bladeracer wrote:Drove the ute home this arvo, no problems at all, it ran just fine. Still full of water when I got home, no visible leakage, not at all hot.
Going to have to do some more diagnostics before pulling the head off I think. Going to have to order a diesel compression tester to measure over 500psi.
I've almost finished building the car engine, but when I've been waiting on bits I've managed to have some very basic looks at the ute.
We're still driving it, including towing the cattle trailer, and it doesn't get hot, use any water, or lack any power. Basically, it drives just as it always has.
I replaced some of the hoses that I could do in a couple minutes, one heater hose had split but wasn't leaking at all.
And I've found a pinhole in the top radiator tank, so I'm waiting on a new radiator.
But the $5300 quote to replace the head seems to have been either a complete crock, or a very, very poor diagnosis.
I haven't managed to do a compression test yet as it's quite involved and not something I want to rush in a free moment. Once I've sorted the car I'll be able to dive in more deeply.
As for the car, which was diagnosed by a mechanic as a "blown head gasket but compression is fine", that also was rubbish. Having stripped the entire engine down, the only problems I found were those I already knew about (blown rear main seal, leaking valve cover gasket, and 310,000kms of piston and ring wear), plus a totally blocked up crankcase breather system, certainly a very long-term problem that existed when we bought it, but one that I had never noticed during maintenance.
The valve cover is split horizontally, the top half acting as a long narrow chamber that filters the blowby coming up from the crankcase through two ports in the side of the block and head. The cover is a simple plastic casting but was remarkably heavy in one corner, that I couldn't explain other than being packed with crud, despite copious quantities of degreaser, diesel and compressed air that failed to move it. So I drilled a dozen half-inch holes through the bottom of it to get access, then used a dental pick and spray cans of degreaser to push what was essentially a very sticky turd through the cavity until I got it out the end. This blockage is the only cause I can find for the "espresso coffee" foam throughout the valve cover, it couldn't breath the moisture back to be burned through the engine so it just built up in the head. Zero indication of any coolant getting down into the crankcase or into the cylinders, the rest of the engine was in perfect condition.
Dropping the lifters, rockers and cams in today and she's finished, but I'm thinking of pulling the transmission for a service while I have access. Although the Z14XEP engine is a mongrel to work on, I am impressed with its quality. Only .030mm to 0.051mm of cylinder wear in 310,000kms and no measurable wear at all to main or rod bearings, or the valve train. Camchain was way past replacement though, it was slack and the tensioner was fully extended already. There is wear on the cam lobes but nothing remarkable, and they're easily replaced later on anyway. One surprise is that virtually nobody rebuilds these in Europe because the vehicles devalue so fast. In the UK you can sell the secondhand catalytic convertor for A$500, the same as you'd sell the whole vehicle for. Which means there are thousands of low-mileage secondhand engines around for next to nothing - a quote from a response I got online - "A good replacement low mileage engine will only set you back £100-200 tops", which is less than the cost of the gasket set. So I had next to no information on how this was built or what I might want to be looking for inside it, which did add to the fun factor.
- Looks like a problem
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- Not a happy engine
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- Crankshaft back in
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- New standard pistons
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- Combustion chambers cleaned up nicely
- 20210120_172727b.jpg (462.26 KiB) Viewed 8171 times
- Head rebuild
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- Setting cam timing
- 20210123_180245b.jpg (212.83 KiB) Viewed 8171 times