P38A Feckity feck!

cooltide said:

If you are talking about insulating heat wrap, I found to my cost it's great at accelerating rot. Holed a tubular manifold where the 4 branch into 1 in about 2 years. Think it worked as a salt trap

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Yes, that's the stuff.

Grrrrrr said:

Yes, that's the stuff.

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Mine were mild steel janspeed tubular manifolds btw, nowhere near as heavy as cast oe types

So did you leave the heat shields off?, I'll be doing my HG soon and there have been a couple of posts from others who say there are problems with heat if you don't replace them.
(by the way OE the manifolds on the P38 V8 are tubular steel and not cast)

A

Mine were on a rrc. Ceramic coating is all the rage now appatently

Leave them off heat wrap them

How's this going martyn ??? I found a thread on an Ausi forum advising against hellicoils on the RR v8 stating they don't work, ARP studs seem to be the way to go afterall .

biketeacherdave said:

How's this going martyn ??? I found a thread on an Ausi forum advising against hellicoils on the RR v8 stating they don't work, ARP studs seem to be the way to go afterall .

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Why don't they work? Ally too soft / pourous to grip them when bolts torqued up? How come some car manufacturers helicoil them all at the start and get away with it?

One of the guys from DSG I worked with a while back swears by them, he does loctite (I forget thr number, but the red kind as it is stronger than blue) them in place though. If you install them correctly they can be just as good as original thread. Haven't had a failure on the vehicles we've had to helicoil.

No reason given just said he had tried them and they hadn't worked, iv use them for a long time but not for head bolts. Loctite red is good advice let's hope what ever martyn does it works

biketeacherdave said:

How's this going martyn ??? I found a thread on an Ausi forum advising against hellicoils on the RR v8 stating they don't work, ARP studs seem to be the way to go afterall .

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Hi Dave,

It's been a slow go this week. I did the helicoils on monday. I masked off everything on the engine to stop alu swarfe getting anywhere it shouldn't. Then I used an old cylinder head to to align the drill (the 11.6 drill with the kit just goes through the existing bolt holes). Not at all easy with the space in the engine bay. Tapping the holes seemed easy enough but once the helicoils were inserted, tangs broken off & removed & a check that all the bolts thread in nicely, I have a slight angle on one of the bolts to the point i had to open up the hole in the head by 1mm to stop the bolt rubbing on the sides of the hole & giving wrong torque readings when fitting. God only knows if this bolt will hold out. I just wish i was more patient with tapping the holes but as i said, it's very difficult trying to get completely accurate in the environment of an engine bay.
Got my head back from the machine shop yesterday but still waiting for my torque wrench to arrive.

Progress matey keep up the good work

Well, here's the update folks!
All going well, put it all back together. Came to reconnect the battery, connected positive first. Then reconnecting the negative lead gave a load of sparks & a pop & smoke from the alternator! Oh Feck. Does this mean i have a short somewhere? I was careful with the wiring looms but suspect it may be the thin cable to the alternator as this was pretty tight re-connecting & i did pull a little on it to get to the connection on the back of the alternator?

Opps sound like you may have earthered the live feed to the alternator, its a bit tight back there Recheck it would be a real bugger after a all that work

Yep, stripped the upper manifold off & took a look at the wiring, it was a split in the cable shielding to the alternator. Luckily i have a spare alternator as i think that one will be goosed. Anyway, repaired the wire. Connected back up & all good. Not run it yet as it's getting dark. So fingers crossed for tomorrow & hopefully on to filling coolant & bleeding. Never done this from empty before. Whats the recommended, just top up from expansion tank or should i first fill the rad from top hose?

martynv8 said:

So fingers crossed for tomorrow & hopefully on to filling coolant & bleeding. Never done this from empty before. Whats the recommended, just top up from expansion tank or should i first fill the rad from top hose?

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If you have Rave, its all in there.
you need to make sure you have enough coolant mixture made up to top up with - that can catch you out at first.

Fill up at header tank until you can get no more in, start engine, keep topping up until it will accept no more, top hose will become hot after 10 minutes or so.
Re-check over the next few days.

Speckydude said:

If you have Rave, its all in there.
you need to make sure you have enough coolant mixture made up to top up with - that can catch you out at first.

Fill up at header tank until you can get no more in, start engine, keep topping up until it will accept no more, top hose will become hot after 10 minutes or so.
Re-check over the next few days.

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Cheers, thought that was the process as RAVE states, just wasn't sure if it was a good idea to fill the rad first. Have plenty of coolant all ready to go.

Iv had success with filling from the expansion bottle first then partially removing the rad top hose and with gentle pressure from the hose pipe fill it until its overflowing from the expansion bottle then slip the rad top host back on works for me every time, then run with the cap off for 15 mins if the water level is to high give the rad hose a good sqeezzzzz let the excess water spill out fit cap and run the engine until the temp gauge hits normal.

Hope that helps and makes sense

biketeacherdave said:

Iv had success with filling from the expansion bottle first then partially removing the rad top hose and with gentle pressure from the hose pipe fill it until its overflowing from the expansion bottle then slip the rad top host back on works for me every time, then run with the cap off for 15 mins if the water level is to high give the rad hose a good sqeezzzzz let the excess water spill out fit cap and run the engine until the temp gauge hits normal.

Hope that helps and makes sense

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I think so Dave, so fill expansion bottle, fill rad, connect top hose back. Then run engine whilst topping up from expansion bottle? Sorry, it's been a long day

martynv8 said:

I think so Dave, so fill expansion bottle, fill rad, connect top hose back. Then run engine whilst topping up from expansion bottle? Sorry, it's been a long day

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Fill the system as normal with everything connected then pull the top hose off and shove the garden hose in it, turn it on but not to much just enuf pressure to back fill the cooling system until water is over flowing out of the top of the expansion bottle when it is quickly reconnect the rad top hose.

The problem area I find is the thermostat air locks back filling in this fashion helps big time, once its filled run the engine up to temp eventually the stat will open I know when mine does as the temp gauge drops a bit

Never had any problem with mine following the RAVE steps.

Make sure you blow down the return hose to clear any possible blockage.

Other than that just fill the expansion tank, start car, keep filling, leave car running for long enough for the thermostat to open, keep topping up.

Stop engine, re-check level, top up as necessary. You might have to put the lid on and give it a rev at some point to make sure you push come water around your LPG reducer depending on where it is. Don't rev it with the lid off, you'll get coolant everywhere.

When I did mine the other day after my HG change, the level didn't move for a while, and then it suddenly dropped loads followed by a bath emptying gurgling sound. I assumed that was the thermostat opening!