Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello all, yesterday noticed that the manifold gasket around the inlet ports looks “damp”, as you’ll see in the pictures. Now I torqued the bolts to 15 myself, as per the manual, but have now retightened to 17 and keeping an eye.

Separate and unrelated is that I have water/moisture leaking from the join between the head and the block. The head was skimmed when I replaced the gasket several weeks ago and again I torqued all the bolts down, in the right order. Gasket set from ESM so no rubbish.

Thoughts anyone please? Something, or nothing?

Others will be better placed to give advice than me but regarding the leak between the head and block: a compression test is a good idea.

Did you heat cycle and retorque after fitting the new head gasket? From memory standard studs and nuts are 42lbs/ft in the book but some knowledgable chaps on here suggest 45lbs/ft. Might want to double check that - but I’m sure that’s what I was told last year.

Good luck,

John

Re the manifold:- remove the manifold and place a straight edge across all gasket faces. Are the gasket faces true/inline?
When installing the manifold gasket lightly smear the gasket with grease. The grease helps seal the gasket and keeps the gasket supple. Torque to 15lbf ft.
As above you need to go through the 1st heat cycle process and retorque after the engine has cooled down. Just retorque the cylinder head studs at 42lbf ft and see how you get on. Again a smear of grease on the gasket faces does not go amiss.
If you want to increase the torque of the studs fit a set of 'A' Plus studs and flanged nuts which can be torqued to 50lbf ft.
http://www.minispares.com/product/Class ... 0to%20shop
https://www.minisport.com/cam4545-lates ... gines.html

Thanks chaps.

I originally torqued to 40 which is what the Haynes said but I’ll do them again to 42 and bear in mind the high torque studs. I’ll also check the manifold gasket faces and add some grease, thank you.

Nice job for a Sunday afternoon…

If you've had the head off that engine recently it would have been a good opportunity to replace the by-pass hose (the little hose between the water pump and cylinder head) which looks somewhat perished to me. I must admit I always use a length of reinforced heater hose for the job as I think those corrugated ones are junk and can fail with no notice

Perhaps I’ll add that to my to-do list, thanks! Got enough to be going on with for now though. Blasted classic cars…

Thanks Mr Hill; the grease on the manifold gasket seems to have solved the fuel issue. Gasket was flat across all faces.

Not so lucky on the water leak but I’ve not removed the head to grease the gasket, or added the higher torque studs and nuts, so that’ll be my next job. That’s if I’ve not sold the car by then - it’s taking too much of my time so far.

Appreciate the input.