Peugeot 306 - Head gasket

After a hundred years of car engines they still can't produce a design that is guaranteed against head gasket failure.

-apart from the early years when they didn't have removeable heads. The service schedules shown in the book re changing engine oil, coolant, hydraulic fluid should really be followed although they rarely are. Diesels have a very high compression ratio, about 20 to 1 as opposed to 12 to 1 for petrol engines., so gasket failure usually means a warped head. Skimming the head increases the compression ratio. What do you do? Skim and put two gaskets on- with likely gasket failure again, don't skim and hope for the best, buy a head from a breakers and hope it hasn't been skimmed. Buy a new head and take out a mortgage. No easy answer (although your comment 'starting to give trouble' gives you the chance to offload quick). DaveK.

These engines go forever, but they must be serviced on time. Although they do often give head gasket troubles, not many make it to 155k without it going because people miss the service intervals etc. Well done on that! You might find it hard to sell on, as its such a high miler the only people interested will be those will a bit of knowledge i should imagine, and they'll notice the problem (mayo in the filler cap etc). At a good independant garage you'll probly find getting it fixed won't cost /TOO/ much...

Or just change the head gasket. If it's not warped beyond spec then it's repairable

so skimming them doesnt make any difference to the compression, it does however make big difference to the flatness of the head and this is crucial . The reason most of the PSA/ Citroens blow is that people persist in running them with little or no antifreeze, the antifreeze contains a corrosion inhibiter and so eventually the gasket rots away , resulting in leaks. My mate ex naval engineer ran his ZX1.9D up to 285000 miles with NO engine trouble at all .

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Depends on whether it has direct or indirect injection.

compression,

Whatever type it is, skimming the head will increase the compression ratio. Whether it's enough to matter is debateable. Mike.

Skimming the head has next to no effect on compression (which is about

-- James

Only the port to the pre-combustion chamber is effected by skimming since the rest of the head is flat anyway.

Gasket thickness is determined by piston protrusion and not by whether or not the head has been skimmed.

-- James