Chris,
What leads you to believe it is the pistons and not a valve
problem? Take the heads off and see if the combustion chambers will
hold a solvent? Rover exhaust valves crud up so bad that the factory
changed the design a few years back. A valve de-coking wont be that
bad, and you could hand-lap the valves again, too. Don't worry about
the Rover vs. a bow-tie engine. These are tough little blocks. If they
weren't, you wouldn't find Land Rover's all over the 3rd world where
pavement and proper maintenance are non-existant. Aside from gumming up
if they are only driven short distances, there's precious little to
complain about.
A funny story: My machinist runs the U. of Maryland I.C.E. lab above his
shop, and he was telling me that Rover sent over some of their engineers
to study on his wet and dry flow benches and cam laboratory in the early
90's. They complained about their exhaust valves coking up and not
sealing properly. He casualy showed them the valve design used in many
GM and Ford engines that is designed to break the carbon off the stems.
He then mumbled to me aloud, wondering if they ever used that idea. We
both kind of shrugged and went back to looking at my 300 heads. A few
days later, my factory Rover service manual came and it showed the "new"
carbon-breaker valve which is standard on all late-model engines and is
to be refit to all rebuilt heads. Neither he nor I are claiming that he
was the only source of this info for Rover, but if you look at the
parties involved, you can chuckle wondering if that was how the idea
made it across the Atlantic.
JJJ
Chris & Kelly Sharp wrote:
>Fellow Wedge-ophiles-
>
>What started as a "just get it going and enjoy" has now turned a little
>sour. The results from my compression test are in and not pretty....
>
>1 95
>2 105
>3 112
>4 100
>5 120
>6 95
>7 100
>8 45 (yes, 45...)
>
>(sigh)
>
>I was hoping to get away w/ a bearing and timing chain swap but now I guess
>I'm going to have to spring for the big chicken dinner. Since the oil pan
>was off, I peeked up into the cylinders and they don't appear to be scored,
>which is somewhat comforting.
>
>I've been through this before w/ several engines, but I'm still not real
>comfortable w/ the all aluminum Rover engine. If this was just another rat
>motor, I'd just hone the pistons, re-ring, and maybe a valve job. Any
>chance of getting away with that on this motor or should I just plan on
>yanking the block and building it up from scratch. Any experiences in this
>would be appriciated about now.
>
>Chris Sharp
>'64 Spitfire4 At least it runs
>'80 TR8 Quickly becoming a money pit....
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