Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoolio
Yes, I totally agree. Spending anything at all on it is a total waste of time and cash, Rover 200's are ten a penny because they are known to be ummm, fragile once they get to be a certain age and at £200 you're gonna be in negative equity as soon as you buy a head gasket set.
Not true, the K-series was one of the jewels in Austin Rover Group's crown and when the design was first unveiled it was revolutionary. Remember this was back when Ford was inflicting that fondly forgotten bag of nails otherwise known as the CVH on us. In its original spec it was a 3-cylinder motor and one of its features besides the "through-bolt" construction was a very compact cooling system that only needed a small amount of water to assist a fast warm up and hence lower emissions. Because its such a light and torquey engine it was a no-brainer choice for Lotus in the Elise remember.
Unfortunately in this country we have ace ideas that we then cannot afford to develop properly. So although it took years before Rover released the K for sale it still kept its - conceptually brilliant but practically inadequate - small coolant capacity and this ended up being a pain in the wallet (usually for the second owner once the car was out of warranty). There is no margin for error. A marginally silted radiator (like what you get in most cars over 3 years old) is no biggy in most, in a K-series it's a massive no-no.
Head gasket failure on a K does not automatically mean the engine is scrap. There are plenty of MGF's and Rover 75's that have done 3 times as many miles after a gasket replacement as they did on the original gasket. However, on economic grounds you do really have to question whether its worth it which brings you back to square one.
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one of the main things to do is fit metal dowls in the block (that the gasket sits on ) as these stop the head moving about so much compared to the plastic ones, and also once the head is off dont turn the bottom end round as it can spin the main bearing shell on the crank