Series 3 cleaning up the engine compartment

started to clean up the motorcompartment. the valvecover was only tightened with the nut in the middle. The other two were untightened.

What are you cleaning with?

Where's your radiator and thermostat gone? Gunk will get the worst oil and grime off the engine block. Looking good x1 on what you are using.

is gunk the brand name of the product?? - excuse my ignorance, i've never heard of the stuff before joining here, but is it similar to a degreaser?

Trailstar said:

is gunk the brand name of the product?? - excuse my ignorance, i've never heard of the stuff before joining here, but is it similar to a degreaser?

Click to expand...

it is
kerosene is as good as anything

I took the radiator out to flush it. To do so I had to take out the airfilter and airfilterbracket.
Since I had some more room now I also took out the valve cover, thermostathousing, heatervalve oilfillerpipe and the fan out.
I washed them out in petrol and painted them to protect them from rust.
The heatingpipes were painted red because that was the only heatresisting colour I had

I ordered some new hoses so when I receive them I can put the lot back together.
This is what I looked like before

Well that's a big improvement. Yeah, Gunk is a brand here in UK, its a degreaser. If your thinking of replacing the rubber connector hose in the picture for the heating system between the main bloc and the cylinder head underneath the thermostat it's a right bastard to replace as there's almost no space to squeeze the new pipe into place, scuffed knuckles guaranteed (watch you don't dent the radiator fettling with it!). There's another thread on here showing a really clean engine but it was done by taking each component out and cleaning and polishing each part. I kinda like a clean engine bay; implies a well maintained vehicle but doesn't guarantee good performance - like classic car restorations it just looks the business.

Yesterday I put everything back in. Especially the hose between the cilinderhead and block is a crime. vaselin, dishwasherstuff, hot water; nothing really helped. so I fitted the thermostathousing on and by turning the bolts the hose eventually got in place.

Raytheman said:

Yesterday I put everything back in. Especially the hose between the cilinderhead and block is a crime. vaselin, dishwasherstuff, hot water; nothing really helped. so I fitted the thermostathousing on and by turning the bolts the hose eventually got in place.View attachment 101169

Click to expand...

I sometimes use rubber grease, i use the red rubber grease by PBR. i think castrol makes it too, with the thermostat housing and other water fittings i use grease on the gaskets makes a water tight fit, a old man called mal, he owns an old ford zephr and an old rugby car, he told me the grease bit, i tried it myself and it works great, and if you are lucky when you need to fix something it will come apart easily and if you are more lucky you may even be able to reuse the thermo housing gasket again, or just cut another out of cardboard, if you really dont want to buy cardboard for automotive places, cereal box card board works just fine, my dads father used to use cereal box cardboard with silver frost painted on when he worked on his old post WW2 bedford logging truck, and my grandad would be around 125 years old, he died in 1975, i never knew him as he died 10 years before i was born, my mothers father would be 100years old this year he died in 1996, anyway. if i have any tips i'll let you know guys.
roughly 13 euros for a half kilo tub.

Tony

Thanks Tony, I the dutch army-service/maintanance manual for the land rover it is recommended to put grease on both sides of a new gasket. Works great indeed!

Raytheman said:

Thanks Tony, I the dutch army-service/maintanance manual for the land rover it is recommended to put grease on both sides of a new gasket. Works great indeed!

Click to expand...

oh ok very interesting never knew that, yeah its a good trick.
Tony