Once again,work commitments and wintery weather have meant that progress on the project has been painfully slow.
The last owner was given three reasons by the mechanic why head gasket failure had been diagnosed.
1. Mayo on dipstick meant that oil/water in sump had mixed. I have checked and ascertained that the oil in the sump looks fine and there is no coolant contamination.
2.Old oil cooler had been pressure tested after removal and found to have no leak. I pressure tested the old cooler and found it to be leaking like a sieve.
3. Compression test had been carried out and found that there was little compression on one bank of cylinders.
At this point the car was returned to its owner and hasnt run for more than a few minutes since. I borrowed a compression tester from a workmate and removed the coil packs to access the plugs, so they could be removed to do the test.
The sight which greeted me upon removing the coil packs led me to believe that it was unlikely the plugs had recently been removed to carry out a compression test.
Had already started to remove the oil from the o/s plug wells when I took the pic above.
N/S bank.
Coil pack rubber boots which had a good soaking.
Almost enough oil sucked out of the plug wells to do a quick oil change on my bike.
Breathers were then inspected and found to be in a right state.Even the large diameter pipe had lots of big lumps of gunge coming out and took a lot of cleaning.Smaller pipes etc. were completely blocked.
The joys of restoration projects eh !!
New camcover gaskets ordered from AndyC. Hoping the coil packs have survived their bath. Time will tell.
Put some of the coolant pipes back today,but found that the pipe from the HBV to the matrix had a knackered connector,as had my only remaining spare. Twiglet is sending one via his best carrier pigeon tomorrow.
At the moment it feels like Im digging the hole deeper rather than filling it in,but Im confident it will all be ok in the end.
Another worry is what the final spend will have been and then what the car will be worth to someone when its finished,but too late to stop now,so will worry about that when the time comes.
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Topic: RIP my omega.. (Read 22773 times)