The dreaded HGF
Discussion
After a weekend of seeing my team relegated, dropping my mobile in the bath, I noticed after a short journey in my 111s, parking up the car the fan was running.....as panic set in I checked the oil cap and the dreaded mayo! the coolant was down so topped that up and was a lot of scum in there!
Managed to book the car in straight away to Formula 1 garage in newcastle which is about 10 miles away, managed to do the main journey keeping the temp under 100 degrees but someone somewhere decided to make every single traffic light turn red!!!
In newcastle the temp went upto 113 and total panic set in and to compound matters the car was running so lumpy that it cut out. So sitting in a lotus elise broken down in a busy city centre begging the thing to fire up again but to no avail! Evenually i managed to coax it into life and crawl the final mile to the garage.
Im just hoping that no terminal damage has been done, its going to be sorted tomorrow fingers crossed and have been quoted £490 to sort it assuming no extra damage has been done! 4 months into ownership and im gutted but i had an alfa before this so its literally water off a ducks back and something I knew could happen with the car, any ideas on how bad it could be so I can prepare for the worst? what sort of temp with warp a head do you think?
Managed to book the car in straight away to Formula 1 garage in newcastle which is about 10 miles away, managed to do the main journey keeping the temp under 100 degrees but someone somewhere decided to make every single traffic light turn red!!!
In newcastle the temp went upto 113 and total panic set in and to compound matters the car was running so lumpy that it cut out. So sitting in a lotus elise broken down in a busy city centre begging the thing to fire up again but to no avail! Evenually i managed to coax it into life and crawl the final mile to the garage.
Im just hoping that no terminal damage has been done, its going to be sorted tomorrow fingers crossed and have been quoted £490 to sort it assuming no extra damage has been done! 4 months into ownership and im gutted but i had an alfa before this so its literally water off a ducks back and something I knew could happen with the car, any ideas on how bad it could be so I can prepare for the worst? what sort of temp with warp a head do you think?
Had a similar issue on my old Elise, a sport 135, made sure they used the upgraded gasket because the standard one has all the qualities of a Ryvita as a head gasket. On completion it developed a misfire which was attributed to overheating after the gasket had gone pop, compression on one cylinder was down by about 40% and I almost fainted when they said it was a send way job to recondition the head and sort out what they believed was a valve issue. Think £1500 all in. Hence the fact I have since sold it, cashed in the shares, my premium bonds and plundered my savings for the Exige. Sullied my experience of what had been a beautiful relationship, still get a shiver when someone mentions K series engines..........
michaeldale00 said:
what sort of temp with warp a head do you think?
When my headgasket went it got a fair bit higher than yours (120'ish from memory) and when the head was checked it wasn't even slightly warped.As someone stated earlier, look into what upgrades can be done to the headgasket arrangement whilst it's being changed. From memory the dowels on mine were changed.
Once it's done keep an eye on the temps (I'm sure you will anyway!). Mine went between the oil gallery and water jacket too and the resultant mess that was left in the cooling system (even after laods of flushes) meant that I developed quite a few airlocks in the system. Not a big problem to bleed, just something to be aware of.
Also make sure that any service jobs that are looming in or around the head are done at the same time. I'm sure that they'll put a new cambelt on anyway, but best to make sure. For a few extra quid you may save yourslef lots in future servicing.
Probably all obvious stuff, but worth a reminder! Oh, and I'll see you at Portman Road next year
Cheers mate, good to get a balanced view really! They are changing the cambelt even to it was just changed last year it makes no sense as you say to save the 30 or 40 quid! Im pretty sure the coolant system will be very messy indeed so good advice on the bleeding aspect! Ill be watching the temp like a hawk more so now! I know lotus redesigned the gasket at some point so will enquire as to which one they are fitting. Its done 60k so these things are to be expected now and again! Im hoping for once it will be good news or as good as it can be! See u in the championship mate!
Hi michaeldale - you just experienced an exact replica of a journey I made a couple of years ago, same issue, same journey, same dealer. I chose to make the dreaded crawl into f1 on a quiet sunday afternoon where my chances of red lights were minimal, but nevertheless its a daunting journey with the temperature sky high, and flashing away to let you know its bordering on catching fire.
Good news is - f1 sorted it, and its been fine ever since. Its been given some 'enthusiastic' driving, and never missed a beat.
Fingers crossed for you, you'll be back in action in the next day or so.
Good news is - f1 sorted it, and its been fine ever since. Its been given some 'enthusiastic' driving, and never missed a beat.
Fingers crossed for you, you'll be back in action in the next day or so.
srob said:
michaeldale00 said:
what sort of temp with warp a head do you think?
When my headgasket went it got a fair bit higher than yours (120'ish from memory) and when the head was checked it wasn't even slightly warped.As someone stated earlier, look into what upgrades can be done to the headgasket arrangement whilst it's being changed. From memory the dowels on mine were changed.
Once it's done keep an eye on the temps (I'm sure you will anyway!). Mine went between the oil gallery and water jacket too and the resultant mess that was left in the cooling system (even after laods of flushes) meant that I developed quite a few airlocks in the system. Not a big problem to bleed, just something to be aware of.
Also make sure that any service jobs that are looming in or around the head are done at the same time. I'm sure that they'll put a new cambelt on anyway, but best to make sure. For a few extra quid you may save yourslef lots in future servicing.
Probably all obvious stuff, but worth a reminder! Oh, and I'll see you at Portman Road next year
If you suspect HGF again, get the heater on full blast to take some heat out of the water system.
Speak to Dave Andrews for more info. Dave recently rebuilt my head and used a stock gasket (235hp 1.8K) and I have a sneaky suspicion he knows what he's doing.
£1500 sound about £700 too much for the work done below in my opinion...
seanyd - good to hear I havent suffered alone, absolutely bizzare to have done the same journey/car/frustrations etc!
I was fairly amazed having put the car in yesterday to have a phonecall from F1 today to say it was done, collected the car and drove it with kid gloves and kept my eye forever on the temp guage but never went above 90 degrees. I was actually over the moon with the service from them....it cost 200 less than when my punto's gasket went many moons ago.
Ill be keeping an eye on things but they seem a really top outfit so hopefully it will be ok from now on. ill put a good 500-1000 careful miles on it to give everything a chance to settle in.
I was fairly amazed having put the car in yesterday to have a phonecall from F1 today to say it was done, collected the car and drove it with kid gloves and kept my eye forever on the temp guage but never went above 90 degrees. I was actually over the moon with the service from them....it cost 200 less than when my punto's gasket went many moons ago.
Ill be keeping an eye on things but they seem a really top outfit so hopefully it will be ok from now on. ill put a good 500-1000 careful miles on it to give everything a chance to settle in.
Yeah next time best stop and wait, or call out a break down truck. In a previous life when I had a 2.8i Capri, I thought I could make it, but no, salad cream everywhere, and I did a very stupid thing, I openned the rad cap !!! was burnt, but not serious, and healed up. Now with an Elise too, I had some concerns for mine, changed the coolent now never gets higher than 94'c. Interesting story and it seems a happy ever ending. This will make it a better ending though. As a fellow TOON fan lets hope there's light at the end of the tunnel, Ashley goes sells the club to someone who has passion for the club, Shearer gets the resources, and is free to decide (no Wise bloke as KK had on his back) and gets things moving in the right way. B/W Army will be back !!!
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