Morris Minor Owners Club

My newly-purchased Moggie Traveller blew it's head gasket on the journey home from the vendor. Notwithstanding my anger, it looks like a blown head gasket due to the radiator fins disintegrating on the journey (they just fell off!) leading the engine to overheat and blow the headgasket. Given that it will probably need skimming etc. Am I better off going for a replacement recon engine rather than a replacement for the possibly cracked cylinder head?

Thanks for the advice so far-I literally pulled in within half a mile of the smoke appearing and the engine was seriously hot. Interesting point about the piston rings. I await the report from the garage who say that 1098 heads are prone to cracking when the head gasket goes?. It was a private sale so I don't think I have any legal recompense in that area. She is a gorgeous car with only 41,000 genuine miles on the clock. The bodywork is all original as she has been garaged for most of her 49 years spent in the milder climes of Cornwall.

Cast iron Block & Head unless you did some serious miles without water you may have got away with just the gaskit. get the head off have it pressure check should be ok de gunk the sludge new head gaskit and re fit.

Do not just change the gasket. Check the head (at least) for flatness. Too many repeat gasket failures are caused by 'treating the symptoms' and not 'curing the disease'. If the head is banana shaped it WILL eventually need skimming and may cause other damage in the mean time.

Serious overheating canl remove the tension from piston rings for example. Not a good plan!

Before contemplating a recon engine, do consider the condition of the rest of the engine. Skimming the head is not a difficult, nor particularly expensive, task. Replacing a head gasket is far less aggravation than changing an engine, as well.

I doubt losing some fins would cause it to overheat - my Trav ran for years with many many fins missing, and never got anywhere near to overheating - and that with a modified engine, driven hard! Just lift the head and check the gasket - unless you ran on with blown gasket (surely not?) the head and block should be fine - but do check. However - note if the gasket looks very 'new' - which would suggest the gasket had blown before - and the 'vendor' had quickly fitted a new gasket and flogged the car to you. As you say 'vendor' that suggests a Trade sale - in which case you should have some sort of warranty on the sale. If it was a private sale -you could still try for some recompense . It's highly unlikely you need a new engine - unless of course you flogged on with blown gasket and no water until the engine seized up. Did you ??

Iswas very careful to avoid any reference to the sale. The one sided only report and from an irate and very recently signed up member (yesterday) deserves consideration, but without reference to the sale. Threads like this can be genuine or simply a means of gathering support for a litigation attempt. I know not which it might be and would not wish to be quoted, one way or the other unless I have full details.

We know nothing about the implied condition of the car at the time of the sale, or the deal made. Nor do we know the full details of the journey. So, currently, no new engine required, possibly a cracked head (but probably not) and more reason for the gasket failure than losing fins from the radiator (was this all the fins or simply one strip?).

Need more information, when the purchaser has cooled off, I feel.

Well, the OP says it is in a garage being checked out so hopefully they will check whether the head/block needs skimming at all. These A series engines are pretty robust so hopefully it will be OK.

The head gasket blew last year on my van and it had a new radiator in it when I got it and when the garage took the head off he sent it away to be skimmed and they found a minute crack in it which they said had been there probably for some time. I got a new unleaded head and had that fitted. I used to have an A35 van and the fins on that was terrible but never overheated.

1098 heads are NOT prone to cracking - although anything is possible if it was seriously seriously overheated. But if run with a blown gasket - then yes skimming of block face and head face is highly likely. Do let us know how you get on with this - I suspect the gasket was blown right from the start (or as soon as you started driving it home) and caused the overheating - not loss of radiator fins.