head gasket failure prompts winter rebuild
Discussion
Hey there you lot,
first of all, sorry for not dropping in sooner, been a busy end to summer. A great end to the race season but not so great for the Noble :-(...
As some of you know, when i was at the Silverstone trackday in September, the head gasket on my car failed. It had shown signs of a failure on the Sat before (put my foot down on the dual carriageway and it chucked oil out of the breather) but i wasn't sure until i spent some time diagnosing it on the trackday itself. Athough the problem only seemed to occur when on full boost i didn't want to risk it so had the car collected and delivered to AW Tracksport. I later collected the car with my trailer and it has since been in my garage on axle stands.
As it's the winter i have decided to take it off the road and sort out some of the other jobs while so much is stripped out. Also, with ALL the problems i've had with the car since the rebuild done by a garage i want to rebuild it myself to be sure i can enjoy a summer of motoring next year including Spa and the ring with you guys :-). Fortunately i can get advice from AW Tracksport and hopefully you lot.
I'll keep you all up to date with the rebuild on here, still in the strip down process now...
The engine bay currently:
The failed head gasket. failed on cylinder #05, same as others i believe. Has the upgraded ARP head bolts as well.
The other head. no gasket failure i can see. Don't know why the gasket materials are different colours, is this normal. I don't know where Area 52 sourced the gaskets from during the rebuild.
So, why would #05 fail. Is there something that makes it vulnerable compared with the others? If a few of us have had failures here maybe there is something a miss. just a thought.
so general plans are:
have cylinder heads inspected, leak tested, and skimmed where necessary
replace all gaskets of course
re-make all coolant pipes (lookin' prettier and routed better)
use a lot of heat insulation... everywhere
alloy header tank
alloy breather/catch tank
ceramic coat the exhaust (decided i don't like heat wrap)
ceramic coat piston crowns and heads (it's a maybe at the mo)
fit M400 gear linkage upgrade from Jetstream
fit a gearbox oil cooler (gearbox case was drilled when the gearbox was repaired after failure)
re-make/modify pedals (they are not the best layout and could do with tighter pivots etc)
think that's everything, any comments welcome.
cheers to all
James
first of all, sorry for not dropping in sooner, been a busy end to summer. A great end to the race season but not so great for the Noble :-(...
As some of you know, when i was at the Silverstone trackday in September, the head gasket on my car failed. It had shown signs of a failure on the Sat before (put my foot down on the dual carriageway and it chucked oil out of the breather) but i wasn't sure until i spent some time diagnosing it on the trackday itself. Athough the problem only seemed to occur when on full boost i didn't want to risk it so had the car collected and delivered to AW Tracksport. I later collected the car with my trailer and it has since been in my garage on axle stands.
As it's the winter i have decided to take it off the road and sort out some of the other jobs while so much is stripped out. Also, with ALL the problems i've had with the car since the rebuild done by a garage i want to rebuild it myself to be sure i can enjoy a summer of motoring next year including Spa and the ring with you guys :-). Fortunately i can get advice from AW Tracksport and hopefully you lot.
I'll keep you all up to date with the rebuild on here, still in the strip down process now...
The engine bay currently:
The failed head gasket. failed on cylinder #05, same as others i believe. Has the upgraded ARP head bolts as well.
The other head. no gasket failure i can see. Don't know why the gasket materials are different colours, is this normal. I don't know where Area 52 sourced the gaskets from during the rebuild.
So, why would #05 fail. Is there something that makes it vulnerable compared with the others? If a few of us have had failures here maybe there is something a miss. just a thought.
so general plans are:
have cylinder heads inspected, leak tested, and skimmed where necessary
replace all gaskets of course
re-make all coolant pipes (lookin' prettier and routed better)
use a lot of heat insulation... everywhere
alloy header tank
alloy breather/catch tank
ceramic coat the exhaust (decided i don't like heat wrap)
ceramic coat piston crowns and heads (it's a maybe at the mo)
fit M400 gear linkage upgrade from Jetstream
fit a gearbox oil cooler (gearbox case was drilled when the gearbox was repaired after failure)
re-make/modify pedals (they are not the best layout and could do with tighter pivots etc)
think that's everything, any comments welcome.
cheers to all
James
Gadgeroonie said:
get your injectors flow tested to check no 5 is ok
did you get photos of the spark plugs
have you got a close up pic of the piston crown
is this the second time the head gasket has failed ? was it no 5 last time
was the head skimmed last time ?
hey Gadge,did you get photos of the spark plugs
have you got a close up pic of the piston crown
is this the second time the head gasket has failed ? was it no 5 last time
was the head skimmed last time ?
Edited by Gadgeroonie on Friday 18th November 00:42
will get injectors tested. they were only a couple of months old as fitted by trevor when he mapped it.
haven't got photos of the spark plugs yet, have them bagged separately though. they all appeared to be the same when i removed them. the plug from #05 wasn't clean or anything like that.
can take a close up of the crown, what are you looking for?
first head gasket failure mate
cheers
James
TuxMan said:
Hi James , good to see you getting your hands dirty !!!! Although after the amount you have paid a garage to do the work already it's something you should not have to do !!!!
No 5 cylinder is the hot one and we have seen failures on that cylinder only , headgaskets are not STD ford items so I would recommend going back to STD , Jetstream have a fix for head gasket issues !!!!
See my "so exited" thread for details on ceramic coating pistons ect , Camcoat also do a slipper coat for the skirt , to be honest I would upgrade the STD cast pistons to forged units if I was going to all the trouble of a rebuild , jetstream do a direct replacement set that will fit on the STD rods cost is £900+vat .
I too am upgrading to a Jetstream M400 linkage so we will have to compare notes
Keep us updated . Tux
edited to add : very odd having different coloured head gaskets , my std units are black ,so im guessing the blue one is a pattern unit , i woul;d also be concerned about the hole sizes for the oil ways , the blue one has a much smaller hole !!!!!
Tux,No 5 cylinder is the hot one and we have seen failures on that cylinder only , headgaskets are not STD ford items so I would recommend going back to STD , Jetstream have a fix for head gasket issues !!!!
See my "so exited" thread for details on ceramic coating pistons ect , Camcoat also do a slipper coat for the skirt , to be honest I would upgrade the STD cast pistons to forged units if I was going to all the trouble of a rebuild , jetstream do a direct replacement set that will fit on the STD rods cost is £900+vat .
I too am upgrading to a Jetstream M400 linkage so we will have to compare notes
Keep us updated . Tux
edited to add : very odd having different coloured head gaskets , my std units are black ,so im guessing the blue one is a pattern unit , i woul;d also be concerned about the hole sizes for the oil ways , the blue one has a much smaller hole !!!!!
Edited by TuxMan on Friday 18th November 08:52
good to hear from you.
I'll have to get in touch with jetstream about there linkage and gaskets in one go.
Camcoat is the company AW Tracksport use. i plan to give my heads and exhaust to them and letting him deal with Camcoat. Will check your thread out.
Still not sure about going to forged pistons. what are the benefits. i assume they are lighter! if i ceramic coated the standard pistons would they be up to it? can't decide.
would love to compare notes on the linkage upgrade... if comparing notes means copying off you ;-). just kidding.
I don't know what the score is with these head gaskets. i did notice the different gallery orifice sizes, looks wrong to me!
p.s. Tux, my new phone deleted a load of numbers, please drop me a text so i have yours again.
cheers
James
steveobes said:
Hi mine chucked out loads of smoke and filled intercooler with oil,was drivable of boost,
when taken apart 3 pistons had parts of rings cracked,have you checked rings?
hi mate,when taken apart 3 pistons had parts of rings cracked,have you checked rings?
had a quick look when i took the pistons out and they looked ok, no signs of blow past either although i'll be having a proper inspection tomorrow. I plan to change the pistons rings anyway so i suppose it doesn't matter if i do find it.
cheers
James
Gadgeroonie said:
hi James
i was looking for det damage to the top of the piston or head gasket
it might be a good idea to change the pistons for the m400 style whilst the engine is apart - you can then go over 500 hp in the future
the stock pistons may be good for 600 hp - it is only 100 hp per piston but do you want to be the one who finds out they are not !
what do the valves and seats look like on no 5 ?
why not get the heads flowed whilst it is apart?
i'll take some high res photos and post them. it had 530bhp from when trevor mapped it :-).i was looking for det damage to the top of the piston or head gasket
it might be a good idea to change the pistons for the m400 style whilst the engine is apart - you can then go over 500 hp in the future
the stock pistons may be good for 600 hp - it is only 100 hp per piston but do you want to be the one who finds out they are not !
what do the valves and seats look like on no 5 ?
why not get the heads flowed whilst it is apart?
how much would it cost to get the heads flowed?
cheers
Mike Tuckwood said:
Some intriguing issues with that HGF there James?
Perhaps it might be worth checking back with whoever fitted that front head gasket and asking them where it was sourced (doesn't look like a genuine one to me), but more importantly, what torque settings did they use and did they follow the correct stud tightening sequence?
Mike.
Mike,Perhaps it might be worth checking back with whoever fitted that front head gasket and asking them where it was sourced (doesn't look like a genuine one to me), but more importantly, what torque settings did they use and did they follow the correct stud tightening sequence?
Mike.
A little confused by your questions?
Answers being: you fitted new head gaskets and the updated ARP head bolts during the rebuild at yours!
Just to be clear; when the car was collected from yours on the trailer it was taken to Trevor jasper who dropped a map on to get the car running properly. It was taken to jetstream who performed a visual inspection. Then I collected it. It worked for 6 days before the gearbox failed. The gearbox was then removed and rebuilt without removing the engine (chassis piece removed). The car then worked for a number of weeks before the head gasket failed.
James
Edited by Jamescmr2 on Monday 21st November 16:12
evening all!
right, back to my head gasket failure for a second! :-)
sticking to the facts...
First of all to be clear; i have no idea whether the blue coloured gasket is a genuine ford part or not. unfortunately i am away from home until Wed night but will check as soon as i get in to see if the gasket in question sheds any light on this. It seems some think Ford have made a blue gasket but perhaps in the past, and some think they have never made one! One thing which i hadn't noticed which is all the more worrying is that oil galleries on the blue gasket appear much smaller which certainly would not be a good thing.
Aside from why the gasket failed, i have a strange mystery to solve:
The garage which performed an extensive rebuild of my car from (Feb 2010 - May 2011) which is covered in the thread (repairing the damage the stig...). during the rebuild the head gaskets were changed as a matter of course (I have an invoice for the new gaskets). In May the car was collected by trailer and taken to Trevor Jasper to be mapped. the same day it went to Jetstream on another trailer as i wanted them to check the car over. It stayed there for 2 weeks or so as they were too busy to look at it and Dave (Noble guru and gearbox specialist) was away. The night before i collected the car they performed a visual inspection. I drove the car home from Jetstream to Newcastle and it worked for 6 days before the gearbox failed (being stuck in neutral, not fun when at motorway speeds on the A1). The car was then taken to AW Tracksport who eventually, after trying a new selector mechanism, had the gearbox removed (without removing the engine) and rebuild along with other snags. I then picked the car up and it worked for a couple of months before the head gasket showed signs of failure the weekend before a load of us were supposed to do a trackday at Silverstone. I had it recovered and it sat in my garage for a few weeks while i was busy at work. i then got round to working on it and started this thread.
When i removed the cylinder heads i found the witness marks of the failed gasket, as covered in this thread earlier. At this point some of the experienced amongst you noticed the differences between the gaskets and of course the possible significance of the colour differences.
Mike maintains that new gaskets, purchased from Ford, were fitted to the car and has invoices to prove his purchase. I can't argue with this.
So, the question is: How did the blue gasket get into the engine build.
I've had a look through photos of the strip down stage of the rebuild whilst at Mikes garage. The gaskets which were removed (to my knowledge the original from when the car was made) were both black in colour. so we know the original ones where not re-used.
So, either:
- Ford supplied the Blue gasket (old stock in their stores)
- Mike's garage had another gasket on the shelves which was picked up instead of the Ford part
- Jetstream decided to change the head gasket without telling me!
- AW Tracksport decided to change the head gasket without telling me!
Unless someone can point out an option i have missed??
Mike, i do not have all the photos you took during the build of the engine. perhaps one shows a black gasket at some stage?
whilst i don't know Jetstream very well at all i would be amazed if they would have changed the head gasket.... i mean why would they?
AW Tracksport have ran my race car for over a year and they are so busy on race cars they definitely wouldn't have done it in the height of the race season.
James
right, back to my head gasket failure for a second! :-)
sticking to the facts...
First of all to be clear; i have no idea whether the blue coloured gasket is a genuine ford part or not. unfortunately i am away from home until Wed night but will check as soon as i get in to see if the gasket in question sheds any light on this. It seems some think Ford have made a blue gasket but perhaps in the past, and some think they have never made one! One thing which i hadn't noticed which is all the more worrying is that oil galleries on the blue gasket appear much smaller which certainly would not be a good thing.
Aside from why the gasket failed, i have a strange mystery to solve:
The garage which performed an extensive rebuild of my car from (Feb 2010 - May 2011) which is covered in the thread (repairing the damage the stig...). during the rebuild the head gaskets were changed as a matter of course (I have an invoice for the new gaskets). In May the car was collected by trailer and taken to Trevor Jasper to be mapped. the same day it went to Jetstream on another trailer as i wanted them to check the car over. It stayed there for 2 weeks or so as they were too busy to look at it and Dave (Noble guru and gearbox specialist) was away. The night before i collected the car they performed a visual inspection. I drove the car home from Jetstream to Newcastle and it worked for 6 days before the gearbox failed (being stuck in neutral, not fun when at motorway speeds on the A1). The car was then taken to AW Tracksport who eventually, after trying a new selector mechanism, had the gearbox removed (without removing the engine) and rebuild along with other snags. I then picked the car up and it worked for a couple of months before the head gasket showed signs of failure the weekend before a load of us were supposed to do a trackday at Silverstone. I had it recovered and it sat in my garage for a few weeks while i was busy at work. i then got round to working on it and started this thread.
When i removed the cylinder heads i found the witness marks of the failed gasket, as covered in this thread earlier. At this point some of the experienced amongst you noticed the differences between the gaskets and of course the possible significance of the colour differences.
Mike maintains that new gaskets, purchased from Ford, were fitted to the car and has invoices to prove his purchase. I can't argue with this.
So, the question is: How did the blue gasket get into the engine build.
I've had a look through photos of the strip down stage of the rebuild whilst at Mikes garage. The gaskets which were removed (to my knowledge the original from when the car was made) were both black in colour. so we know the original ones where not re-used.
So, either:
- Ford supplied the Blue gasket (old stock in their stores)
- Mike's garage had another gasket on the shelves which was picked up instead of the Ford part
- Jetstream decided to change the head gasket without telling me!
- AW Tracksport decided to change the head gasket without telling me!
Unless someone can point out an option i have missed??
Mike, i do not have all the photos you took during the build of the engine. perhaps one shows a black gasket at some stage?
whilst i don't know Jetstream very well at all i would be amazed if they would have changed the head gasket.... i mean why would they?
AW Tracksport have ran my race car for over a year and they are so busy on race cars they definitely wouldn't have done it in the height of the race season.
James
Mike Tuckwood said:
We don't keep them on the shelf because we don't need to. Main dealer is either next day or 2 day from stock and when we have one to do, it takes longer than that to get the car in a position where a new head gasket is needed.
We have never seen a blue gasket as shown before, on any car to the best of our recollection.
James, I'll gladly look through all the pictures again tomorrow but I think you have all I have. I don't expect we may have anticipated this particular scenario when taking them though?
As discussed earlier, the colour of the gasket doesn't mean a whole lot, and may have been a correct old stock one from somewhere (other than here as best we can tell). It doesn't point towards the failure cause though unless for some reason it is a "wrong gasket"?
Mike.
Mike,We have never seen a blue gasket as shown before, on any car to the best of our recollection.
James, I'll gladly look through all the pictures again tomorrow but I think you have all I have. I don't expect we may have anticipated this particular scenario when taking them though?
As discussed earlier, the colour of the gasket doesn't mean a whole lot, and may have been a correct old stock one from somewhere (other than here as best we can tell). It doesn't point towards the failure cause though unless for some reason it is a "wrong gasket"?
Mike.
Understand you wouldn't keep them on the shelf, just looking for a plausible explanation.
Worth a quick look in your photos, the latest photos I grabbed off you were before the job was completed. I can see why you wouldn't specifically take photos of this.
Indeed, the colour of the gasket MAY be meaningless. Also, the gasket material is only one possible cause of the head gasket failure and there is a precedent for #05 cylinder failing. The worrying thing really is the fact that everyone with experience agrees the gasket is substandard regardless of its origins! Yet it was still fitted to the car!!
mat7w said:
Good evening James,
As you know, your car sat in my workshop while Dave was away, and once we were both free made a list of faults that we visually found on the car. To my recollection this was all for a minimal fee as we were just trying to help you in the right direction, and finally after Many months actually have a finished car back. If I had have got bored at some point (and that happens regularly) taking your head off, fitting a new gasket, and re-fitting FOC, would unfortunately not be at the top of my things to do. (although would have put a nice twist on this story.
Where is Holmes when you need him?
Matt
Matt,As you know, your car sat in my workshop while Dave was away, and once we were both free made a list of faults that we visually found on the car. To my recollection this was all for a minimal fee as we were just trying to help you in the right direction, and finally after Many months actually have a finished car back. If I had have got bored at some point (and that happens regularly) taking your head off, fitting a new gasket, and re-fitting FOC, would unfortunately not be at the top of my things to do. (although would have put a nice twist on this story.
Where is Holmes when you need him?
Matt
Just seen your post, cleared up there then.
Although you might not remember, you didn't actually charge me anything for checking the car over (just collection of the car from Trevor jasper) as you took pity on my situation!
James
Mike Tuckwood said:
It's rather odd though isn't it, in that I've just referred James to pic's we took during the build, which show there to be a black head gasket on there, as per the invoiced items we bought to do it with? Strange, but nonetheless true? A mystery indeed?
And if you follow that through, then logically one might conclude somebody must have? (Or that our memories of doing it are wrong, and the pic's have been fabricated in advance)?
Mike.
I've not seen these photos proving a blue gasket was not fitted. However I have seen the invoice which apparently shows the purchase of the two genuine Ford gaskets which were fitted to my car!!!....And if you follow that through, then logically one might conclude somebody must have? (Or that our memories of doing it are wrong, and the pic's have been fabricated in advance)?
Mike.
Edited by Mike Tuckwood on Tuesday 22 November 16:33
The only problem is; the date on the invoices is March 2011??? I trailered the car away from your garage to have the exhaust fabricated by urban racing in Aug 2010 (i.e. with the engine all rebuilt and in place). The first time I attempted to drive the car away from yours was The end of Feb 2011!
????
YellowShed said:
James,
I didn't have the time to change the head gasket!! It's not a half-hour job. I did get as far as changing the injectors for you with a brand new set of matched injectors as we agreed. I did look at the plugs, too, if I recall correctly. Then I sorted out the mapping, dynoed it as requested and sent it on up to Jetstream....
So the trail of when the head gaskets were changed goes back before me, I reckon....
YellowShed
thanks for confirming what seemed clear to me Trevor...I didn't have the time to change the head gasket!! It's not a half-hour job
. I did get as far as changing the injectors for you with a brand new set of matched injectors as we agreed. I did look at the plugs, too, if I recall correctly. Then I sorted out the mapping, dynoed it as requested and sent it on up to Jetstream....So the trail of when the head gaskets were changed goes back before me, I reckon....
YellowShed
Jamescmr2 said:
I've not seen these photos proving a blue gasket was not fitted. However I have seen the invoice which apparently shows the purchase of the two genuine Ford gaskets which were fitted to my car!!!....
The only problem is; the date on the invoices is March 2011??? I trailered the car away from your garage to have the exhaust fabricated by urban racing in Aug 2010 (i.e. with the engine all rebuilt and in place). The first time I attempted to drive the car away from yours was The end of Feb 2011!
????
the other thing which makes me think the invoices are not for the ones fitted to my car is... the invoice total for both gaskets is £95.79 including VAT. I was charged £126... so they can't be mine, unless a reasonable mark up is over 30%. Also, the VAT on the invoice is 20% and VAT was still 15% when the engine was rebuilt there...The only problem is; the date on the invoices is March 2011??? I trailered the car away from your garage to have the exhaust fabricated by urban racing in Aug 2010 (i.e. with the engine all rebuilt and in place). The first time I attempted to drive the car away from yours was The end of Feb 2011!
????
TuxMan said:
Hi James , so what you are saying is your invoice from Mike for 2 gen ford head gaskets that has been sent to you to prove they fitted the correct ones is dated some 7 months after your engine was fully built ????
Also how come Trevor had to remapp your engine surely that would have been done as part of your extensive rebuild ??
That seems to be the case. The engine was definitely assembled when I took the car to urban racing Aug last year and the invoice is dated Mar 2011.Also how come Trevor had to remapp your engine surely that would have been done as part of your extensive rebuild ??
I would have thought Trevor would have told you at some point as you seem to be there a lot. Well my car spent a number a sessions on the rolling road at Mikes. While it made good power first time round at 510bhp, unfortunately when I drove away from the garage it began running poorly (misfires etc) not far up the A1. The car was returned and after a number of part were replaced, some unrelated (tappets failed) it was remapped again. Again though on the way from being collected from the train station and driving back to the garage the car began running like sh*t again. I spent the day at the garage helping to diagnose and when the ECU was replaced with a spare it solved the problem.
I took the car away with this spare ECU and planned a return journey to have my ECU refitted and mapped, after it had been checked by MBE. The spare ECU could not be mapped that night as the mapping computer was broken.
I went down a week later to have the spare ECU mapped to my car build, while we waited for mine as it was still at MBE. During the mapping session the car began to misfire and run like crap again. It could not be explained and the car was left at the garage.
That was the end of my pateince so I had the car taken to Trevor. He had it less than half a day and it was re-mapped. From then until the head gasket failure there was no hint of a misfire. Clearly something is missing during the mapping of cars on Mikes dyno! I don't understand what or why. Perhaps Trevor would explain what he did with my car??
Having just typed that on my phone I'm sure it's in another thread somewhere!
James
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