allegro engine die

[hillmanimpman]

my allegro die on monday even though it had been skimmed and new head gasket fitted and helicoiled. the oil disappeared its an A series unit
anyway i wonder if you guys would know if the marina engine would bolt straight on to the transverse gearbox? or is it hard work . as i can find a new marina engine locally but not mini one for some reason.
i am considering looking at the original but it seem like its dead compress tested today
no 1 is 60 psi
no 2 is 130 psi
no 3 is 130psi and
4 is 170psi
also the oil was steaming and disappeared last time it run ? any ideas or opitions would be grateful
i am in nottinghamshire

[arceye]

I don't believe the inline and tranverse engines are swappable. Not without modification anyway, and certainly the tranverse ones wont just fit an inline at any rate. Differences at the crank at least. Funny thing is the mini one should really be a lot easier to find.

[OneCarefulOwner]

The external casings of the A series engines are too different; you can't even use a transverse A series manual block on an automatic gearbox or vice versa.

Transverse A series engines are hardly difficult to find, but they have a high price if you want a "standard Mini-sized" capacity. Sadly many of our Allegro & ADO16 1300 brethren die to give Minis a little extra speed because buying & breaking one is cheaper than a reconditioned engine on its own.

If you manage to find & fit an A series from a different model, don't forget to swap out the final drive or your speedo will misread.

[JPB]

Yes, make sure you use the correct diff for the car, not the one that came with the engine and 'box. Same with the speedo head and the skew gear. Note also that the Allegro's 13" wheels with 82% aspect ratio tyre walls will struggle to pull mini gearing so do the above before discovering the extent of the problem once you're out in the car - BL had the gearing pretty much there TBH.

I had an Allegro 1300 engine and transmission in my Clubman Estate for a while which proved that the reverse is also true; the thing reached its top speed in very short time but was flat out at under 65mph, that on 160/60%x310mm tyres vs the donor Allegro's 145/82%x13" ones.

Just a thought John, but how about rebuilding the engine you have there? This way, you know what you have rather than taking the time and trouble to fit a used replacement to find that it too is buggered.

[hillmanimpman]

i am looking at original engine first. i have remove the head after garage helicoil a thread and i have discovered that the head gasket is wrong its a 1000cc one
so could this be the problem ? what sort damage would you think would happened if a engine was fitted with wrong gasket? i am thinking might have warp the head off back to garage or sell it on ebay two choices

[arceye]

Might be worth running a steel rule across the head surfaces just to check, you can always get it skimmed, that said exchange recon unleaded heads are quite reasonably priced and second hand heads quite plentiful.

They are a good solid lump of iron though so it may actually be fine, if it looks ok why not try another head gasket (not forgetting to retorque once hot) and see what happens. A very easy job on these pushrod engines

[hillmanimpman]

i turn the engine over today on the starter with my hand over each cylinder and there is less compression on no1 for shore so that is piston rings gone ? isnt it ?

[arceye]

Maybe, maybe not, I wouldn't trust a hand test....try a new gasket and then get compression readings, if the gaskets the problem all may be well (though in my experience they normally fail between 2 and 3 cylinders on these engines). For the cost its easy to check, new gasket, compression test, if down on a cylinder then a little oil to that cylinder, if compression comes up then theres a ring / bore problem.

Is there any scoring to the cylinder bores?

[hillmanimpman]

still struggling to get my engine running fitted a new head but it seems to be still playing up an ideas, piston rings are fine. is ok to fix a 1100 head on 1300?

[Luxobarge]

still struggling to get my engine running fitted a new head but it seems to be still playing up an ideas, piston rings are fine. is ok to fix a 1100 head on 1300?

"Still playing up" isn't likely to get much help from us now, is it?

Here's what I think you should do:

1) Fit the right head to the poor thing
2) Take accurate compression readings (as per advice already given above, by the way)
3) Then post back with a detailed description of a) what you've done and b) the symptoms c) what those compression readings are.