Photo Archive
Building: Nothing, just owning a Morgan 4/4 these days!
posted on 6/9/17 at 07:35 PM
Instant gasket dissolved in oil, blocked hydraulic lifters
Okay so a while ago I fired up my Alfa Romeo 1.7 16v engine and it sounded like this:
I've finally gotten around to stripping the offside cylinder head, and found the oil to be full of this sticky, gunky, lumpy stuff. I also note
that the engine is absolutely filled with instant gasket on every conceivable surface possible. Not applied in a thin manor either, it's been
applied by squeezing directly out of the tube onto the gaskets I think! As such, I'm presuming that the sticky weird stuff in the oil is instant
gasket.
Now, luckily, it was only the offside cylinder head that was making this noise, and upon stripping it indeed some of the tappets were full of this
gunk. I've taken the cylinder head off and all of the inlet valve guides were worn, so those have been replaced, the head has been decoked and
skimmed etc. I've stripped, cleaned and reassembled all of the hydraulic tappets.
I'm going to remove the nearside cam cover and remove clean out all of the tappets (take the tappet out, take the hydraulic piston out, split
the piston and clean it out, clean the valve out, reassemble), but I don't want to remove the head if I can avoid it. I'm also going to
remove the sump and throughly clean it out, and remove the oil pump and clean that. I don't particularly want to start pulling conrod caps and
cleaning oil holes in bearings etc. but does anybody think this is necessary?
My plan is to clean all this out, replace all the gaskets, change the filter, fill it with fresh oil and a flushing product, run it up to temp for 10
mins or so, drop the oil again, change the filter and fill with fresh oil.
Anything else anybody thinks I need do or any advice?
Photo Archive
Building: Finished Locost, now fitting type 9 box
posted on 6/9/17 at 10:33 PM
Standard silicone is well known for dissolving and finishing up like snot. Blocks carbs, fuel lines and anything else it gets into apparently.
Horrible stuff. Needs fully cleaning out. Bad news.
