My Engine woes
Turbo Mini Forums

Right my engine overheated due to losing all coolant last week.

Me and jackman got it out on saturday and stripped it down a bit we noticed some strange things.

*Rockers had lots of play and were fecked on the back so couldn't even repair them

* Took head off and gasket was in good condition and could have been reused if i was a pikey

*head had a minute nick on the in side edge of number 3

*the outer bores had heavy carbon deposits where as the inner two were clean.

*pistons wobbled slightly on 1 and 3 in bores

Any thoughts?

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Hi,
Sounds like a cracked head so water is getting into the 2 middle chambers. How clean is clean?
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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you could read the details on the pistons once you wiped softly with your finger

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Hi,
Water is very good at cleaning off combustion desposits. I take it the other 2 pistons had well stuck on crud?
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

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Yep.

If its a cracked head i'm fucked. thats another couple of hundred on top of the rebuild.

i'll need a good performing head that wont cost the earth. it was a minisport stage 4 head.

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Is the CC of the head biggish?

yep its quite big (or looks big anyway) i haven't measured it

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

It will be a standard chamber or at least a slightly skimmed one. Most off the shelf Minisport heads are standard chamber, 21.4cc

Well i got it to the engineering works to have a look at and sort and the nick i had found in the head had disappeared?

WTF?!

But rockers are completely goosed.

argh!

Benross you have pm

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Ok got the report back from BR&R

rockers - Shaft and bushes gone
One push rod knackered
New valves and seats
cam knackered including followers and barings
timing gear completely shagged
over bore to 1293 with new pistons.
head ok - yay!

will be back friday and the rebuild can begin

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Hi,
So where did the water go?
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

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out of the expansion tank past the seal, not into the engine as we all thought!

weird eh?

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Hi,
Yeah but, why the sudden pressurising of the cooling system?
Don't want you sticking all together again to still have the same thing happen again :(
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

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bats got a good point, how was the cooling system getting pressurised?

as none of the faults that you found have yet answered this, so the problem might still exist

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Hi,
I used to work on Pug diesels. Had one come in, over heating. Ripped the head off, sent it for pressure test/skim. Passed ok.
Fitted it back on, went on road test. 5 miles up the road it started smoking like a steam train from the exhaust :(
New head later and all was well.
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

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well i asked the guy to thouroghly check everything first, but you do have a good point.
it wasn't exactly pressurising it was just boiling over put more water in and instant boil over.

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Hi,
It will do that once you've released the pressure, the whole system boils up and you've just added more water too it
Unfortunately if the head is cracked you may get the same problem I did, nothing you can do other than try it :(
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

Visit www.doyouneedabrain.co.uk

My Mini build diary

So my only option at this stage is to rebuild, run it and see what happens?

strange thing is i got it up to temp after replacing the expansion cap and it didn't boil over.

I am very very puzzled by this.

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

Hi,
You're not the only one
The way I see it is that I don't think they pressure test them hot, and when the heads torqued down on the block it's probably stressed differently to the pressure test?
Cheers,
Gavin :)

VEMs Authorised Installer / Re-seller. K head kits now available!

WB/EGT gauges. Click here for customers write-up

Visit www.doyouneedabrain.co.uk

My Mini build diary

I have heard of a few heads that passed pressure tests but also still kept passing water when up to temp!

Well guess we will find out soon enough, i should have everything back this weekend to start rebuilding.

TurboDave said

"Fab's right of course.

Maybe you should take your styling ideas off the French instead! "

fingers crossed

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Can you get a magnaflux test? It is supposed to reveal invisible cracks in ferrous metal.

1275 with Back Door Turbo