Well the 2.0 16v is apart.
Symptoms were loss of oil, some mixing of coolant in oil, pressuring, and a intermittent misfire.
Made the 120 odd mile trip home in it, but to my horror when I got home the lifters sounded like they were going to come through the engine, it was VERY tappy. Checked oil - oh hell - nothing on the stick. It took 4litres to bring it back up.
Fired her up again after adding this and the lifters instantly shut up and all was smooth again. I'm not sure how many miles I did on the motorway with it this low on oil - any chance I did any bottom end damage?
Anyway, I stripped it down yesterday, and it was in a very bad way and had some signs of bad workmanship / lack of servicing.
1) Breathers, the big metal breather pipe is solid with crud top to bottom, I suspect it's never been off in 132000 miles. The breather from the inlet manifold to the cam cover was also solid all the way back to the manifold with crud, will need replacing.
2) Safety clip was not on the accelerator cable.
3) Cam cover bolts were WAY overtightened. I needed a breaker bar to get them off! This, combined with the breathers blocked, will account for the fact that the plug wells were full of oil!
4) General state of the cams, and head. Thankfully there's no excess wear visible, BUT it was filthy in there.
5) Valve timing was a tooth advanced and the belt was dangerously slack. Tensioner/idlers and waterpump feel fine though, quite new, so probably poorly fitted.
6) Not sure how, but when I went to remove the exhaust, discovered that oil is leaking out of the HG down the NS of the block (or at least it seems that way).
Stripdown went ok, I only broke one bolt off in the exhaust manifold to downpipe, and this is now drilled and re-tapped. I've also started cleaning the head up, ready for a skim, and rebuild/valve lap before the car goes together.
Pics:
A nice oily engine


A close up of the camcover:

Will it ever run again?

State of the head after removal:

Me thinks it may have been a bit hot in these chambers?

Finally - the head gasket, looking sorry for itself...
