Rover P6 4.6 V8 Road/Race car.

Only a minor update. The other day I was out in the P6 in the cabin and the poly windows, lack of any winding mechanism (and they would get scratched to bits anyway) and no winder for the quarter lights made it more than a little sweaty. So I dug out the winder knobs, drilled a hole in the door cards to fix that. Fitted a small slider window for a little more (plus means handing stuff out the car much easier - how am I meant to order at a drive through!)


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Baron von Marlon said:
Bummer. Slipped liner?

I hope not. I have not investigated at all yet. I am keeping fingers crossed that the gasket has breached and that is all rather than something else drastic.

GRTV8 - if I chuck it your way will you chuck it back fixed? :D
 
RoverAlex said:
Baron von Marlon said:
Bummer. Slipped liner?

I hope not. I have not investigated at all yet. I am keeping fingers crossed that the gasket has breached and that is all rather than something else drastic.

GRTV8 - if I chuck it your way will you chuck it back fixed? :D

Wont be how you've been fixing stuff !!!!
 
GRTV8 said:
Ive got 12 thumbs .
Sounds like the guy who sent a DNA sample to a researcher to try to establish his Family Tree and they sent him back a
packet of seeds and told him to start over..... :mrgreen:
 
Engine now apart. The liners (to my untrained eye) look absolutely fine, the top of the pistons are not "washed", bores look fine and so on:

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Inspecting the heads with an metal ruler showed both heads were towards the rear by the water valleys (I could easily slip a 0.05mm feeler gauge in the gap on the ruler, but not quite a 0.1mm) and, I can't think of a better phrase for it, the gaskets around the water valley look jagged as opposed to breached:

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Drove over Northampton way to get the heads skimmed by Northampton Heads (top service by the way, did it while I waited) and they found that one head need 6 thou, the other 8 thou - when it was suggested that 2 thou is considered as tolerable. So this, I am hoping will be the cause of the problems. New gaskets, ARP thread paste and a new thermostat are on the way then it'll be time to put it back together and see how it goes - fingers crossed! Pretty heads:

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The only thing that would worry me slightly is that they've been skimmed by different amounts...
 
That was only to being them to exactly the same height - both only needed only 6 thou to make level....but one seeming already had a skim (or was otherwise not correct) - if that makes sense :)
 
yeah that's how I read it - different sized heads to start with.

Might be worth doing a coolant flush while it's open - looks like some manky in the water galleries judging by the gasket?
 
OK. So the heads went back on and seemed to run OK (still getting a little warm in traffic). Got back to inspect things and noticed that the valley gasket has lifted up considerably. It is still bolted down and has not come off at the back...but has been pushed up to the point where it has split and there is oil leaking out of it. Been throwing various theories around and the more reasonable one is that the carb has back fired and due to the lack of there being flame traps, has pressurised the top end. How come it didn't do that before? Well perhaps because the head was blowing and that was it easiest path out...now that it's sealed up it cannot do that.

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The other consideration is that I am using early rocker covers which do not breathe as well as the later ones...yet I do not have the breather on the block as I have the later 4.6 block. So it probably was not the reason why I had excess pressure, but it will do it good anyway. The plan is to copy the SD1 setup which has the cannister flame trap on one side splitting off and going to both carbs and rocker cover an "open" vent.

Want to get it sorted so I can drive it, rather than trailer it, to the Classic Restoration Show at the NEC :D These are the rocker covers I bought...I don't think they are as visually appealing as the older style ones...but function over form.

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I also took a decision on the cooling system. I am going to drill/clean in some way or another the water outlet on the carb tower as that is almost fully blocked (I get a trickle and that's about it). Have a coolant tank that is t'd off from the radiator outlet and also feeds the carb tower outlet. I also think I need a much better fan - I think the ebay cheapo jobbie is pretty lame - a trip to my parents house will hopefully be fruitful for that :).

To get to the NEC I will also need a much bigger fuel tank - it's about 7 litres and that doesn't get me very far at all - perhaps 10 miles! (it will of course be much better once the engine has been tuned - again - another thing that needs doing before the NEC). Fingers crossed.
 
I can't offer any thoughts on the split valley gasket, but seeing as you need to remove the intake anyway, why not pull the Welch Plugs in the manifold tower and clean it out nicely and thoroughly?
 
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