magnumpi wrote:t involves getting the speedo surround out to get to the top screw which is a bit more of an involved job

Its the bit of plastic this top screw goes in that they are going on about. It snaps if you sneeze at it

Fair enough i'll have a look at it when i get the chance but on a quick inspection it looks solid enough, if i hold the mount and pull the stalk it still doesn't work the lights so i reckon its the stalk itself.

On a side note is it possible to swap my rev counter to my old cluster which has a clock, hopefully fixing the fuel gauge problem?

Yes, although the problem may be the tank sender...

cheers

James

Making it go right off the scale and beyond? I'll pop that out aswell then and take a look, hopefully it's not as it's been modified by Adam to work with the F7R.

Well i got in from work today at 4.25, got straight in the car and pulled the dash and surround out to get to the indicator stalk. Everything seemed fine and the top mount isn't broken but it still refused to work.

So i disconnected it,took it off of it's mounts and had a look at it. I still couldn't see anything wrong and from what i could see of the internals it seemed to be doing what it should. I put it back on the column wired it up and hey presto i've done nothing to it and it's working again .

Quick call was made to the test center and i rushed down there and finaly i have my fresh test so i'm all legal* again, yay happy chappy.

*Bar it being a 1.4 on the logbook which shall be sorted soon enough.

So this, or should i say last week i have mostly been fixing a dodgy head gasket. I usually drive my car like i stole it, but on this occasion i was merely following a car at 30mph, decided to overtake it, went down to 3rd pulled round it, while passing the other car mine felt down on power.

Got passed it turned the stereo down and it sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders. So i pulled into a side road and got my tool kit out to investigate. Leads looked fine as did the plugs, next stop was the dizzy cap, which also looked fine, it was getting fuel aswell. So i decided to try getting it home under it's own steam, which it probably would have done, but i wasn't happy with the noises it was making so stopped again and called the AA.

They got me home and i spent the next couple of evenings stripping the head off until i found the cause (also been pointed in that direction by our resident technical guru Adam) which was a blown head gasket between to cylinders, hence the poor running.

Anyway i cracked on with it and have now got it sorted and running again, i thought it was going to be a nightmare job but turned out fairly simple. Plus it save me a small fortune in labour costs.









Can you see it?














Well it's up and running and seems fine so i think i've done it all correctly BUT and it's only a small but ... i now have no heaters? In any position it only blows out cold so what have i possibly done wrong? I reconnected the heater cable and it moves across it's full swing when i open and close the heaters so i'm a bit stumped? The car is getting up to temp and i bled the system when i reffiled it by keeping the tank cap off and running it up until temp, so any ideas?

Thanks gents.

Could have disturbed some crap which is now blocking the heat matrix? Check if there's water going in that way. If there is you might just have to flush the matrix. Or you could do a me and leave it because it's almost summer

Do the pipes to/from the heater get hot? I guess not...

Assuming you didn't do something inane like bypassing the heater (I'd like to think you'd have noticed!), I can't imagine it's anything other than an airlock. Keep the heater on 'hot' then go around squeezing pipes and see if it helps. Not got brilliant advice on that subject to be honest...the only car I've ever worked on with cooling system airlocks which didn't come out right away was a Rover 111i, and that thing was such a pile of shite I just told him to throw it away...

cheers

James

The valver should bleed just as easily as a 1.7 does, cap off the resovoir, heater on full, turn on engine and wait for the stat to open.

Good work dude.
What caused the HG to pop between the pots then?

Just general wear and tear, or gunning the ballbags off it?

Being French?

HGs tend to have a service life. The less support there is from the mating services, the worse it is. B230s blow HGs more often than B200s, for example...because the bigger bore means there's less meat between the pots to support the HG. That's not to say that the '230 is prone to failure, btw...

Excessive combustion pressure (i.e. lots of boostu!) will hasten this...B230 HGs tend to have a short life above 20psi of boost, for example. At that point you need to go for something more exotic, material-wise.

Known HG-whores (cough...K series) usually have some sort of design defect that causes it.

cheers

James

I'll give bleeding it another go then and squeeze the pipes more as i do so to try and get rid of the possible air lock.

Why did the HG go? My answer but it's already been used is that it's French. Adam suggested it could have been where my coil was dieing creating a hot spot on those 2 cylinders. But other than that not really sure, possible general wear and tear and me ragging the arse off of it.

My temp gauge doesn't get up to half way on normal driving (it was the same pre HG fail) but the fan does always kick in just before half way, so i'm led to beleive it is getting to correct temp. Would a dodgy 'stat stop my heaters working then? As i had all the coolant out i removed it and checked it. I put it in boiling water and it did open but i thought fairly slowly.

Cheers Foggy.
Very informative.

Every time ive seen reference to Rover Ks, theres always also been a swear word and the term "head gasket" contained in the sentance.

Spose we should be thankfull for small mercys eh?

Its at times like these i really don't know why i bother.

So went and rebled the coolant system, noticed a small drip, so went to tighten clamp but was already at it's full tightness. Off to halfords i go to get another clamp and more coolant.

Return home flushed the system (different colour coolant), reattctched the pipe with double clamps to try to cure the leak, refill the system.

Go to start it . . . . Nothing, sweet FA. It just cranks and won't fire. Why can't things be simple, i only drained the bloody coolant now it won't feckin start. Mucho hacked off, i'm going down the pub

magnumpi wrote:Its at times like these i really don't know why i bother.

So went and rebled the coolant system, noticed a small drip, so went to tighten clamp but was already at it's full tightness. Off to halfords i go to get another clamp and more coolant.

Return home flushed the system (different colour coolant), reattctched the pipe with double clamps to try to cure the leak, refill the system.

Go to start it . . . . Nothing, sweet FA. It just cranks and won't fire. Why can't things be simple, i only drained the bloody coolant now it won't feckin start. Mucho hacked off, i'm going down the pub

Ah maaaaaaaaan!
Ballache.
Pints are known to refloat mojo. An also sometimes known to make things work again. In a very inexplicable way.

Good luck mate