Thread: Failed Td5 head gasket?

No pics yet. I've taken a few but the camera is still at the parents place, and i need to head back out to Doncaster tomorrow to finish.

Unfortunately no fireworks when the final bolt received the stage 5 45 degree turn. The torque down is a bit of a workout, and I would have struggled without an extra pair of hands.

I had a bit of a wtf moment when I was adjusting the injectors - set the clearance but then noticed the huge amount of play when on the back on the lobe. After a bit of a chat with Dad it clicked that the hydraulic lash adjusters will take up the lash! (NOTE: With a bit of thought it's actually the fuel rail pressure that takes up the slack in the injector not the lash adjusters)

Nothing is particularly difficult but everything seems to take time to do. Talking to JustinC tonight it seems that it's pretty normal for a first time to be a bit time consuming.

Stuff like a previous mechanic covering the back of the FPR with some kind of blue sealant that took ages to clean off. I also had a go at cleaning the inlet manifold. The only thing that seemed to do anything even remotely useful as acetone. That got off some of the gunk, but there was only a thinnish layer anyway. It got to the point where I couldn't really see the point doing it by hand. Messy and nasty stuff best left to someone with a cleaning tank.

Couple of things that would have been nice:
-- 8mm Allen socket for the fixed timing guide screw;
-- A tool to push on the injector washers. In the end I used a small ring spanner to get a reasonably even push. The sides of the injector tip need to be really clean. Even cleaned to shiny the washers are a close fit on the tip. I'm not sure how you'd have a washer fall off as some tutorials suggest you need to watch out for!?!

I've had pretty much all the parts I needed. I'd mistakenly assumed the carrier bolts came with the new head so had to reuse the old ones. That's one to look out for.

The layer of sealant on the carrier ends up pretty thin once it is rolled. A film is an apt description - even so you end up with a little bit of ooze out of the joint. I used a small foam paint roller which wasn't really the best tool for the job. A hard roller - possible a wallpaper seam roller - would have been ideal. I did have one of these to roll epoxy into layups for vacuum bagging but couldn't locate it in all the junk.

Anyway I'll be able to finish of tomorrow. It's mainly just hooking stuff up, reinstalling the exhaust manifold, installing helicoil threads in the centrifugal filter housing, replacing boost hoses (supercheapauto 4mm hose turns to jelly when faced with heat, pressure and oil), do an oil change, refill coolant. Not too much really.

Cheers
Paul

All together and running, but it looks like I'll have to pull the injectors and redo the injector washers as the engine is displaying the classic signs of fuel leaking past the washers. bugger. I have a "spare" set of AMC washers which I didn't use as I had LR washers and o-rings. Looks like they will get a run after all.

I've had a couple of issues. I followed the purge instructions and had a very hard time starting the engine - it would chug and blow smoke with full throttle but not start or run. In the end I worked out that the engine had probably flooded. Starting with no throttle input solved the issue very quickly.

The second issue was that the FPR started ****ing fuel down the side of the block. This mean I had to undo the FPR in situ then check and clean the gasket, and refit. This solved the issue. For some reason the gasket was crushed on one side but not the other. Possibly missed fully tightening the lower bolt, but when I checked the torque it seemed ok. Dunno!

On the positive side, I did get the thread coils installed for both the centrifugal filter cover bolts, the JE Engineering exhaust studs are on and the LR boost hoses are fitted.

Ok, some pics. I didn't really have that much time to stop and take photos, so this is the lot!


Injectors out, o-rings and washers off and ready to clean the tips.



AMC head from the "bottom"






Rocker shaft on, JE Engineering exhaust studs installed.



Head finally installed, and torqued down. Inlet manifold on. Traces of blood staining on the head near the air-con compressor...


Cam cover gasket ready for installation. The grommet and spacers push through from the top side of the cover into the gasket and do a great job of holding the gasket in place.

cheers
Paul

Hmmm. I might hold off on the washers until I have a clear pattern of misbehaviour. Just went to pick up torque wrench and the injector washers and o-rings from storage and the D2 started up perfectly with no real sign of smoke or roughness.

Earlier this afternoon I'd given the injectors a light tap with a drift and hammer on the section of the body where they are clamped to make sure they were seated, and then torque the retaining bolts again, and redid the bump adjustment. All except one injector needed a bit of extra pulling down to make the required torque. This hadn't seemed to make any difference, but now I'm not so sure. I'll check again tomorrow before I commit to pulling out the injectors again.

cheers
Paul

Originally Posted by OffTrack

The second issue was that the FPR started ****ing fuel down the side of the block. This mean I had to undo the FPR in situ then check and clean the gasket, and refit. This solved the issue. For some reason the gasket was crushed on one side but not the other. Possibly missed fully tightening the lower bolt, but when I checked the torque it seemed ok. Dunno!

have done same, think you torqued the rear bottom manifold bolt by mistake, its next to the bottom FPR bolt and QED

Unfortunately I installed the FPR on the bench before I did the intake manifold so I can't use that excuse!

So last night I had a bit of a moment which is detailed here:

Td5 non rhythmic knock from topend???

The real killer was the poor starting behaviour. When I installed the injectors they didn't seem to seat down fully, and as mention a couple of posts up I had a go at reseating them without any change in behaviour.

As I'd taken the day off to get to the bottom of the knock, and solved that without too much drama, I bit the bullet and decided to pull the injectors and check the washers were seating. Having already done the injectors once, it was a pretty simple task to pull the rocker shaft assembly and the injectors again. A quick trip to the local industrial supplier for a 6mm allen key and a nice new Stanley flat bladed screw driver (had used my dad's "once was a screwdriver" first time round which may have contributed to lack of adjustment?) and then a bit of wait for the rain to hold off, and a few hours work and I've now got the washers replaced with the AMC items supplied with the head. The finish on the AMC washers is nowhere near as nice as the LR jobs and they are slightly looser fit too.

This time around the injectors seated with a firm push and a satisfying clunk. Once the rocker shaft was back on and I began adjusting the bump setting on the injectors I knew that things were looking much better. On the first install the adjuster screws were wound almost all the way out when the injectors bottomed out, this time around they were in the bottom half of the adjustment range before the injectors bottomed out.

Anyway redoing the injectors has transformed the way the engine starts. I suspect for what ever reason the injectors were using substantially less than full travel which might account for the problems I was having.

I'm almost ready to call "job done", touch wood

cheers
Paul


Add: Urban Panzers tip on pumping the throttle 5-10 times to bleed the fuel system (can't say how many times exactly I just kept pushing until the engine light started flashing) is a ripper. My preferred method has been repeatedly cycling the ignition to run the pump. The repeated throttle press with the ignition switched to II triggers a 5 minute cycle of repeated pump runs. Much easier and saves faffing with the ignition every 30 seconds or so.

Originally Posted by OffTrack

I'm almost ready to call "job done", touch fake delaminated wood

Fixed it for you
Well done, as usual you've done a top job.
Want to come and do mine?
Cheers
Muppet

Originally Posted by Disco Muppet

Fixed it for you
Well done, as usual you've done a top job.
Want to come and do mine?
Cheers
Muppet

Thanks Muppet, I think I'll pass TBH although Justin has said the first one is the slowest I think this was a victory of persistence rather than mechanicing skills.

BTW No fake delaminated wood on mine, though I notice yours is still resplendent in the stuff. I wasn't going to mention that once you'd had the lever and surround and switch panel off it would have been super easy to remove the stick on "wood".

Mine got a bit of TLC last year. Behold the lack of delimitation:





The door trims were a bit over the top, but still kinda cool in a factory bling sort of way.



cheers
Paul

Hey, you've got more than I do! No fair!
I did try to pry the base bit off but there's no way it's coming off without a bit of damage, so I'll wait until I have a replacement, one piece panel that incorporates the window switches as well.
Thankfully mine isn't delaminated, it just needs a bit of a polish which I'm still trying to work out the best method of.
After my efforts with the roof panel I'll need to clean it all again as there's lots of little plastic shavings scattered about.
Never ends
Cheers
Muppet