My son's fiancée was driving her six year old Ford Ka along the M5 when the head gasket blew, she pulled it over onto the hard shoulder and called the RAC who towed it to a garage, which as luck would have it is just around the corner from where I live.
They've quoted her £600 for a new radiator (apparently the bottom had rotted out) and head gasket, however her father reckons that he can do the job much cheaper and I've told him that he's welcome to use my garage.
Can someone kindly tell me if it's a difficult job to change the head gasket on one of these, and does £600 sound excessive?
If it got as far as the head gasket blowing it's likely that the head will need skimming and pressure testing as well as new head bolts & gasket. (get it done properly) The radiator shouldn't cost that much but £600 may be right for the work needed. If the overheating lasted longer there could be other damage......
Why oh why aren't there audible warnings when the engine's just about to overheat? If stopped early enough the damage could be avoided--in my case a £12 thermostat failed and cost £500 not to mention being without a car
Regressing to the Renault designs of the 60s and 70s then. Neither my Renault 10 or 12 had temperature gauges and I don't think the 10 even had a warning light. The 12 did have a warning light but by then it was far too late of course. (voice of experience speaking)
Note though that the temperature gauge in many modern cars is just a tri-state indicator. It would be the same as having three lights; cold, normal and overheating. You would not get the early warning of problems that careful study of "proper" gauges used to give.
It should be a piece of piss. It's a valencia engine which is basically the same as the old Kent. the lack of access shouldn't really be problematic as you're taking the top of the engine off, not doing something down the side of it. And the lack of a cam belt makes taking a head on and off easy.
OTOH I would expect swapping a rad to be a bit of a PITA job, but it shouldn't be too bad if the car doesn't have aircon.
As an aside, how 'similar' is the Valencia to the old Kent .. ie, would it be possible to 'upgrade' a Kent to Valencia to gain any benefits from the later options please?
I ask because our kitcar has the 1300 Kent and I was wondering if doing the above [1] could make it more economical / efficient? I was thinking might be more practical than trying to fit something currently used in a transverse layout in an in-line role.
IIRC they're pretty similar, but not that similar. IIRC someone was asking in PPC if the injection from a valencia would fit on a Kent, and it won't, as the head's different.
Thanks for the replies, he's bringing it around tomorrow and I'll volunteer to lend a hand, I don't actually know how knowledgeable he is about car engines, hopefully enough to have a Haynes Manual and a torque wrench, I may also be able to throw in a couple of subtle suggestions about head skimming and the new head bolts.
BTW does the head necessarily have to be skimmed, even if it appears to be undamaged?
Doesn't the fact that the head gasket has blown signify that the head most likely warped? Mine blew off the front hose so relieved pressure but head was still warped and needed skimming
In news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net, Ivan wittered on forthwith;
If it's the Endura powered Ka (before about '04 I think) the head gasket is stupidly easy to do. Really, ridiculously easy, 3 hours start to finish easy (if you don't rush)
Ka heads tend to be ok as they're generally bombproof. Pretty much impossible to kill an Endura engine in normal use. Much, much stronger than something like a Punto engine.
In news:Rb2dnW snipped-for-privacy@bt.com, David Wood wittered on forthwith;
Is yours a Ka though?
The early Ka has an engine that dragged itself from the depths of time, fought off vastly inferior engines like the FIRE engine in the Fiats, beat up passing A series Metros, powered countless thousands of rally cars to victory and nuns to nunnerys whilst needing virtually no servicing apart from the occasional oil change and tappet adjustment. Head gasket failures are rare, heads warping are rarer still.
The usual question - are you *sure* the head gasket has gone and the garage aren't just trying to make some money? I mean, how have they checked?
Well apparently she smelt burning and pulled over onto the hard shoulder, the RAC man who attended told her it was a blown head gasket, he then towed her to a local garage who told her the same thing, however it looks like we'll have to wait and see when we tow it here.
Google Bogg Brothers who seem to be the leaders in this field. They're just up the road from me and last time I took the Capper for a rolling road session, I had a poke around.
One thing I can tell you is that a Rover V8 with two banks of quad bike carbs looks well fooking sexy.
The story so far, despite the near nonexistent brakes and very heavy steering we towed it home and got it (well at least the front part) safely into my garage.
We checked the oil and there was absolutely no sign of water contamination, the engine started on the button and ran quite sweetly.
We decided we had nothing to lose by changing the radiator first.. my what a job that turned out to be.. the procedure was to jack it up and put it on axle stands, remove the front wheels, plastic wheel arch covers, the complete front bumper and then fiddle about removing various bolts and self taping screws and hoses, mostly situated in very awkward places, whilst we were about it we also replaced the thermostat and top hose... It's been a few years since I did it, but IIRC radiator removal from my old Astra simply consisted of detaching a couple of hoses, a plug and socket, two bolts at the top and it just lifted out.
After we'd filled it with water (just to check it) we found that enormous back pressure quickly built up in the system, with water bubbling in the filler tank, accompanied by traces of white smoke from the exhaust and the engine deciding to stall after running for several minutes, so almost beyond doubt it certainly has all the symptoms of head gasket failure.
Reading the Haynes book of lies we discovered that head removal means that the front engine mount has to be removed, also the fuel injection stuff along with a host of other bits and pieces situated in what on inspection appears to be some very inaccessible places.
It certainly doesn't look like a very simple or quick job for the uninitiated, so it's been put off until next Monday.. I'm beginning to see now why the quote was for around £600 (which my son would would have unhesitatingly forked out if he wasn't quite so cash strapped at the moment).
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