I have a horrible feeling my T4 van's head gasket is toast

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah but unless you build your factory on the surface of the moon I wouldn't have thought the weather was enough to matter.

[mangocrazy]

In Italy you'd get swings of nearly 50 degrees C in some years (+40 to -10) and regularly swings of 40 deg C. That would have an effect.

[mangocrazy]

Today I drove from Sheffield to Darwen to drop the van off at AW Engineering. The route I used included Snake Pass and on one part of it one side of the carriageway had suffered a landslip, and only one lane was in operation. I've no idea when it happened but I'm very glad I wasn't there when it let go (there was a long drop involved). I kept the revs down and tried as best I could to avoid calling for turbo boost and once again the van made the journey without any low coolant bleeping noises.

On the way over I got a call from Keith to tell me that I should drop the van off as planned but that he was in Wales trying to recover the various pieces of his roof that had broadcast themselves around his neighbour's fields. Apparently wind gusts measuring 105 mph had been recorded in the area. His partner was happy to show me round his workshop and it was very reassuring to see a fair number of reconditioned heads and other components sitting on shelves ready to be fitted. All the work is done in house and nothing of Chinese origin is allowed anywhere near.

More news as it happens.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Not even a chow mein or a cheeky spring roll?

[mangocrazy]

Not even a chow mein or a cheeky spring roll?

Aye, you might call it Chinese but it'd be made in Lancashire, lad...

[mangocrazy]

Had a progress report a few minutes ago - the head gasket had blown between cylinder #4 and the coolant gallery and the engine is now being rebuilt with a reconditioned cylinder head that has new valves, stem seals, valve guides and hydraulic lifters. It was on the shelf ready to go, so saves time and faffing about.

All good, so far.

[Cousin Jack]

Sort of. There's definitely a lot of stress relieving and recrysalisation and aging required when working with metal.

Typically it's more scientific that leaving it out in the rain though

A few (quite a lot really, about 50) years ago I went around the Holman's foundry. They built compressors, some with Ford engines, some more expensive ones with RR engines, but the blocks were cast in the foundry before being sent off to be machined and built up. Ford blocks were left in the yard for about 12 months, RR for 3 years minimum.

[Count Steer]

Sort of. There's definitely a lot of stress relieving and recrysalisation and aging required when working with metal.

Typically it's more scientific that leaving it out in the rain though

It's going to be a slow process at UK outside temperatures but they will get temperature cycled.

Be a lot quicker (and a tad more scientific) in a big oven-y thing*.

* or whatever they call heat treatment units.

[Mr. Dazzle]

My first ever 'real' job was working at Rolls-Royce on primary plant for Nuclear subs. They had BFO stuff forged by Sheffield Forgemasters which had to hand around for multiple years after being forged. Plus the 10 year waiting list on the front

[KungFooBob]

My first ever 'real' job was working at Rolls-Royce on primary plant for Nuclear subs. They had BFO stuff forged by Sheffield Forgemasters which had to hand around for multiple years after being forged. Plus the 10 year waiting list on the front

Can't mention Foregemasters without thinking of the scorpion.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/o582coHn7bNZqXqL6

[mangocrazy]

Got a phone call a few minutes ago to tell me the van is fixed and ready for collection! Recon cylinder head was £450, sundries £36.50, labour £550, total came to £1243.80. That's around half what the garage in Sheffield quoted me. I asked Keith about the general state of the bores etc. and he said the motor should be good for another quarter of a million miles. The above also included swapping the old turbo for a new one I'd bought earlier in the year.

To quote Valentino - I am a very 'appy...

[weeksy]

Fab stuff... you can get home in half the time you took to get there

[mangocrazy]

Yes, I'll be very interested to try out the new turbo... Cylinder heads/valves don't need running in, do they?

[Count Steer]

Fab stuff... you can get home in half the time you took to get there

And twice the fuel.

They sound like a bit of a find though, the Lancs chaps.

[mangocrazy]

Fab stuff... you can get home in half the time you took to get there

And twice the fuel.

They sound like a bit of a find though, the Lancs chaps.

I'll defer final judgement until I've put some miles on it, but based on cost and value for money I'd say they're a winner. It's not often you find someone that not only personally reconditions the part you need, but fits it as well, and for a very reasonable cost.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Random little factoid about high mileage vans....

Was just talking to my colleague about bonding bits together. He used to work at AP Racing on clutches. They one made a bunch of clutches with a new kind of bonding between the friction material and the steel backing plates (normally it's riveted together), a bunch of these units went to the Royal Mail for real world testing in vans.

Fast forward ten years and he gets a call from some random guy who'd bought an old RM van. He was replacing the clutch and found a phone number written on the friction plates - my colleague's mobile number. Matey wanted a new clutch after >400k on the original one. They had to disappoint him and tell him that particular super long life clutch was only every meant to be a prototype

[mangocrazy]

The van is now back in Sheffield, having enjoyed the delights of rush-hour Manchester and the M60. And Glossop. And Snake Pass. When at AW Eng, Keith showed me the failed head gasket; apparently there were two fractures of the gasket material, one on cyl #4, the other on cyl #2. And interestingly, he found a failed water temperature sensor. This may or may not have been significant, given that Keith reckons most head gasket failures are the result of an overheating event.

The other point of interest was the turbo. Swapping out a turbo that's done 260k miles for a new one is a bit of a no-brainer, but I suspect that the van would benefit from a re-map to optimise the new combination. We shall see.

[demographic]

Sort of. There's definitely a lot of stress relieving and recrysalisation and aging required when working with metal.

Typically it's more scientific that leaving it out in the rain though

All this leaving out in the rain for months yada yada sounds like bollocks to me compared to us sending pressure vessels off to be Normalised by heating just above its critical temperature* then allowing to cool slowly in air.


*Can't remember if its AC1, AC2 OR AC3, meh, was a while ago I read up on this stuff and even then I was no expert.

[mangocrazy]

After having the head gasket fixed last December, and having driven it to and from the French moneypit in April/May of this year, I was convinced that the motor had lost a noticeable amount of power compared to its pre head gasket failure self. My local garage drew a blank when I asked them to check it out, so today I drove over to Liverpool to hand it over to someone who was recommended for diesel diagnostics. With his laptop plugged into the OBD port, Ron quickly found evidence of under performance. To check this out dynamically, Ron logged all the relevant parameters on his laptop while I drove the van, going from 1100 rpm to 4000 rpm in third gear with my foot flat to the floor. On a busy public road in downtown Crosby...

All the log output pointed to air leaks on the turbo inlet side so after purchasing 3 metres of diesel air hose and a few jubilee clips, Ron rolled up his sleeves and got to work. The first thing he found was that the guy who did the head gasket had wired the M75 valve up the wrong way round. The shagged out state of the existing inlet hoses were also not helping. And lastly there was an air leak on the turbo inlet side that was fooling the MAF sensor.

With all these things fixed we went out for another main road dyno run and the difference was immediately apparent. Boost had returned! I'd forgotten just how much I'd been missing, it really did feel like a new van. So the only thing left now is to get the diesel pump re-timed (it's running slightly retarded) and we should be back to top spec (for an admittedly 23 year old van with 265,000 miles on the clock).

For the nerds among us I'll post up the before and after log outputs when Ron emails them to me....

[mangocrazy]

Something that really impressed me was the friendliness and helpfulness of all the Liverpudlians I met. I got properly lost and had to ask for directions 3 or 4 times, and each time folk were really helpful and really friendly, going out of their way to help me.

Nice one, Liverpool...