Rover 214 HELP!!!!

If that's the K series engine, the bolts that hold the head go right down and also secure the crankcase. More advice needed. DaveK.

And you need a full set of new ones as they're stretch bolts. ISTR they're £80 or so according to postings here. It is the K series motor, the used the Honda engines in early 200s AFAIK.

Rover 214s are all K series. Mk1 213 and Mk2 216/416 were Honda powered, until 1.6 K units superseded them. Hopefully someone with a recent workshop manual/Rover CD can confirm, but AFAIK the torque settings for the K series have remained unchanged since introduction. Don't have them with me at present, I'm afraid.

You may be able to re-use the stretch bolts, the procedure for testing the bolt is given in the Haynes and Rover workshop manuals. It's advisable to fit new ones if you can, but they are not cheap. If one or more fail testing, I would seriously consider replacing the whole lot.

The bolts are through bolts, but the bearing ladder and oil rail are held in place by separate retaining bolts, so you can remove the head without worrying about things falling off in the sump. But you *must not* move the crankshaft once the head bolts are slackened, as the cylinder liners are prone to displacement.

BTW what are your symptoms? Not every oil and coolant leak is a head gasket failure, and many head gaskets of K series are changed unnecessarily, according to my local Rover dealer, anyway.

To answer your original question - the Haynes manual stops at R reg, simply because it was published in May 98. The Rover 200 was not updated significantly after that date, the next big change was the facelift and relaunch as the Rover 25 the following year - no Haynes manual for the 25 yet. So this will be the correct manual for your car - hopefully someone will confirm the torque settings for you.

The bolts should be tightened to 20Nm in the correct sequence. Then mark the positions of the radial marks and tighten through a further 180 degress in the correct sequence. Then tighten through another 180 degress in the correct sequence to realign the marks. The tightening sequence is in the Haynes manual.

With the cylinder head removed, screw the bolts finger tight into the block. Measure from the cylinder block face to under the bolts head. The limit is

Agreed. The inlet manifold gasket on engines fitted with the plastic inlet manifold are prone to failure and can allow coolant into the cylinders (usually no.4 cylinder). Rover do sell an uprated inlet manifold gasket to overcome this.

If it is the head gasket that's causing the problem then make sure to replace it with an uprated Rover one. The Rover head gaskets now come with steel dowels instead of plastic. Bear in mind that it's only the two dowels that hold the cylinder head in position on these engines and the plastic dowels, being soft, allowed the head to 'walk' accross the block during warm up and cool down, hence the numerous head gasket failures the K series is notorious for! Pattern parts usually have the plastic dowels still so are best avoided.

HTH