Practically Classics Forum

Dick wrote: Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:38 pm Get the heads off. A gasket set won't break the bank. At least you'll know.. I spent ages with my perkins 4.236 thinking it was fuel only to find the head gasket had had a bit of a crisis

That's kind of my plan. Just waiting on the gasket set to arrive.

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 (not that I really expected it to). 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.

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.

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 week. I also need to properly advertise the P4 more widely as I've not had much interest so far.

If this is anything like the Renault dCi engine the AA diagnosed our Clio with a high pressure fuel pump issue.

My Sealey diag actually said it was the Glow Plug Relay .. changed that, same issue.

That actually turned out to be a dead glow plug (actually two!) but I could only diagnose it with the old-fashioned multi-meter tests (ohm rating) rather than a diagnostic.

gazza82 wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 3:38 pm If this is anything like the Renault dCi engine the AA diagnosed our Clio with a high pressure fuel pump issue.

My Sealey diag actually said it was the Glow Plug Relay .. changed that, same issue.

That actually turned out to be a dead glow plug (actually two!) but I could only diagnose it with the old-fashioned multi-meter tests (ohm rating) rather than a diagnostic.

Honestly not sure. This is the first common rail diesel I've ever owned - or indeed diesel which has anything more complicated electronically attached to it than an immobiliser interlock. We'll be getting the codes read out first to see if there is something obvious. Though if it's complaining about low rail pressure it's not likely to be good.

-- -- --

Starting point today:



Ish. That's a photo from a week or two back, but you get the idea.

Couple of hours and a small amount of swearing (mostly at the bracket the throttle linkage/kick down cable attach to) later...





Note that some of the intake manifold bolts are different, so keep them in the order they came out.



The choke cable end is really frayed so definitely wouldn't be going back into the linkage on the carb if I took it out, which is why the one carb is just tucked in the corner. There's plenty of length of cable available to keep it out the way so I figured I'd just leave it alone rather than adding to my immediate to do list - though the cable does want changing longer term.

Can't really see anything useful looking down towards our offending valve.



At least not that I'm able to interpret.

It's not something obvious like a bit of rag having got sucked into the intake anyway, so the head will have to come off to investigate and resolve whatever is going on.

That will be the next step. I'm not touching the exhaust manifold bolts, the join to the downpipe has clearly been apart relatively recently (the bolt is still shiny) so it will be getting split there.

I was really quite surprised with how clean things were under the intake gasket/valley cover given that these engines don't exactly have a reputation for internal cleanliness.



Again kind of wishing I knew better what the story of this car was. I almost wonder looking at this whether this engine has had at least some rebuild work done (the water pump and timing cover gaskets externally look bright enough to be essentially new), and it then just sat around for a long time before developing this problem when fired up eventually. I did note when it was running that there was very little apparent blow by.

Nothing really found yet, aside from a surprisingly clean looking engine anyway. We'll know more when the head comes off.

Loving this mate

Have you done a compression test?

Dick wrote: Sun Sep 17, 2023 7:19 pm Have you done a compression test?

Yep, next to nothing. Less than 30psi anyway, which is about the lowest my piece of rubbish compression tester reads. Wet or dry didn't make any noticeable difference. It's definitely kicking it back out the intake rather than anywhere else as you can clearly hear and feel it coming back out the right hand carb.

-- -- --

Literally only had 15 minutes for it today, but was determined to make some progress however small.



Rocker shaft and push rods removed. I also pulled three cam followers at random for inspection. They all look like this.



The mark around six o'clock is a fingerprint, not surface damage. Feels completely smooth to the touch.

Next I need to remove this engine steady...



Which I note is already missing a bolt. The equivalent bracket at the rear is what the throttle linkage and kick down cables fasten on to, it can stay where it is as everything else is already detached from it. Which caused much swearing as I had to unscrew the adjuster for said kickdown cable and the adjuster was seized.

Then either split the downpipe or exhaust manifold.



I was leaning more towards splitting the downpipe from manifold but I'm now second guessing myself. I can see that join being a git to re-seal afterwards, and from the looks of the gasket, the manifold has seen about as much service since the engine was apart as the innards suggest, so I may end up pulling the manifold instead. Aside from anything else I have new gaskets for that I don't for the downpipe... manifold is several orders of magnitude less annoying to get to anyway.

Elsewhere, apparently I do have at least one water ingress issue to trace.





I really hope that's not a sign of rot in the screen surround hidden under the chrome covers...

Does it have a roof mounted aerial, our 206 developed a leak every time you put the brakes on.