In the late summer, decided to do some work on the car.
It was overheating now and then, and had a definite water leak from under the car. Was hoping it was a loose pipe, but there was coolant running down the side of the engine! Discovered later that rubber seal on the water pump had failed. I thought I'd have this done in a day and roughly 50 quid, but it's taken longer than that due to my sh*tty luck and lack time available! Apologies for crappy pics, I only have a lo-qual mobile phone camera!



Tricky bolt positions in tricky to access engine bay = swear box has good night:



'Crappy' head gasket:



I 'bent a valve' taking the crank pulley off - I forgot to take the cam locking tool out and it took about 10 teeth off the belt and the piston whacked them when it finally budged! F**K!

Valvez:



Bent valves - 1/4 moon shape pattern:





Bought new Payen head gasket and head bolts and new valves etc:



In the garage with telly and heater on ahhhh - head half stripped:



Collets = horrible:



Valve replaced with new oil seal in place, good way of getting collet back on is grease on end of valve, and just pop it on:



I dropped one on the floor which is dark - I found it, god knows how.



4 hours later, and all are replaced! Used Loctite 574 flange sealant on the cam carrier:



Head has been on, and took off today again to replace with one that works. I forgot to properly put the oil cam seal in , and it was pissing the lot out of the side.

Class thread
Wish I had the time and the space to have tried that sorta thing with the Alfa.

One thing to say about the K Series, good engines, but they dont half look industrial. Thought they could have designed them to look a bit better

Lovin it mate, K'er ftw!

Got new half an engine, was typical scrapyard special with everything still on, but half cut off with the angle grinder (even the wiring):



Put it on, bolted everything up, tried to loosen the idle pulley but it was stuck fast. Managed to lightly strip it due to lack of space:





So, out it came AGAIN!



Managed to TOTALLY strip the crappy torq nut - why do manufacturers use these? They are SHIT:





By now, I could care less about being 'careful', so when the drill failed:



I whipped out the angle grinder:



More for the reason that the friction turns it red hot and frees the little begger:



Stretch bolts possibly stretched beyond required stretchiness:



Torquing up thanks to Mr Gilly:



Back together again - too dark to do belt, so will finish tommorow!



Fingers crossed!

nice one bud
now thats my luck with the pulley!

I'm getting no spark, and then the starter motor disintegrated. I hate this fooking car.

how old is it bud? might be able to help yer

It's 98 I think?

ahh doh ive got an OBD2 diagnostic kit, but it only works on '02 or later cars, no spark you say? i could have a look for yer if you like, PM me if you like!

I actually think I've not plugged something in, it was too dark and chucking it down and I packed up before I could be arsed having a proper look!

When you get a spark, it probably still wont start due to low compression

Yer, im sorry for taking the piss haha! Everyone knows I love the ald K really.

God knows why there was no spark, but it has it now. Put a new starter on, but it still wouldn't turn over. Check the wiring, argh, the eye connector had cracked! Put new connector on and it took about 1 minute to start properly, but got going in the end! Hurrah!

Thanks for the thread mate, love reading these, its more fun watching than doing.

It certainly is - I wouldn't mind doing in the summer, but it's horrible in the winter. I've now got another whole car that I have to strip before the start of January! Argh.

Great work.
I like the sound and power delivery of a k-series but the HGF is a big put off.

Did it hold up ?

believe its failed again! 200 miles later!

if you do this again ive got the camshaft locking tool if you need it

HGF is not an issue if you fit the full uprated kit and do the job properly, you are essentially converting the engine to an N-Series.

Also, the HG's don't just pop for no reason, contrary to popular belief, just like any engine, they will do so if you lose coolant etc, the capacity of the K'er coolant is small which does not help because it can/will run low quicker than most engine's, but the design of the original HG setup does unfortunately give the engine's less resistance to HGF when problems do occur. So weekly coolant checks (or even more reguarly dependent on how many miles you are hammering), are a lot more important than most engine, especially when running the original HG.

N-Series ftw.

Having said that, I know of one person who has a HHR 416 from 1996 and he is still on the original HG 128k miles later (but then I know people who have had them pop at less than 40k lol).

Yes, the car failed on 'something' today. Has been fine until recently, when it's had a load of white steam coming from the exhaust, plus there's mayo on the dipstick. I'm going to put it down to experience and say I have no idea what's up with it - it could be anything now - airlock, head gasket, thermostat, cracked block, blockage in bleed valves, general fault with the engine, etc.
The car is stuck in Wales and is getting recovered, have to go and pick the missus up.

They're great engines and good cars, but she really needs to get rid and get an MX5.

If you did the HG as it should be done, the only other common problem you will see with it is people thrashing them from cold - with a K'er you should always wait until ORT before taking it over 2000rpm. Thrashing it before its at ORT can lead to premature HGF because of the alloy components expanding at different temperatures.

Once at ORT, you can thrash it upto 8000rpm for as long as you like and it wont pop lol.

Did you get the head skimmed?

Yeah, head was skimmed!
Been doing this for over twenty years so never had something go wrong ... yet! K-Series is a bugger though. Actually, it was about 2,500 miles later.
Found a burst hose. There was an airlock in the return pipe from the radiator. Been told steam 'boils' at higher temp than water and the pipe just went. I changed the water last week or so, so might explain it! Stupid cars.

Gutted mate, its always this simple things that cause such big problems isnt it!!

Got car recovered, etc.
Had a look today (wanted a break from it for a while), and found the pipe that goes into some kind of elbow/hat thing had come off. No damage to pipe, but obvious where the water had gone. Also, there was no jubilee clip on it.

I decided to put water in, take it to my garage (to get a new clip), and then took it to the 24 hour Asda car park (where it's nice and bright!), and do it up there at 9.30pm.
I never knew about the bleed screw on the metal pipe returning to the head. When the water was 'hot', and undid it, and got a load of hissing air and then a load of properly cold water. Bled the water through (no hot yet) and drove it home three miles. Came to a stop at a junction off the motorway, and the heating went cold and then the temperature rose. Pulled over before home, and the coolant header tank was boiling. Let it settle, etc and noticed the level hadn't gone down significantly (apart from bleeding). I didn't bleed the screw behind the dash cover. I don't suppose this is bad, and I'll get onto it properly tommorow.
There's no emulsification in the water/coolant at all.

Oh, and these are highly recommended if anyone needs k-series sorting:

http://www.mgroversolutions.com/#/price-list/4531823635

OK, it's been a while, and the car has been off the road since that occasion. I rebuilt the head a long while ago, and it had a replacement head on. The car overheated on the way to the MOT, so I thought I'd get it sorted (again) and change the head.
Changed everything over on Sunday, and ran it for about 20 - 30 minutes, and the coolant was boiling again.

I'm looking at two things now, either the bottom end is cracked, or there's something wrong with the head.
I'm not sure which head I got skimmed, so I'm going to take both into a engine workshop and get it sorted.

WATER PUMP FAILURE


Water Been changed ???

Yeah, I changed it last year, there's water circulating around the car.

thermostat checked for opening temps? also is it just water in it or coolant, k series run at 109degrees. so that'll explain water bolling

yerr check thermostat opening temps


But check spindle not snaped on water pump

(might be faulty)

if the impellor detaches itself from the pump doesnt it have bleed off valves? so it'd be leakin badly? on the honda engines they do?

I'll check the thermostat and water pump, everything's new though and the rad heats up.

they are on piston liners and if the engine turns a little with head off then the seals at the bottom of the piston liners then you will get same symptons as hgf so beware when doing head on these and a lot of late cars have liners and some diesel's do aswell you can check by using a straight edge along the block and check liner heights are all the same as one high and it's strip the engine. Renault 5 turbo,peugeot gti etc have liner problem and liner gasket's are paper and rip on these so probably the same on the rover k series

I'm going to strip the old engine as I'm hopefully going to get some kind of Metro and put it in there. I've been told about the liners, which I think might be the problem, I'll get the block checked over first.

I took the engine out today, finally!

Messed about with taking it out the top, but it's a pain in the ass. There are too many bolts that are difficult to get to, and most are rusted.









I'm going to put a new belt and water pump on the new engine and clean up the subframe!

The subframe is just four bolts at the back, four bolts on the anti-roll bar and four bolts on the front, and then disconnect the handbrake/gear selector cables/pipes/wiring and it wheels straight out!

nice work area

The frame was an absolute mess, so I got out the wire wheel on a drill and stripped it:



All the bits I could take off (except one, one of the bolts rounded )

Half the frame done in "Zinc 182" primer (sounds suspiciously like Blink 182 - hopefully not as rubbish):

Here's my new engine which is waiting patiently to go in (2 months).





I put 'stonechip' on the subframe:











And then put this on:









Now waiting for it to dry so I can put it all back together again.