Rover 45 K-Series Head Gasket and "Iffy" Bodges...
Discussion
Last month I took on another Rover project, this time a 51-Reg Rover 45 with 'issues'; several of them. The owner very fairly described the car but, I was to discover a couple of issues he was not aware of including a rather nasty electrical bodge ...
If anyone wants to read it, I've outlined a more full description of the work needed on the car over on MG-Rover.org here:~
http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=394887
The previous owner sensibly stopped using the car as soon as he realised something was wrong and was advised that the cylinder head gasket was damaged. He had also had the rear hatch replaced with one from an earlier Rover 400 which was not only a bad colour match; Tahiti Blue on an Old English White car but was not a suitable replacement. Spot the differences ...
...
That was not the worst difference. More seriously, the only way the rear screen wiper would operate on the replacement hatch was by pressing the Heated Rear Screen switch! Something obviously wrong there. After fitting a later Hatch assembly with the High Level Central Brake Light, again from a Rover 400, not a 45, the wiper and heated screen operated as it should. I then turned my attention to the 'wrong' hatch removing all the useful items from it. When I teased out the wiring loom from under the Hatch metal frame sides, this is what was revealed :~
What a horrible bodge ~ not only poor workmanship but bluddy dangerous too. The wires have sinply been twisted together and covered with sticky tape! The car could have had a serious fire which could have put the occupants in real danger. Had the looms been removed carefully from the donor car as I did with the replacement, it would involve far less time and work than making that dangerous spliced mess shown in the picture....
I rectified the damaged cylinder head gasket and shortly afterwards, I was able to identify the reason why the car's engine was losing coolant which led to the overheating which damaged the cylinder head gasket. It was not a worn Coolant (Water ) Pump as I first suspected. It was a loosened coolant elbow on the right of the cylinder head which allowed coolant under operating pressure to escape. You can see the stain traces left by the escaping coolant in this picture :~
The two 8mm bolts securing the elbow were hardly finger tight. Hard to spot except for the tell tale stains which only showed up after I had cleaned the engine with a jet wash. Stains like that would be hard to spot in the dirt usually found on most engines.
The car showed good signs of being reasonably well maintained, except that whoever the previuous owner entrusted some of the work to, let him down very badly.
I have been using the car daily for over a month now. I am very pleased with it. Owning the MG ZS for the past seven years from new I was expecting this Rover 1.4 version to be a much less enjoyable experience after driving the ZS. I was wrong. I am delighted with the way the car drives and best of all, it returns more than 50% better fuel consumption figures even in this cold weather where engines are so slow to thoroughly warm up than my usual daily driver, the Rover 620ti. Bonus and my point to point journey times are little different.
..
If anyone wants to read it, I've outlined a more full description of the work needed on the car over on MG-Rover.org here:~
http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=394887
The previous owner sensibly stopped using the car as soon as he realised something was wrong and was advised that the cylinder head gasket was damaged. He had also had the rear hatch replaced with one from an earlier Rover 400 which was not only a bad colour match; Tahiti Blue on an Old English White car but was not a suitable replacement. Spot the differences ...
...That was not the worst difference. More seriously, the only way the rear screen wiper would operate on the replacement hatch was by pressing the Heated Rear Screen switch! Something obviously wrong there. After fitting a later Hatch assembly with the High Level Central Brake Light, again from a Rover 400, not a 45, the wiper and heated screen operated as it should. I then turned my attention to the 'wrong' hatch removing all the useful items from it. When I teased out the wiring loom from under the Hatch metal frame sides, this is what was revealed :~
What a horrible bodge ~ not only poor workmanship but bluddy dangerous too. The wires have sinply been twisted together and covered with sticky tape! The car could have had a serious fire which could have put the occupants in real danger. Had the looms been removed carefully from the donor car as I did with the replacement, it would involve far less time and work than making that dangerous spliced mess shown in the picture....
I rectified the damaged cylinder head gasket and shortly afterwards, I was able to identify the reason why the car's engine was losing coolant which led to the overheating which damaged the cylinder head gasket. It was not a worn Coolant (Water ) Pump as I first suspected. It was a loosened coolant elbow on the right of the cylinder head which allowed coolant under operating pressure to escape. You can see the stain traces left by the escaping coolant in this picture :~
The two 8mm bolts securing the elbow were hardly finger tight. Hard to spot except for the tell tale stains which only showed up after I had cleaned the engine with a jet wash. Stains like that would be hard to spot in the dirt usually found on most engines.
The car showed good signs of being reasonably well maintained, except that whoever the previuous owner entrusted some of the work to, let him down very badly.
I have been using the car daily for over a month now. I am very pleased with it. Owning the MG ZS for the past seven years from new I was expecting this Rover 1.4 version to be a much less enjoyable experience after driving the ZS. I was wrong. I am delighted with the way the car drives and best of all, it returns more than 50% better fuel consumption figures even in this cold weather where engines are so slow to thoroughly warm up than my usual daily driver, the Rover 620ti. Bonus and my point to point journey times are little different.
..
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