I am sure this sonds extremely weird but i was so excited to hear today that i have a blown gasket...
that means that no longer will i just hit 40 miles an hour...
no longer will i need to leave my car for half an hour after a 10 minute drive before i can start it again!!
I never thought i would be excited to hear of this!!
My mechanic said it shouldnt be that big a job!!
I've never known anyone to get so excited about a blown headgasket before!
It's not a big job but will require a few hours labour on the bill
Ray. MMOC#47368. Forum moderator.
Jan 06: The Minor SII Africa adventure: http://www.minor-detour.com
Oct 06: back from Dresden with my Trabant 601 Kombi
Jan 07: back from a month thru North Africa (via Timbuktu) in a S3 Landy
June 07 - back from Zwickau Trabi Treffen
Aug 07 & Aug 08 - back from the Lands End to Orkney in 71 pickup
Sept 2010 - finally gave up breaking down in a SII Landy...
where to break down next?
2013... managed to seize my 1275 just by driving it round the block
have just heard back and her exhaust valves are busted, and he is going to fit new valves so i can use unleaded petrol!!
was super chuffed about that!!
so i should get her back on friday...
i then go on holidays for a week and a half on saturday...
am so sad i dont get to give her a good drive in!!
might have to have a late friday night drive!!
am most excited!!
have just heard back and her exhaust valves are busted, and he is going to fit new valves so i can use unleaded petrol!!
was super chuffed about that!!
For an unleaded conversion, you need to have the head machined to fit hardened valve seats. If they just fit new valves this isn't an unleaded conversion. Maybe they meant they were exchanging the head for an unleaded one? At garage labour rates it can be cheaper to get an exchange head than to spend 6 to 8 hours reseating and lapping the valves.
Ray. MMOC#47368. Forum moderator.
Jan 06: The Minor SII Africa adventure: http://www.minor-detour.com
Oct 06: back from Dresden with my Trabant 601 Kombi
Jan 07: back from a month thru North Africa (via Timbuktu) in a S3 Landy
June 07 - back from Zwickau Trabi Treffen
Aug 07 & Aug 08 - back from the Lands End to Orkney in 71 pickup
Sept 2010 - finally gave up breaking down in a SII Landy...
where to break down next?
2013... managed to seize my 1275 just by driving it round the block
have just heard back and her exhaust valves are busted, and he is going to fit new valves so i can use unleaded petrol!!
was super chuffed about that!!
For an unleaded conversion, you need to have the head machined to fit hardened valve seats. If they just fit new valves this isn't an unleaded conversion. Maybe they meant they were exchanging the head for an unleaded one? At garage labour rates it can be cheaper to get an exchange head than to spend 6 to 8 hours reseating and lapping the valves.
they had to machine the head any way.... due to it being blown... is this right?
will ask the guy when i pick it up tomorrow and make sure... the other thing i was wondering is do i have to empty my fuel tank of the leaded petrol before driving it?
sorry for the possibly stupid questions...
you can leave the fuel in the tank cos the chances are it will be unleaded fuel i guess
unles it has been standing a long while
the head nay have been skimmed, not to be confused with converting to unleaded
it is not necessary to have the head converted to unleaded for general use
New exhaust valves - if the correct 'hard' variety will be fine -as long as they have re-cut the damaged seats and ground the new valves in properly. Get them to set them to 15 thou gap - but in any case the head will need tightening down and the valves re-set after a few miles on the new gasket. They may (as above) have skimmed the face of the head if they felt the blow gasket had 'marked' it in some way. Worry is - the block may also have been marked - ask them !
Full 'unleaded' conversion involves maching the exhaust valve seats away - and pressing in new seats made of harder material. It's not cheap - and unless you are doing high mileage and hard driving - it's not necessary. Just run the engine on unleaded fuel - it will be fine.
The machining they'll need to do after a blown gasket and broken valves is (perhaps) a skim to make sure it's flat and cleaning up the valve seats if they've been damaged. To convert a head to unleaded they would need to cut the exhaust seats a lot bigger and fit new seats made of a harder material.
As aupickup says, a lot of folks have used unleaded without getting harder valve seats fitted - it's hard use over lots of miles that cause valve seat recession.
Oh, and leaded petrol is only a problem with catalytic converters, it won't harm the engine at all.
Well if the heads being taking to bits an unleaded conversion seems a sensible thing to have done at the same time also I think the local garages down under are more resourcefull than what we are used to and having machining facilities is par for the course in the quieter places, sounds like your local one is a traditional garage rather than a high tech one.
And with the distances between places over there is there such a thing as a low mileage car.
Cheers
Kevin
Lovejoy 1968 Smoke Grey Traveller (gone to a new home after13 years)
Well - that equates to ~ £200. For that I would be expecting a fully reconditioned engine !! Not just a head gasket + new valves job. If he has gone ahead and done a proper 'unleaded' conversion with hard seats and hard valves - then the price is a bit steep but probably about right - but you really didn't need it!
