Morris Minor Owners Club

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!!

WHOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

cant wait til i get her back!!

karen

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

i have only had her about three weeks so its extremely exciting to hear that things are going to be getting alot better!!

have been waiting on parts and have only been able to go on tiny little trips...

or even worse trips where some one else drives me home!!

i presented the mechanic with some beer when i went to see him today...

must keep him in good spirits!!

You cheered me up today!

i was so excited to hear today that i have a blown gasket...

presented the mechanic with some beer when i went to see him today...

You must be an ideal garage customer! Not even my wife does that when I fix her car

Hope you get her back soon!

Andrew

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!!

Good news then!

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.

rayofleamington wrote:

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.


Cross-posted with bmcecosse, so wot he said ^^^.

i think i may need to print this page out to bring to the mechanic!!

I didnt actually ask him to convert it... he just said thats what he was up to while he was fixing the exhaust valves and head gasket...

is costing me $450AUS

and the guy is a friend of a friend, so it should hopefully be a good rate.

thanks so much for all of the insight

karen

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.

Hope you get your Moggy back soon.

At least you didn't have head gasket failure on an MGF!!!

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!

I live in Karratha, about 1700kms away from Perth.

Most trips are around 10 - 15 minutes so yes it is a low milage car!!

But being so far away from every thing means that people charge rediculous prices for everything!!

I phoned up about a respray the other day to be told it would start at $10,000 due to it being a restoration job...

the car has bugger all rust in it and just a couple of dents that need fixing...

oh well!!

thanks again
karen

Buy a spray gun - and do it yourself. They are taking the Mickey with you!