Coolant temp problems - Confirmed HGF

[BiggestNizzy]

you use a brunell hardness test kit to check it for hardness, you force a ball bearing into it and make a dimple (somewhere that doesn't matter) then you measure the diameter of the indentation using a eye thingy (highly technical terms these) and that tells you the hardness.

We have one at work.

im sure something could be arranged

Do you have your Brinnell hardness tester calibrated? I think the alloy in the head is pretty soft at the best of times, so the tester needs to be accurate to avoid condemning good heads/passing duff ones. From a quick bit of research I think that 95 is the minimum acceptable, with 100 being preferable and a new head being 110-120.

Cheers,
Robin

Yes, It has to be. we have to have it done every year as well as keep a monthly record etc etc.

Steve, if your up for a late night trip to Stewarton via Killie 10pm or later (during the week) with your head I can run in and get the boy's on the nightshift to do it there and then shouldn't take more than 15 mins a can of juice and a mars bar

[steve_weegie]

Gents, I planned for the worst

I have an emergency head lined up, possibly got a bottom & top end sourced and spoke to Ali regarding an engine swap.... I may still be up and running today, on the engine that's in the car If i can get a couple of months out of this engine, it will give me time to build a new block and finance an emerald, 285 cams and a "fancy head"

Robin, I had another very close look at the head and seperate to the new porosity that had opened up, I noticed small ring marks indented where the liner had crushed the fire ring onto the head. If this was caused just by torqueing the head down, i reconed it would have no chance dealing with the different alu / iron / steel expansion rates when hot. I made some phone calls shortly after that

Nizzy, that sounds good I'll be in touch. I'd like to know for certain what state this head is in before I sent it to the smelter!

Right, thats me coffee'd up.... I'm off to Macsport... I will return one way or another

[steve_weegie]

IT LIVES!!!

After a hard slog with Mac, we managed to get it running! I'm over the moon

Still a few niggles with the engine, but these will be sorted over the next couple of days.

I'd like to say thanks to everybody who's posted on this thread, and especially to everybody here whos donated time and parts to my cause. I'd love to write more, but i'm beat and off to have a curry.

Cheers everybody! I'll get the beers in for you all soon

Steve

[Rich H]

Yay!

Good stuff. I take it that you have fitted a spare head then?

[steve_weegie]

Yea, I'm DDtB powered at the moment! It's a std head running with a 135 ECU so it's not entirely happy. MIL light is on but the car runs not too badly. I recon that the ECU might learn over the next couple of days and smooth its self out. Also had to use Daves head and my cam ladder - different wear patterns on the cam journals mean that i cant torque the inlet side of the ladder down correctly. Again, i'll run it for a few days to loosen up then retorque.

Starting to eye up engine stands now

[BiggestNizzy]

Spot on as usual robin. Woody came across today with some measuring kit and took the liner heights at 4 positions per cylinder! Results as follows in inches..

Cyl 1 :

0.0015 0.001
0.002 0.0025

Cyl2:

0.001 0.001
0.000 0.000

Cyl3:

0.001 0.0015
0.0015 0.001

Cyl4:

0.002 0.0015
0.002 0.0015

Having spoken to steve tonight the conversion factors involved in converting from metric to imperial may have been out a little

1" = 25.4mm 0.001"=0.0254mm not 0.4mm (1mm = 0.03937")

so

Cyl 1 :
0.0023 0.0015
0.0031 0.0039

Cyl2:
0.0015 0.0015
0.000 0.000

Cyl3:
0.0015 0.0024
0.0024 0.0015

Cyl4:
0.002 0.0015
0.002 0.0015

when it comes to checking them again I have a tenth Dial Test indicator that will tell you exactly what it is.

oh and Steve's head has a BHN of 107

[robin]

Interesting - where on the head face did you measure the hardness?

The cant on the liners is still a problem, and zero is zero So head may be OK (I'm going to ask DVA about it), but the liner heights are still an issue that will come back to bite you ...

Cheers,
Robin

[BiggestNizzy]

Hard to explain in the middle and either at the top or bottom, I'm sure steve will post a pic

[woody]

fecking metric Sorry Steve


The only thing about zero here is that zero = the 0.04mm feeler not fitting between the cylinder block and calibrated block, hence it may not be a true zero. A smaller feeler may have registered. Still when they are supposed to be 0.005" it's not exactly a lot. Nizzy, I think you may struggle to get a mag base DTI on the block, off the top of my head I can't remember anything large enough in steel in there?

[Rich H]

Steve, the cam ladder not being torqued means that the oilways might not be sealed, also the cam ladders are align honed for the cams and not supposed to be interchangable! I had 2 heads spare for a while and they were totally different. I would be very careful running like that.

Could you fit DDTBs cam ladder? Should only be an hour's work.

[steve_weegie]

Well, thanks to Mr Nizzy, I had the first 2 bits of good news in a while

Robin, I'd be very interested on what Doctor Daves take on this is... Cyls 1 to 3 lead me to believe that i had casting problems with the head, but the ring mark on cyl 4 lead me to believe it had gone soft. The liner heights, while not quite as bad as we first though, are at least a bit better! I suspect the ones that read flush actually did sit slightly proud as i could almost squeeze the .04mm guage under the straightedge. I'm still looking for a bottom end, but if this head is ok, i might start looking for a die grinding kit too.... Unless Mr Andrews has some time free soon, which i very much doubt

Woody, the next time a girl says that its not 152mm, you can tell them otherwise Seriously though, not to worry... Without your help I wouldnt have got any liner readings at all.

Rich, yup... Pikey enginieering going on here I'm afraid... Very less than ideal, but i've got 100 miles on the engine now and hopefully the wear patterns on the cam ladder will be sorting themselves out. I'm going to torque the bolts to 7nm at the weekend go for a drive, then retorque to 10.

Here's a photo of where the head test was done. Basically I just picked part of the face that was between the oilway and outer waterjacket gaskets.



Here's some of the new "dents" that appeared after the skim and the head fitted / removed from the car...



#1 cyl



#2 cyl



#3 cyl

Here's the crush mark left on #4 cylinder

[Rich H]

That pitting does not look good...

[steve_weegie]

Nope, not the best really... I wish I was still seeing my Vet G/F - she might have had an ultrasound machine that could help detect underlying porosity...

[Rich H]

They will have an x-ray machine though...

[BiggestNizzy]

Nizzy, I think you may struggle to get a mag base DTI on the block, off the top of my head I can't remember anything large enough in steel in there?

I would sit a pair of parrallel slips onto the face of the block. that would allow a Vernier height Gauge with a DTI to sit proud of everything yet allow it to check the differences in height relative to the block. as long as you can take a reference from the block face to the lip of the liner you should be able to measure it you only have to move it say 5mm (0.200") side to side at each point.