Choosing a block
Turbo Mini Forums

I need to sort through my stuff and reduce some of the spares as i have to much stuff and not enough space.

I have 4 or 5 blocks and was going to reduce it down to 3.

What do i look for in the blocks to choose the best for myself? is there anything specific outside of general condition and avoiding liners?

1275 or 998/1080 ?

A or A plus ?

The issues differ so what to look out for differs.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

A+ 1275

The A plus are much more robust than the earlier ones esp. around the centre main bearing (although I did add a strap out of an abundance of caution).

Worst thing I've seen with them is the top of the block between 2&3 where it tends to sink allowing the head gasket to blow, then the face just gets worse. Can always be skimmed but beware if it's already been skimmed as the pistons end up too high.

And the waterways internally, just look through the water pump hole. The corrosion won't be structural but it really screws up the cooling leading to localised overheating and potential block distortion.

And then just obvious things like condition of threaded holes, esp. the head studs. They can be helicoiled but repairing them sometimes means drilling into the water jacket so the stud (s) then need loctiting in to prevent coolant leaks.

And the most obvious is bore condition - is it going to need a rebore ?
If so you run the risk of needing liners anyway as Leyland couldn't get an awful lot of standard blocks to stay watertight which is why they went through a period of fitting liner sleeves.

Edited by Rod S on 17th Sep, 2021.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???