Is ERA Head toast now?
Turbo Mini Forums

Now where were we? after the turbo spike on the rolling road question, didnt get too much time to put your suggestions into place because on the way to Brooklands, giving the old girl some 100mph exercise the power dropped, temperature shot up and I burnt the end off number 3 plug. BPR6s were fitted, I have read the reports on plugs here and reckon I will be using BPR7s in future. Dont know if anyone else has noticed that if you ask the NGK web site which plugs to use in a Metro Turbo it suggests BPR6s but if you put in the cross reference question for Unipart GSP4452 it returns BPR7s!

I reckon it did lean out and that caused the problem.

With regard to the Turbo Spike question, now I have the head off I can see that the heat proof wrap in the bulkhead box has been fouling the actuator - another couple of turns on the engine steadies I reckon!

After Brookland and having checked the oil and water drove carefully home running on 3 cylinders - well actually 2 plus 1/2 plus 1/2. Compression test revealed:

Number 1 160 psi

Number 2 60 psi

Number 3 50 psi

Number 4 150 psi

So a classic case of failed head gasket between 2 & 3 was suspected - and in deed that was exactly what I found.

No apparent damage to the crown of number 3, but cleaning revealed a strange almost unnoticeable acne to number 2 crown.

The history I have with the car proves the mileage as 26000, and there was no mention of the head having been off. (It has been in store for most of the last 12 years)

This is the IMPORTANT bit - once I had cleaned the head up I noticed some things:

A tiny crack between the valves on cylinders 1 and 4. The crack on cylinder one almost looks like a casting mark and does not go through either valve seat the crack on cylinder 4 passes through the exhaust seat and half way down the throat of the valve. When i rubbed a steel point over the crack it can clearly be felt.

3 of the inlet valves had a letter "C" on the valve face, one didnt but had TAM 1330M on the stem.

Judging by the colour of the valves and the I would guess that the inlet and exhaust valves have been replaced in cylinder 3 -the same cylinder I burnt the end of the plug off - any reason for this?

So the questions I would like your advice on:

Is the head toast because of the valve seats?

Can I get it repaired? If so who would you recommend?

Do I have to replace all the valves if the head is repaired?

If I have to have another head, as it is an ERA I need it to show the "T" mark near the water outlet - do they all have these?

I read another chap with an ERA had the same problem and the replacement head he fitted did not have the tapped hole for the temperature sender - is this unusual?

I want to keep the ERA standard, so I believe it has a standard Metro Turbo head on it, but since I have discovered others have been at the valves before I cant really be sure.

How did the compressions look on the 2 good cylinders - the two with cracks between the seats!!

Any advice would be very welcome, because I need to get her back together again befor I forget wher all the bits go!

AH! careful.

you may get a answer that starts with "if you spend......."

the head boys on here are the best, just be careful of the bug that everyone gets on here, its a bugger to get rid off!

I am probably wrong, but I thought all the heads were pretty much the same as each other. And if you've got the head off, send it to Turbo Phil to get it worked on a bit.

hi ric, well ...... the heads goosed!

this will have been running very hot to cause this problem, as you suspected the blown head gasket between 2&3 caused the compression drop

but dont discard the notion there may be some damage to the piston lands all you can do is fit another head on there and see ?

why not fitt a modded head on ?