Interested, yet concerned

adamc260 · Post by **adamc260** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:22 pm

For my next car I'm looking at perhaps getting an MG ZR (1.4) but I'm quite worried about HG issues and after seeing the bills something that I could be faced with.

Although I've got a general idea of under the bonet I'm not really the mechanical type - I'm just wondering, how common are HG problems with MG's and Rovers and are there prevention methods to stop them going and being faced with like Â£300-500 costs.

Thanks all

southside · Post by **southside** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:40 pm

They're not hard to do yourself mate. I did mine, Had a fair bit of mechanical knowledge but never attepmted a HG on my own before. Took me just over a day in the end on cost me Â£40 summot for the complete head set and another 20odd quid for some decent oil. As long as the car never overheats you should't have to get the head skimmed either. Mine never overheated and i didn't have the head skimmed and i've done about 5k now since i did it with no problems.

malcolm_durant · Post by **malcolm_durant** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:58 am

I'd echo all of the above. Did one on a 1.6 K-series 400 a couple of years ago...it's still rolling around the Eastbourne area so I must have done something right.

Follow the instructions to the letter and unbolt the head stage by stage to avoid warping an unwarped head...hopefully a skim won't be necessary, but do check carefully with a good steel rule.

It's not as hard as garages make out...just exercise a fraction more care than you would on any other engine, ensure you replace the plastic locating dowels in the head with later metal ones (should be in your HG set) and measure your head bolts carefully (you may need to replace them if they've stretched too far.

You'll want a K-series cam-pulley locking tool too (fiver or thereabouts from local motor factors etc) and it's be a good idea to change the cambelt if unsure of it's age at the same time (Â£15 IIRC). I'd personally probably bung new coolant in at the same time (an extra tenner).

Cheers,

Malcolm

dreaddan · Post by **dreaddan** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:07 am

tbh, there is no resion it should go as long as you look after it.
Replace the thermistat regullay, keep a eye on the rad + fan and you should be ok.

xr4x4 · Post by **xr4x4** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:12 am

what kinda millage on failures are we looking at here?

70k ish?

adamc260 · Post by **adamc260** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:30 am

Do MG's/Rovers like to drink their coolant?

At the minute I have a ford and mine never drops but my friend has a 214i 8v and he has to put some in every week (saying that his car is on 112,000 miles now!)

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:49 am

well he must have summit up lol. ive not topped mine up in about 9 months. and im 130k.

edit thought you were talking about a t series for some bizarre reason, but anyway, my sei never used a drop of water. my spi 8v did tho, when it ran dry of oil and boiled all the water out

was never the same again.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:10 am

K series headgaskets will go...

happen on my metro gti, was a bit of a bummer...

Newer ones are probably built a little bit better, but the only propper cure is the new style headgasket and related components, and to check the liner heights whilst installing it.

Also, the thermostat location is less than ideal, and a lotus thermostat relocation kit is a good idea.

southside · Post by **southside** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:31 pm

xr4x4 wrote:what kinda millage on failures are we looking at here?

70k ish?

Mine went at 83k

al_roverMG · Post by **al_roverMG** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:16 pm

Scott wrote:
Newer ones are probably built a little bit better, but the only propper cure is the new style headgasket and related components, and to check the liner heights whilst installing it.

Also, the thermostat location is less than ideal, and a lotus thermostat relocation kit is a good idea.

Scott seems that the opposite is in fact true. When MGrover went on the cost cutting exercise (its name escapes me) one of the cost cuts was to drop the 2 different liner heights in favour of just the one. Was reading an article in PPC about it. Basically to account for the very small tolerance in the liner height the did produce 2 heights of liner so for the blocks that were a little bit taller they fitted the long ones and the opposite for the smaller ones (only talking a matter of a few hundreds of an inch but makes all the difference so they say)

Apparently also after MGrover did that land rover had the engines switched to a separate line and any blocks that were not within the set figures they rejected (was a 1 in 5 reject rate so i am told)

If anyone is interested in reading the article i will dig it out and scan it if someone can host it.

618ireland · Post by **618ireland** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:34 pm

I can certainly vouch for the earlier ones, I put 100K miles on 1995 214Sei, as far as I know when I bought her as a 39K 6 year old it was on original head gasket, never a problem with the HG, although my water pump lost water for a few months, kept topping it up and got it replaced eventually.