Oddnut

Hi there,

Hope someone can shed some light on this for me. My radiator and head gasket blew and I had both replaced for a costly £500+. A year later, almost to the day, I was engulfed by steam whilst idling in a car park. I immediately shut off the engine and investigated only to find the entire contents of my radiator seeping across the ground. The kind AA man towed me home and told me my radiator and head gasket has gone again but he didn't know why. My tame mechanic told me the same but that the pressure from the head gasket going had caused the radiator to blow again. I find it strange that they'd both fail again in such a short time. Having browsed through this forum it seems that maybe the head hasn't gone (can't see any sludge in the oil) and that there could be other causes. Any ideas anyone? There's no way I can afford £500+ again so I was thinking of doing it myself (I've worked on various other engines but never a head gasket) but am a bit worried about compression testing (never had to do that before). Any advice would be most welcome!

Cheers,
Odd One

RON

Try here.
Rovertech.net :: Index

Shark Man

Repairing the rad and pressure testing the cooling system is the only way to be sure. It will not cause any harm...its just a guage and pump that attaches to the coolant bottle and checks the system to see if it maintains pressure.

Head gasket failure does not always mean oil-water mixing. Sometimes it can just go between the coolant passages and the cylinder...or just between cylinders...so may not have any oil/coolant mixing at all!

One could question the workmanship of the previous head gasket replacement - as long as the cylinder head is properly checked (cleaned, crack tested and the mating suface checked and skimmed as required) as once they've been done, they don't usually fail again unless the system is allowed to run low on coolant from a minor leak or air lock from a botched coolant change.

Other areas to check whilst the system is pressure checked are inlet manifold o-ring seals and water pump - both of which are also problamatic on these engines and can cause a head gasket failure. Especially as these cars are getting rather old now. Also ensure the cooling fan and thermostat works properly.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Here is a picture of the Manual I used to use when I had a Rover 200.

Gutmann pug

Strange first post on a Subaru forum

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Dont spend any more on it, just flog it for parts and get something else.

been there, done that.

Shark Man

...Or do what my mate did...run it without any water in it. Although his journey to work was only 10mins and he only did it whilst there was tax and mot left on the thing

Big_Papa_T

I'm pretty sure that the head haskets on the older style Rover 2** and 4** were a known issue, so it is possible for it to fail in a year, obviously depending on the mileage covered. Were they not also renowned for dodgy exhausts?

Shark Man

Any k-series engine is prone. So thats basically 1990 to 2005, although early units especially the 1.4 was worse for suffering failure.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I had the BRM, the HG went so I put one on, turned out the liners had sunk so it was doomed anyway, sold it as spares/repair to a lad from Scotland with a crashed one and he put it back on the road.

The aggro, skinned, knuckles, money for parts, time off work, backache and constantly either smelling of coolant, watching the temperature gauge means I would never have one again, you spend all your time watching for steam, sniffing for coolant vapour, f*ck that, scrap it, I bought a Saab and its been great, when that started steaming from the HG I just torqued the head back up.

Pity as the 200 BRM was actually a decent, quick little car, both my uncles have them and they have never had a problem.