Rover K Series Cylinder Head Removal

the time you took to write this you could have done it ;o)

ive done quite a few of these over the years, dont worry about locking the crank, as long as the battery is disconnected & its not moved in gear you wont have a problem with the liners moving.

the cams need to be locked by sliding a locking tool in between the sprocket teeth ,when its all lined up remove it. cheap to buy, try ebay or halfords.it makes it easier for re-timing the cams as the valve spring pressure spins them out of alighnment if they arnt locked.

you need to remove the sprockets as the cam cover back plate is bolted to the head & the sprockets wont go through the back plate. mark the cams sprockets as they have two slots so it is possible to put them back on wrong, they are marked though "in" & "ex"

the cams need to be removed otherwise you cant remove the "4 foot" long head bolts as the headbolts are very close to the edge of the cams, plus the engineering company likes to have them removed for skimming purposes. you should get a decent headgasket set, which should contain four new cam seals, 2 black, 2 brown, plus it should come with two new head to block mounting dowels as some of the k series heads had plastic dowels fitted, these used to break up which caused the head to shimmy on the block, i like to fit new head bolts, but you can re-use them by measuring their height. dont drop the headbolts down the holes they came out out when refitting, guide them down, otherwise you will damage the crankshaft carrier as the bolts hold the whole thing together, hence the length of them.

Amidst all the dross, arguing, insulting, and trolling, a decent question and answer sometimes come along in most groups, thus justifying their existance :-)

Si

In message , Wingedcat writes

[snip}

In addition to the good info from reg, I would suggest checking these links:-

The first one is a video of the cambelt being changed (engine removed for clarity). The second is a step by step guide.

I did one a couple of months ago and the biggest problem I had was locking up the engine when undoing the crank bolt. A pneumatic impact gun will do the job but if like most people you don't have one, you will probably have to remove the starter and jam a screwdriver in the starter gear.

< SNIP lots of useful advice from Paul and reg> >

Thanks to you both for your advice.

Yes of course Reg you are right, I need to get the camshaft sprockets off otherwise I can't get the timing belt rear cover off. I must admit, I hadn't intended to remove the cams - is this really necessary in order to remove the headbolts, or have I misread or misunderstood. Fair play, I will take them out if I need to get the head skimmed, but don't want to dismantle the head unless I have to.

The video was useful as were the MG Rover forums - so thanks. I think I will employ a "glamorous assistant" to apply firm pressure to the brake pedal to get the crank bolt undone. If I can't find such a person I suppose my girlfriend will have to do.

Thanks again

Luke

In message , Wingedcat writes

I don't think that will work. It didn't for me. I had a breaker bar with steel tube over it to extend the range to about 3 ft. There was so much backlash through the gear train and engine mounts, I could turn the bar (the end of which was touching the garage floor) about 3/4 of a turn (until the bar was touching the floor on opposite lock) and the bolt hadn't budged. I think you will have to lock the crank directly using the starter gear.

Will be interested to read how you get on with this. My Rover has done

120,000m, and after an overheat due to a failed thermostat last summer it started to leak oil from the head gasket. A shame, as before the overheat it never burnt or dripped any oil at all:-( However, there is no sign of water / oil mixing, so I decided to just live with it. It just passed it's MOT - but in the last 10 months I have used 10 litres of oil, so as it passed the test maybe it's worth getting it fixed...?

10 litres of oil is £10-£20. Doing a headgasket on that is going to be considerably more and it's likely to need a skim. It's really in the "not worth it" category.

Scrap it. Honestly. Nice enough car when they work, but once they start popping head gaskets they're just a bloody nightmare to put right, and they _all_ eventually pop the gasket.

Sorry Pete but that's not always good advice. Its not a difficult job to put right and can be done for around £200 including the skim.

If that's the cost of a garage doing it, I'd want to know where they took shortcuts.

No, the OP said he was doing it himself. £200 is the rough cost of gasket set, head bolts, cambelt kit and head skim. I think the one I did recently came in at £220.

I wouldn't be able sleep at night if I scrapped it! One of my biggest regrets in life was scrapping my 1989 1.3L Escort for the sake of a couple of hundred quid's worth of welding. Saw me through the best years of my life that car, man and boy.

So I won't be scrapping the Rover for the sake of =A3200.

Luke

Also you have the benefit of a car you have maintained, know and are familiar with. I think that's worth quite a bit in itself. Plus personally I don't want a car with all the modern bells and whistles and attendant technical and expensive problems. KISS is my motto.

A skim will make infinitessimal difference to the compression pressure (it is likely to be less after a rebuild and skim due to the clean out of any coke residue) and it isn't high compression that makes the gasket blow.

In message , Aggreived writes

Utter rubbish! Do you know why the K series gaskets blow in the first place? And as MrCheerful says, a skim will make an imperceptible difference to the compression ratio.

I did a pal's one some three years ago including having it skimmed. Still fine. You have to remove rather more to make much difference to the CR than is needed to true things up. Not that the CR has anything to do with gaskets blowing.

Only if you don't keep a nice cushion of oil in there.