Just had my K series S1 back from the garage, turns out I have water in No. 1 cylinder most likely the head gasket has failed.
Quoted price is a grand which is way out of my budget at the moment, normally not a problem as I would get my spanners out and do it myself but I don’t know enough about the K to be comfortable doing that off the cuff. Does anyone have experience of doing a head who could advise me of any pitfalls or likely problems?
I would remove the head and send it off for pressure testing and skimming (can they be skimmed?) before trying to refit but any and all advice or words of wisdom would be appreciated
You guys… your all waiting until I get it in pieces before giving away tricks of the trade aren’t you
OK a couple of direct questions:
As I will be doing the H/G myself does anyone know how much water I need to drain out if any and if so where to drain it from?
Also, I understand there is a fix for the head gasket if, when I check the liner heights, they are a little low. Can anybody give me an idea on the following
1, of what the minimum height the liners need to be before using the ‘fix’ on the gasket
2 what the ‘fix’ is and how far under bottom tolerence it is effective for.
Thanks in advance
Well if I were in your position I would call Dave Andrews (Google: DVA Power) or Simon Erland. Both are very helpful chaps (even if they disagree on the finer details of the K-series).
DVA is a business but Dave’s brand of not being able to stop himself from offering advice is a very good marketing technique, you end up wanting him to work on your car.
Ian
Which of course you are completely entitled to, but can you be a bit more specific?
Ian
I think Ducatiman was emphasising your use of “disagree” between DVA & KingK
The fix is a kludge but can help, the correct solution is to set the liner heights to 4-5 thou, if the heights are less than this then you can thin the compression bars at the end of the gasket by 3-4 thou, they can be carefully prised off the gasket and thinned on a linisher or similar. This can help but is no substitute for having the correct liner heights in the first place. Do not use the MLS gasket if you liner heights are low or the slightest bit uneven, use the Payen BW750 gasket.
I would also have the head hardness tested, consider 95 Brinell as the failure level.
Drain coolant from the thermostat bypass hose attached to the thermostat housing, if you can get it off… this will ensure the coolant is below the level of the head gasket.
Dave