Morris Minor Owners Club

you may have disturbed the gasket, and you may need to deal with it ,you may have water into the oil and may need to deal with that, BUT with the comp figures listed , the head gasket is unlikely to be causing the car to run as badly as you say.You still have a none gasket/head problem. The noisy VW sound's not just an exhaust/manifold leak is it.I would think that the water into the oil has been caused when you loosened the head . Change the oil before starting to pull the head and see if it stays clear.

Thanks for all the replies guys, turned out the head was slightly warped and the head gasket had gone. Took it to a local engineering works and had a minimal skim done along with new valve guides, seats and valves lapped. Very valuable lesson learned i.e take the head off to do valves
Going to put the head back on today along with new gasket and hopefully this will now be the end of a very long process. So far this car has had:
Refurbed gearbox
New clutch
New starter motor
New coil (it's never the coil )
New Leads
New plugs
Refurbed carb
New radiator
New brake pipes
Thanks again for all your advice

Well done! I totally disagreed with Roy's opinion regarding coils (having been left stranded twice by failed coils - one an original coil, one a replacement), but I would say that if you have replaced your old one with a new one of dubious quality (anything unbranded, Lucas branded etc.) it's worth popping a spare one in the car just in case. I'm not one for carrying a bootful of spares, as there's no reason the car shouldn't be reliable if it's well maintained, but the quality of these nowadays is pretty poor.

be interesting to find out if it was a head problem, its very rare to find moggy head warping , except when severe overheating has taken place,but you will soon find out don't forget to change the oil ,good luck