitfire Enthusiast" <spitfire-enthusiast@yahoogroups.com>;
> "Spitfires
> mailing list" <spitfires@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2002 1:02 AM
> Subject: [spitfire-enthusiast] I don't believe it, gutted...
>
>
> > I am completely gutted, the spitfire has broken again. I had just
> fixed
> > the non-working speedo and fitted new column stalks this morning and
> took
> > her for a quick 5 minute spin round the block to check the speedo was
> > working (it did) and that the temperature and fuel guages worked
> (they
> > didn't, must be the voltage regulator) when I felt something 'go',
> the
> > engine instantly lost power and sounded like a lawn mower and there
> was a
> > lot more smoke coming from the exhaust. I limped round the corner
> and
> > parked up, ironically, in the same place as I broke down last time.
> I
> > have just got the car back in the garage after being towed 500m up
> the
> > hill.
> >
> > I took the rocker cover off to check the rockers were ok and that no
> > valve springs had broken, they were all ok. I can only assume that
> it is
> > something in the bottom end of the engine that has gone. I can only
> > assume that the overheating that occured previously had
> stressed/damaged
> > something in the bottom end.
> >
> > I am so pissed off, after my elation at having a working spitfire
> > yesterday, I feel totally destroyed. I have never been so angry
> before
> > in my life, borne out of frustration.
> >
> > I am pretty sure that this is an engine rebuild job, which I don't
> have
> > the skills, time or equipment to do myself, nor the money to get it
> done
> > elsewhere. As a result have a very nice looking lump of metal
> sitting in
> > my garage once again, gathering dust. I would sell it except for the
> > fact that it is now worth a fraction of the value it was previously.
> I
> > reckon that it was worth about #2600 when working, but now I'd be
> lucky
> > to get half that.
> >
> > I must be the unluckiest spitfire owner ever. No idea what I'm going
> to
> > with it now.
> > John
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com
/// spitfires@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|