Waynebaby

A quick check with my tape measure against my GT6 Mk3 shows the highest point on the bonnet is ~178 cm from the floor when the bonnet is resting on the stay rod. Wayne

Just to allay folk's fears that their torque wrenches are invariably miles out of calibration you might like to hear what mine were like. Having been spooked by Darren's head failure and being on the point of re-torquing the new head on the GT6 I took my two trusty wrenches to the local calibration facility (there aren't too many advantages to living in Teesside but having a variety of engineering services on your doorstep is one of them) A couple of hours later and I found that the largest margin of error across the two ranges was <1.5%. Neither of the wrenches had ever been calibrated before and one of them is at least 15 years old. Having said that they don't get dropped or used as hammers either. The price of re-assurance? £96 including VAT.

Thanks for the tip about the nylon plunger Pete. I checked my (alloy mounted) rack today and sure enough the nylon plug is missing!

Hi All, Just fitted a Club Shop fettled cylinder head to my Mk3 GT6 and the car started straight away (phew) Apart from the usual tightening of coolant hose clips the first 50 miles have been gratifyingly uneventful. I wonder if someone out there knows how many miles I should do before re-torquing the head studs? Regards Wayne

Happy ending time! I think you'll agree from the attached photo that a newly refurbished cylinder head is a thing of beauty, especially when it is no longer missing a chunk of metal from the mating face. Many thanks go to Garth at the club shop for arranging the repair to the head (who also had a plan B in place if the repair didn't come off) and to Ivor Searle who replaced the missing metal using some kind of metallurgical witchcraft. Having the the TSSC to co-ordinate all this has been well worth the annual subscription! Wayne

Ah. Of course - it's obvious now you've pointed it out. The dark portion is the part of the tappet that doesn't run in the cam-follower bore. It was the precise delineation of the colour change which fooled me into thinking it was an engineered feature. Wayne

I suppose it could be nitriding or something similar John. I also noticed that the new follower has a very small chamfer machined into the tappet face, so I wasn't being accurate when I said it was dimensionally identical to the original.

I thought I'd post some pictures of the new cam-follower (which I've decided not to use) compared to the original. The new follower is, as you'd expect, dimensionally identical to the original but the construction seems different. The business end of the original has a 4mm region which seems to be made of different darker material whereas the new follower is the same colour all over. Do you think the OEM follower is really fabricated from two separate sections or might the darkening be a phosphate coating? Wayne

Pete, Your observation of the inadvisability of mixing new and old components has helped to convince me that I should stick with the original cam-follower, although I imagine that an old cam with a new follower is less likely to cause problems than visa versa. Cheers Wayne

Thanks John, you've convinced me to leave the new follower in the bag when it arrives!

John, Thanks for your advice, but a new follower and a new push rod to go with it are already winging their way from Rimmers. I won't need to fit it for a while though as I'm awaiting the return of my damaged cylinder head, which gives me the time to mull over the two options. Wayne

That looks like a beautiful paint job and the colour suits it down to the ground. The rear quarter view looks particularly good - cant wait to see it when it is all back together.

The cam manufacturers (e.g. Piper) give instructions for the first start-up which include dire warnings about not letting the engine idle at all for at least the first 20 minutes. It might be voodoo engineering, but supposedly the combination of heat, pressure and the high zinc content of the cam-lube has a beneficial effect on the surface finish of the cam-lobe and cam-follower thus maximising longevity. From what I've read, the reason for avoiding tick over during this period is because the cam to follower loading is higher at lower revs and you need to avoid the possibility of breaking down the oil film at this critical period. Wayne

Good points Doug - I hadn't thought of it like that. I think I'm probably going to change it and grin and bear the rather brutal start-up regime.

Hi All, I've attached a picture of one of the cam-followers from my Mk3 GT6. As you can see, there is a small chip on what is an otherwise unblemished follower. The rest of the folIowers and the camshaft are in good condition. This is possibly a daft question, but should I change the damaged follower or is the chip in a region of the follower which the cam lobe does not bear upon? I know that a new follower is relatively cheap, but I'm not keen on inflicting on my engine the "running in" procedure for a new follower (thrash the engine at 2500+ rpm for the first 20 minutes post rebuild to let the cam-lube work it's magic) unless I have to. Wayne

Hi Euan, This problem was the bane of my driving life on my GT6! The source of the problem is minute slivers of rubber which are shed by the rubber fuel hoses, usually generated after you've disturbed the metal fuel lines immediately next to the carbs - the action of pushing the metal pipework into the rubber hose shaves material from the inside of the hose which then travels to the carb and jams the float valve open. If you drop the float bowl off the offending carb you'll probably find black specks of rubber in the bottom. Unscrew the float valve, blow it through and you should be sorted. Be prepared to have do it a few times as there's probably more loose bits of rubber lurking in the pipeline. Richard's suggestion of using ethanol resistant R9 fuel hose is spot on, but if you're not careful about inserting the metal fuel lines you just end up swapping one source of float valve blockage (rotting rubber) for another (slivers of R9 rubber) I learned this the hard way. Wayne

I can vouch for the efficacy of Pete's approach. I was in the same situation in December and making no progress with the studs in-situ. All bar two of the studs came out with the double nut technique but the last two only finally yielded to a stud extractor and a mains powered impact driver. Once the last stud was out the head practically slid off. Wayne

Good point John! When I finally get a sound cylinder head back I may well give it a try. From what I've read, Graphogen was allegedly used during WW2 in the assembly of Junkers engines, so it's certainly stood the test of time. Wayne

I've read good things about Graphogen paste but at ~£30 a tube I'm going to pass. Wayne

Whilst waiting for progress with the "new" head sourced by Garth I thought I'd see if there was any chance of compensation from Parcelforce for the damage to the original done en route to Ivor Searles. Parcelforce complaints department kindly pointed me in the direction of their terms and conditions where I found a list of exclusions to damage compensation - and yes, you guessed it - automotive parts are excluded from damage compensation. Just goes to show that you really should read the small print. If I'd bothered to read the T&Cs it would definitely have convinced me to drive down with the head. Wayne

Hi All, As you might have noticed from the engine section of the forum I've been having fun and games with the cylinder head on my Mk3 GT6. Whilst the head has been off I started to investigate why the coolant drain plug on the block has never drained whilst the car has been in my ownership and thought you might be interested in what I turned up. Dredging/flushing operations using a 500ml syringe from Machine Mart removed about an inch of magnetite sludge from the rear of the cylinder jacket but probing with a piece of wire to find the drain hole only rewarded me with an unexpectedly "rubbery" sensation. When I peered down into the water jacket I saw what at first sight looked like an unused condom!. After much fishing about with bits of wire I dragged out the offending item you see in the attached picture. Judging from the shape and size I'm pretty sure that it is some excess sealant that a previous owner has used to seal the water pump to the head. Needless to say with that out of the way the bock drain hole now flows freely. Wayne

According to a list produced by Chris Wittor, there are fourteen variations of the Triumph six cylinder 2000 and 2500 head, only three of which are suitable for a 2 litre engine with domed pistons. As luck would have it Garth happens to have a spare head of the correct specification sitting in the club shop! This'll get sent down to Searles for fettling in the next few days, so it looks as if my engine rebuild may well be soon back on track. We're sending the damaged head back as well so that Searles can, (a) double check the spare head is dimensionally correct and ( b ) use the head to see where/how the QA arrangements can be improved to avoid this kind of thing happening again. Wayne

Clive, The TSSC shop were paid for the work and Garth is on the case with Ivor Searle. I also have my suspicions about what exactly happened at the far end, although in fairness to Ivor Searle the colouration of the fracture seems to show that the damage was done before the head was put into the wash bath at the start of the refurbishment process and so the balance of probability points towards damage in transit. The fact that the damage wasn't noticed before the process had begun does call into question their QA however, as does the fact that having spotted it they continued without first referring back to the TSSC. I'm left feeling sick because I'm spending good money trying to keep a bit of British automotive history on the road, but it's the usual story - once something is out of your hands it only takes one careless individual to mess things up. Wayne

Thanks for the contributions everybody. I'm going down two routes at the moment - trying to find another head and seeing if the original can be repaired. I quite agree with the sentiments expressed by James in that having chosen Ivor Searle because of their reputation I didn't expect them to send me back a beautifully refurbished piece of scrap - especially after they'd noticed that there was a defect before starting the work. Garth in the TSSC shop is negotiating on my behalf because the customer supplier relationship is: Ivor Searle -> TSSC -> me. On another point, if anybody is planning to do the same with their cylinder head I'd find out which courier Garth uses to forward on your head to Ivor Searle and make sure you use the same one. Garth doesn't unpack your head before forwarding it on and so if it arrives at the far end in a damaged state there is no way of telling at which stage of the journey it was damaged, meaning that if there are two courier companies involved (as in my case) you've no chance of proving liability or making an insurance claim. We live and learn Wayne

Richard, Thanks for your response and for giving me a bit of hope. I will certainly see if I can find someone up here on Teesside who can weld cast iron. here's a picture of the other side of the head. Regards Wayne