MG1600S
30th July 2005, 22:58
Hi folks,
Officialy, service intervals, you need to check valve clearances on these engines every 24,000 miles..... I bet we all do that.
I check mine in the Maestro Turbo diesel every time the head comes off! In this case, twice! At 190,000 miles it needs a head gasket....
As we know, you need special clamps to hold the camshaft down, when the cam cover is removed (the valve springs push up on the cam lobes on the valves that are open). It has also been suggested that having a spare cam cover and cutting it up to make some tools out of it.
By far the best way without any special tools is to:
Remove all 8 cam followers and shims (keeping them in order) and fit them one at a time and rest the camshaft on top. This way, the cam lobes can't be pushed up by the valve springs.
I have also put a photo in of the typical head gasket fault on a diesel engine. Symtoms are presurised cooling system even when cold overnight, white smoke on start up, using coolant with no signs of external leaks and in really bad cases, the engine locks up and cannot be started because coolant has filled the piston up.
Officialy, service intervals, you need to check valve clearances on these engines every 24,000 miles..... I bet we all do that.
I check mine in the Maestro Turbo diesel every time the head comes off! In this case, twice! At 190,000 miles it needs a head gasket....
As we know, you need special clamps to hold the camshaft down, when the cam cover is removed (the valve springs push up on the cam lobes on the valves that are open). It has also been suggested that having a spare cam cover and cutting it up to make some tools out of it.
By far the best way without any special tools is to:
Remove all 8 cam followers and shims (keeping them in order) and fit them one at a time and rest the camshaft on top. This way, the cam lobes can't be pushed up by the valve springs.
I have also put a photo in of the typical head gasket fault on a diesel engine. Symtoms are presurised cooling system even when cold overnight, white smoke on start up, using coolant with no signs of external leaks and in really bad cases, the engine locks up and cannot be started because coolant has filled the piston up.