The Head Is Off - Advice Please

[Enfield]

Hi Gents

 

well a big update on the HGF, I now have the head off and would appreciate some advice from the experienced guys on here.

 

The first thing I noticed was the rusty water, I have not had the car long and it seems the previous owner watered down the coolant, yuk, so I will have to clean things up the best I can.  The car ran just fine so I guess it will be ok just will stain the coolant ?

 

So onto the head, well I am new to this so not really sure what I am looking at but there are VERY shallow areas around parts of the fire rings and a few tiny pits but to me it does not look that major.?

 

Next step I intend getting the head hardness and flatness checked then we see if it needs peening and skimming.

 

Any thoughts/advice on what you see

 

Thanks

Darren   

[russelld]

The rusty coolant is nothing to worry about. It will be the backs of the liners that have rusted, new coolant will stop it getting any worse.

 

The combustion chambers look oily so fingers crossed it is down to valve stem seals. Other than that the head does not look bad! I can't see much in the way of indentations on the fire ring to indicate that it has gone soft.

 

Good luck with the tests

 

Russ

[Legacystorm]

I wouldn't skim the head , if you skim it removes top hardened layer from head and will cause problems

[Enfield]

Pleased to say that all is going well, I sent the head to a specialist who peened and skimmed the head.

 

Yesterday I started to put it all back together.

 

Cheers

[Martin R]

Darren, good luck let us know how you get on    

[Enfield]

Well great news I fired it up today and all seems good so far

 

I ran it through a cycle until the fan cut in and all good.

 

Following advice I have filled a with 75% mix of Prestone to see if that cleans out the system, I can already see a bit of rutty water and crap in the header tank so lets run that for a while then drain an flush again. 

 

With a bit of luck I might be there, now just need to put the clam back on then hit the road   

 

Cheers

[Phil S1]

Great work Darren. The best thing about forums are no matter where you are in the world there's always plenty of help and advice to be had....most of it helpful

[Martin R]

Fantastic, did it bleed ok?

[Enfield]

Fantastic, did it bleed ok?

 

Hi Martin

 

yes bleeding was easy, I bled the front, then jacked up the back, nice and high, them bled the rear.  I did manage to drop the rear bleed screw just as the coolant started to pour out  but it all seemed to go well.