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Rover Head Gasket

It is perhaps not a brilliant idea to ask about the costs of head gasket replacement, without first checking if the head gasket actually needs replacing!

I seem to remember the OP felt his head gasket had gone, because his coolant looked dodgy. The best thing to do would be to firstly reverse flush the cooling system, refill with the proper amount of anti freeze and water, and then see if there was any subsequent problems.

The K series engines can and do suffer with head gasket failure, but this can be linked to several other far more serious problems which effectively mean another engine in many cases.

It is possible to test an engine for head gasket failure with a kit which uses fluid, that changes colour in the prescence of combustion gases in the coolant system (takes about 5 minutes to do).

Chris

Reply to
Chris
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I think that's what we have been discussing.

OP says his coolant was changed last October - The only time mine has changed colour is when oil leaked into it, otherwise it should stay clean and clear between changes. If it is oil, then it will take several complete changes with several days between to get the system clear. I would at least try to establish what caused the problem first.

This is an old car - having established that a gasket change job is borderline uneconomic, I doubt an engine change is on the cards. As the car is apparently running fine apart from the discoloured coolant, major work cannot really be justified at this point.

A useful test if HGF is suspected without any obvious signs - here we have gross contamination of the coolant, so the test proves nothing futher.

Reply to
Bob Davis

UPDATE. The head gasket had gone - oil was leaking into cooling system. It's in the garage now, the head has gone to alocal engineers to be skimmed. They are putting one of the new metal/rubber gaskets on. They will also do the cam seals and other gaskets that they are disturbing. The cost is £340. What a b*stard!

For some reason I can't bring myself to dislike the car.

Cheers Paul, West Yorks

Reply to
Paul

That's bad luck - at least it should be sorted for the life of the car now. If it hasn't been done recently, get them to put a new cam belt on while they are there.

Reply to
Bob Davis

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