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K-Series gasket - renewed or upgraded?

If a happy Land Rover customer or unhappy Rover customer brings their

1.8 K-Series-equipped car in to get the gasket changed due to the seals going, is it replaced with one of the same design, or have they improved the design so that such a thing shouldn't happen again?

If it's simply renewed with the same design then surely it's a pointless exercise as the thing's going to fail again after a few thousand miles. However if it's replaced with one of an improved design then surely that means that Rover's accepting a design fault with the original gasket necessitating an improved version to be designed?

Reply to
Joe Bloggs
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which gasket are we reffering to?

Reply to
steve

If you're talking about the inlet manifold gasket then it would be replaced with a modified one (green in colour). Not sure about head gaskets - I know the plastic dowls are replaced with metal ones.

-Steve

Reply to
Tunafish

wrote

The cause of the K series head gasket problem was as has been said the plastic dowels warping during use. No need to change the design of gasket just change the type of dowels. This by the way was put out as a service update to Landrover dealers over 18 months ago.

AJ

Reply to
AJ

See message at end

I have found yet another reason for HGF on K series. Apparently the stretch bolts holding the engine together can stretch with age. You can check the torque on these bolts quite easily every few thousand miles.

Might even be a method of indicating trouble ahead?

Liam

Reply to
Liam Wright

Never heard of this before - I thought the whole idea of stretch bolts is you don't need to re-torque them afterwards.

Steve

Reply to
Tunafish

i agree, thats what they are supposed to do, and theres nothing in the rover service schedule to include re-tightening head bolts.

in my opinion the head gaskets on k-series engines wether original or revised are pathetic, as are the 20 foot long head bolts. and lets not forget the wet cylinder liners and plastic dowels to keep it all in place.......... anyone that has owned a rover k-series and never had head gasket failure should consider themselves extremely lucky people....

Reply to
steve

I think the problem is the plastic dowels, apparently they move with age, hence all K series engines now have metal dowels. The damp liner design is in other engines e.g. Pug 1360 engine which also suffer from CHG problems! My mothers Rover Metro 1.4 lasted until it was sold at 55k miles and used to run hotter than my 200, the fan always coming on in traffic. I think so long as you're gentle with the engine until the oil heats before revving it and check for water leaks regularly you'll be fine. the pay off is a 1.4 engine that performs like a 1.6 but gives 38+ mpg running about locally.

--Steve

Reply to
Tunafish

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