P38A W-Reg Vogue

I've just bought an W-Reg P38 Vogue with 'head gasket' problems, nice condition, lots of new stuff on the chassis and a year's MOT.

Engine isn't too much of a problem, we have a pair of Thor heads already skimmed on the shelf and a good quality Victor Reintz gasket set, we run a couple of V8 discovery 2's so are fairly familiar with the problem in the engine.

Apparently this kicked off after a plastic water pipe got broken, which may be the radiator bleed pipe to the header tank, don't know.

Haven't paid much for it, so even an engine swap wouldn't be too bad.

Any thoughts? Will probably collect it at the weekend and get the heads off straight away to see what is what, having checked a few other things before...

Peter

Hope it is just HG. Many rover V8's are sold with simple 'HG failure' when it's something more sinister. Seems like you know what to look for though so heads off should tell a story.

March 2000 car, W not X reg, dark blue, just had all new brakes, calipers, discs, suspension air bags etc for new MOT.

Hopefully we can get into the engine on the weekend and sort it out quickly.

My Discovery 2 V8 just failed its MOT with chassis corrosion, so this might have turned up at the right time! I wasn't looking for it, a friend of my sons know the owner well.

Peter

Sounds like you might have a good result there, at lest you wont have to worry about rust with a p38.

Peter

Look good. Check the core plugs while the heads are off. This is what caused prev. owner of my project car to have head gasket issues.

Might need some checking underneath as well.

I've got the heads off and I'll bring the details to this thread to make it contiguous with the work going on.

Just ordered parts, metal water pipes, head bolts, manifold gaskets, aux belt, thermostat, we have a new water pump on the shelf, plus head gasket set.






One of the metal water pipes showed a big price variation for the same Britpart item, nearly £20, so it pay to shop around. LRDirect and Britcar UK got the £300+ worth of business.

Peter

Yes, between us we keep the economy going strong. Pity most of it is made in China.

More pictures.

Peter

Progress....

Spent about £400 on parts for the engine, plus what we had already invested in the spare heads and Reinz gasket set, another £175 or so..

Most of the hoses are replaced, throttle body heater will be replaced after I've had the throttle body refaced where the heater sits.

The small hoses have been 'modified' with some strange fabric covered hose that has gone hard, not a good choice!

Should have most of the parts here today, heads are ready to go on, just need the bolts.

Peter

More pictures, cleaning up the lower inlet manifold. The hacked piece of steel is the end of the heater metal pipe which was seriously rusted in place.

The biggest danger to these engines is not using the correct OAT coolant!

Peter

Good going there. Looks way better. Yes, needs the right coolant at the right mix.

My 38 had blue or green poop in it when I got it. It soon got whee'd for proper OAT orange stuff. With such low miles on her I'm hoping it's done little harm.

I'm fully expecting to have to replace all hoses as time goes along...

Build date is February 2000, registered March 2000, so didn't hang around long at the dealers.

Build Info from Microcat.

Peter

Doo said:

My 38 had blue or green poop in it when I got it. It soon got whee'd for proper OAT orange stuff. With such low miles on her I'm hoping it's done little harm.

I'm fully expecting to have to replace all hoses as time goes along...

Click to expand...

As long as they don't mix I don't think it matters. I've got the long life green stuff in my oil burner.

Another thing to mention:

Heads are dowelled onto the block, but the dowels are not close-fitting and allow considerable movement of the heads, leading to misalignment against the inlet lower manifold.

When I assemble the heads, I fit the lower manifold with a gasket and just nip up four bolts, one at each corner. That makes sure that the heads are square to the manifold before they are tightened down. Once the heads are pulled down, the rest of the manifold bolts can be fitted and tightened.

Although there wasn't a picture of it, both water passages at the rear of the manifold showed signs of a fair bit of leakage, and the manifold itself was not fully tight.

The old heads are still outside so I've taken a shot of each of the waterway joints, compare this with the cleaned up manifold face.

Peter

The bolts do seem to work loose over time. Mine you, how long have they been heating and cooling? Ten years? A single drop of blue Loctite on reassembly might help? Is that allowed?

If correctly torqued, they should stay tight, but expansion/contraction over time will help to loosen them off.

I don't think they originally had a sealant on the threads, but Loctite might be worth considering.

I've got to clean the head bolt threads out before we start reassembly, plus one thread for the lower coil pack bolts which had the bolt cross-threaded into it.

Always things to do!

Peter

Cleaned the threads in the inlet manifold, then did the same to the block threads that take the head bolts. Got a new 7/16" UNC plug tap to do the job, not much in there but better out than in.

Heads are on, gaskets are the right way up, not started tightening yet as it came over black outside so we wrapped for a tea break, plus we have to get the inlet manifold in place and nipped up.

Peter



We have a new set of lifters to go in before the valley gasket and inlet manifold go on.