3.9 overheating

If the top hose is hotter then the bottom hose then it sounds like the rad is OK. If it is blocked it can't transfer the heat from the water to the air blowing through the gills, so the bottom hose would be nearly the same temp as the top.

I wouldn't read too much into there being no stream of bubbles in the header tank. Very often the leaking gasket/liner send the bubbles to some dead end part of the system where they build up into a big air lock until there is no more room. That's when you get the sudden rush of water from the filler cap as the air lock acts like a spring.

The only way to be sure is to have a local garage do a cylinder leakage test. Each cylinder in turn is set at top dead centre on the firing stroke and compressed air fed into the spark plug hole. This will show up blowby on the piston rings, and if a head gasket has gone, the pressure in the water system will rise when the faulty cylinder is pressurised.

A cheaper, less accurate method is to remove the spark plugs and see if one of them looks noticeably cleaner then the others - a blown head gasket tends to steam clean the plug in the faulty cylinder.

Finally, one more pointer. If you're not used to a V8 this may be difficult to spot, but if when you start it in the morning it only fires up on 7 cylinders for a few seconds, things don't look good. When the engine was last switched off the residual pressure in the cooling system will often push water through the faulty head gasket into the hot cylinder, where it evaporates and condenses on the plug causing an initial misfire. If this is happening to you regularly, try CAREFULLY releasing the pressure from the cooling system after the last run of the day. If the next day it starts on all 8, a head gasket is highly likely.

The good news is Rover V8 head gaskets are relatively cheap and easy to fix yourself! (Well, relative to a V6 Mondeo, anyway!)

Hope this helps, Andy

Only shows up the slipped liner problem if everything is at working temp, though, so not a foolproof test.

I agree, the plug will have nearly no carbon on it at all.

Nice one Andy, not heard of that being done for a lot of years, I'd forgotten all about it!

Try doing a Jag V12!!! Badger.

I'll see your Jag V12 and raise you a quad cam 5.0 V8 Merc.

Poxy thing.

/ David

Try getting a Jag straight 6 out of Percy to do it :0( I cut off the front crossmember , removed engine. Replaced engine with V8 and binned Jag lump... ah well it was fun while it lasted.

Lee D

Ok, Rolls-Royce Griffon V12, or Napier Deltic! That's my final "bid" for the reciprocating internal combustion engine, then I'm bust! Next, we move onto gas turbines. LOL! Badger.

Fold

;-)

David

how about 42MW gt ?

Ok, you've lost me, what is it? Badger.

I once fitted a rover SD1 2.6 into a series motor (complete with autobox and home-brewed remote transfer, in a 109" chassis chopped down to 100"!!) and that had bugger all access, you couldn't have removed the front pulley without pulling the engine first, so I dread to think what the access was like for an XK engine, had a few older jags over the years so I'm familiar with the size/weight etc. Bet you it was awesome in a straight line though Lee........? Badger.

On or around Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:06:52 +0000 (UTC), "Badger" enlightened us thusly:

somewhere, if it's still extant, is an 86" series I with a 2.4 Jag in it, which I had briefly. On that, the bonnet and wings had all been attached to a frame and all lifted together, with the addition of a very strong prop to hold it up, the access was quite good. On standard brakes, mind, so it was highly dangerous on the road. Once (and only once) clocked 60 in second.

wonder where it went?

GT cheating stick to diesels 14 cyl Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C, 82MW or there abouts. B-)

Right. Rolls-Royce RB199 mk104 triple-spool, medium/high bypass axial flow fly-by-wire turbojet with integral afterburner section, producing 41kN of thrust dry, 73kN of thrust in combat setting with max afterburner. Don't ask me what the hell it is in watts, I ain't got a clue and I can't be ar5ed looking for a conversion at the moment! Someone wanna remind me how this started.......? ;-) Badger.

On or around Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:29:46 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

Mind, you have a different kind of problem, there. Access is dead easy, but the parts require a crane.

Mind, the sort of scale project where the *spanners* require a crane is even worse...

"At maximum economy the engine exceeds 50% thermal efficiency."

that's clever, mind. *and* it's a 2-stroke.

Imagine bleeding the injectors on that.

Thats the one, I *like* **BIG** engineering. If I hadn't gone into broadcasting I'd may well have gone into power distribution. 1000A at

Wonder how big the "starter motor" is on that engine?

That's the nice thing - it hasn't got one.

Just bump start it?

Compressed-air starting is my guess, but I've maybe read a bit too much about submarines. A shortage of compressed air was a problem -- you needed it to surface and start the engines to recharge the batteries and replenish to compressed air.

On or around Sun, 26 Jun 2005 17:07:33 +0100, "GbH" enlightened us thusly:

cartridge start, I believe that's called. What was that film where they crash the plane in the desert, and rebuild it into a smaller plane in order to fly out again? That shows a cartridge start system.