Club 80-90 Forums

I've been scratching my head over an issue, that any help/advice would be much appreciated on.

Dragged the old girl from a long hibernation in my parents barn (After about 2 1/2 - 3 years sitting!)

Fresh fuel added, new battery, and she fired up pretty easily. (1915cc DG... 1990 year)

Let the van sit ticking over for about 10-15 mins, and the fan kicked in as it should.
The engine sounded absolutely lovely, especially to say it had been stood for nearly 3 years!

Had a good look in the engine bay, and noticed that (as I looked from the back of the van) that the left hand head/water seal was weeping, and spreading a small amount of water across the top of the engine block... The right hand head/seal was leaking, with quite a steady drip.

Hmm...

Bought the relevant new head seals, and stripped off the ancillaries, to the remove both heads... Not as bad as I thought it would be, as they played ball and slid off pretty well.

The head faces looked pretty good, and I would suggest they have probably been replaced at some stage.

Fitted new head seals and started to rebuild. ... Everything goes to plan, as per the Haynes manual.

Come to reset the tappets.

TDC, then

Slacken off all of the way, so they rattled slightly.

Wound back in very gently, just so I could feel them "touch"

from there, I would each one, 1.5 turns, and nipped of the securing nuts. . . repeated this on all tappets.

Come to try her out...It just spins over, no compression at all!! ... Nothing!

No bangs, cracks or rattles, no metal on metal thumping... Just a whirring, and no compression!

Properly scratching my head now!

It only had a water leak, it ran absolutely lovely... Now it won't run at all!

Is it the hydraulic tappets not filling?... Would taking it for a drag up and down the lane help? Just to get the engine spinning over, and fill the tappets up?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Cheers.

Wait overnight and you will have compression.

When you back off the adjusters the tappet sucks in oil from the gallery, you then preload them with 1.5 turns and you have now opened the valves.

Haynes neglects to tell you this but to be fair they are describing a rebuild and if done when engine assembled by the time the engine is fitted they would have drained to equilibrium

Takes a number of hours and as they are under load they will bleed down to an equilibrium and valves will close.

Thanks for the heads up!
I'll give it a try tomorrow, and see how it goes

Any news?

itchyfeet wrote:Any news?

Yes... After much head scratching, as the van still wouldn't start, even after leaving over night, due to lack of compression.

I realised that the pushrods, weren't lined up properly.

So, I managed to align them, hold the rail in place, and as per an on line video (in the wiki section) I set the tappets' 1/4 turn in.

The van started quite easily after this, but when I warmed up, it started to run a bit rough, and every few seconds, there was a bit of a "clunk" and a splutter, and another "clunk" etc

Now that I've got compression, do I need to set the tappets' to 1.5 turns, as per the manual?

I wondered if the "clunk" was being caused by a sticking hydraulic lifter?

The engine sounded beautiful prior to me removing the head, it was just weeping at the head seals, due to standing.

Now, it doesn't sound too nice at all

Any suggestions on what's causing the "clunk" would be much appreciated

Cheers