Just a query about head gaskets and what they should look like.
After dismantling the manifolds looking for a serious air leak causing lousy running (tale told in another thread) I decided to bite the bullet and get an unleaded head, and give it a good decoke while I was at it. I didn't find any cracks or horrors in the manifolds, but the head gasket had a lot of black around and between the cylinder holes - oily and/or sooty, but no evidence of blow-by or erosion as might be caused by a serious leak. Would this be normal? It looks to me as though the head wasn't fully sealing in the middle, as if the PO had tightened from the outside in, rather than from the inside out. When I did the heads on the V8 last year, the outgoing gaskets were pretty clean.
Also, there are a couple of places on the new head gasket where an oval hole about 0.75" long (water passage, I think) has only a tiny round hole in the gasket, and one (between 1 and 2) where there is no hole in the gasket at all. The previous gasket was identical, so I have gone ahead and fitted it, but I just wonder why LR bothered to design large holes for the water to pass from block to head, and then fitted a gasket with holes much smaller and, in one case, non-existent.
Anyroadup, the head's back on and she should be back on the road by the weekend. Did I mention the head is a Turner Stage 1? Will report on any improvement in due course.