Head gasket ???

[niels]

Back on the S-forum.. but not with a pleasant message..

Drove my brilliant S1 at top speed last night on the motorway. Temp. suddenly went up above 100 degr. so I pulled over and turned the engine off. After some cooling down I fired her up again and wanted to drive home slowly, but the engine rattled really badly when applying throttle. It also didn't have much power. So I stopped again and called the RAC. White fumes from the exhaust and it wasn't running on all cylinders.

The rAC-guy said the head gasket was probably blown. Checked for oil leaks etc. but I couldn't find any.

Should I be very concerned about the rattle/noise it made when I drove it ?? I'm really scared I somehow screwed the engine up.

Cheers

Niels
S1
Netherlands

[S3Swiss]

Hope it is not as bad as you think. First thing I would do would be to take out the spark plugs and look at each one. The cylinder (or cylinders) with the failed head gasket will usually have 'wet' black plugs compared to the normal dry brown/grey plugs. This will help to diagnose which head gasket has failed. You may also have traces of oil in your coolant although this can be hard to see in the swirl tank. You will almost certainly have water in the engine oil as it condenses in the sump. As to the 'rattling' - couple of possibilities IMHO - 1. noise from the failed cylinder(s) as it will have it's lubricating oil washed from the cylinder walls by the steam. 2. noise from a crank bearing as the oil flow to it has been interrupted by the gasket failure/steam clean. Either way, you will need to take the head off if the gasket has gone, so you can have a look at the cylinder bores then. Not sure how much do-it-yourself you are wanting to do, but it may be worth searching for a replacement Ford V6 (usually very cheap from old Ford Granada/Taurus or Sierra XR4x4). Let us know how it goes.

[old64er]

same thing happened to the wife the other week, the rattle was the contact with the valve and piston on no.4, the engine had dropped valve seats on both heads.

Whatever, it sounds like the heads will have to come off anyway

[niels]

thanks guys

I wasn't planning on doing it myself. I just hope it's repairable. Would be a shame to put the old 2.8 in the garbage. It's a great engine. Though sometimes there are some 2.9's for sale here for about 150 euro. Could be an option.

Will definately miss driving it forthcoming weeks. I'll keep the forum posted.

Cheers

Niels

[3000M-TwinTurbo]

Hi mate, Sorry to hear bout your 2.8 S1

If it makes you feel better i have a spare 2.9 engine,Headers,exhuast, loom and ECU from a S2 for sale after fitting the 24V cosworth in mine.

Regards Stuart

[niels]

Thanks Stuart

Your offer sounds interesting. Only problem is... I live in the Netherlands so I think getting the engine here is a real pain in the ass/wallet.

Is it relatively easy to transplant a 2.9 (with all electronics etc.) ??

cheers

niels

[3000M-TwinTurbo]

I realised that after i said it, lol

well there Isn't much wireing on the 2.9

you coul buy a 2.9 sierra for about the price of a teebag, But 2.8-2.9 still only bout 120 bhp,

you wanna take full advantage of an empty engine bay!

4.0 l colonge
24v cosworth
V8

......... something else

[niels]

Yeah. Cosworth conversion would be very very nice.. but at the moment too expensive. At this moment I'm being offered a 2.8 cologne engine. Hope it's something.

I guess a 2.8 transplant is probably the easiest and cheapest solution, right?

[niels]

I've just been offered a bored up 3 litre, (with different camshaft and spaghetti's) from an english XR4 Sierra. The guy claims it does 227 hp.

could this be something?