Thread: Engine Head Gasket?

Originally Posted by Uncle Al

Seeing some of the shows on TV these days showing cars being built where the dash is put in by a robot pretty well before anything else, I haven't been too far wide of the mark.

Commodores have been built that way for years.

Phil, have you seen this?

http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/foru...fix-92982.html

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

Phil, have you seen this?

Hi Michael.

Yes I have, thats where I got the saying over-engineered S.O.B from. Theres a couple of other similar reports kicking about. I think it will be repairable once I get it out, still waiting on those release keys, to get the radio out. (Mind you half of it is sitting on the one bench I keep at home, the rest is jammed in the dash). I got a confirmation Tuesday that they were posted, they're only coming by letter, so hopefully I'll see them next week.

I dropped in to a few wreakers in my travels today, no one seems to have written off Polo's. I should have bought a Corolla.

Thanks and regards. Phil.

Originally Posted by Machtool

The brides Honda Accord, isn't that bad, but you do have to take the front wheels off, and remove the lining in the wheel wells to get to the front light bulbs.

And I thought I was hard done by having to pull the battery to change the parker bulb.

Originally Posted by RayG

Works with all model cars that have the standard interface.

Well sort of, some of the commodores have the ODB2 plug.......but they dont use the standard ODB2 codes!

Stuart

Ok since we have gone well past the op.....

My last van was a 2004 holden combo. Really an opel, made in Bulgaria. Absolute P O S, thirsty, uncomfortable, gutless..
Anyway, it had a problem not coming up to temp, sure enough thermostat was jammed open. Goes in for a regular service with a note to replace thermostat. Mechanic calls me half way through the day, "do you want us to do the timing belt while we're here?" At this stage i'm thinking ? why would you do that...I said its not due for another 30,000 k's, he says, "yeah but since we have to pull tthe RH wheel, quarter panel and wheel guard, battery and windscreen washer bottle off we thought it would be a good idea whilst we were in here....."

What a place to put the thermostat, built into the end of the engine behind the timing belt.

I was rear ended pretty hard in said van, unfortunately it was not written off. The airbag computer armed itself and set the seat belt tensioners off but not the airbags. When it came time to re-set it nothing would work, it simply would not reset. A new computer then....$4k It was a one black box for all type, not separate ones. The worst thing is if they had known the computer would need replaced in the first place it would have been a write off.....

Ew

Hi Ueee,

I could be wrong but I think at least 2 conditions need to be satisfied for the deployment of the SRS airbag system. The vehicle needs to have a frontal impact and it needs to be travelling (I think) at least 42Km/h. Otherwise the airbags will not deploy, well not the front airbags anyway. Side airbags may be different. In the U.S. they arm almost straight away as they are not SRS airbags. Since seat belts are not compulsory, it is not considered a "Supplementary Restraint System" It's more a primary restraint system. Crazy yanks!

Anyway. I recently replaced a mates timing belt after he said it was going to cost him $800. Told him we could do it easy for the cost of the parts on a night shift at work (what could possibly go wrong? we said to each other). Well lets just say that the Mitsubishi 380 which has a V6 east west motor is not the easiest to work on! I still can't believe we had to remove the engine mounts on the drivers side and jack the motor up to unloop the timing belt from the motor and engine mount! Why would you put an engine mount in the middle of the timing belt?

Another story, my wifes Subaru forester which seems to be living forever with 275,000Km and no sign of smoke from the motor, needed an new sump gasket. Easy I thought, done that before! Proceed to remove all the 10mm bolts until I get to the two at the back near the transmission. They are obscured by a chassis cross member. It's welded in place, not removable and no way of getting to the bolts. Can hardly see them (needed a mirror) let alone undo them. I had to drill 2 holes through the cross member to get a ratchet drive and socket to them. Only other way would have been to lift the engine out! Who comes up with these type of designs!!!? Mind you, I'm very happy with the Subaru, will buy another when this one dies!

Oh, just thought of another. Mate of mine is a mechanic. He had a Jeep diesel come in with a leaky injector. It just happened to be the rear cylinder. It's under the firewall and no way of getting to it. He looked at drilling a hole behind the dash through the firewall to get to it but it just happened to be double skinned in that spot. Had to take the engine out to replace and/or adjust essentially a $100 part!

Simon

Originally Posted by simonl

Hi Ueee,

I could be wrong but I think at least 2 conditions need to be satisfied for the deployment of the SRS airbag system. The vehicle needs to have a frontal impact and it needs to be travelling (I think) at least 42Km/h. Otherwise the airbags will not deploy, well not the front airbags anyway. Side airbags may be different. In the U.S. they arm almost straight away as they are not SRS airbags. Since seat belts are not compulsory, it is not considered a "Supplementary Restraint System" It's more a primary restraint system. Crazy yanks!

Hi Simon,
IIRC the poor girl (P plater) who hit me had her airbags go off. I was stopped at lights, standard distance to the car in front. She hit me that hard she pushed me into the car in front. Wrote off her dads 1yr old vectra, which she was not listed as a driver as i found out later when he claimed to my insurance company that the car was never in the accident.......
Nose of the vectra went under the vans bumper so the grill, radiator and front of the engine took most of the force, the amount of damage to the vans rear was surprisingly small.

Ew

Originally Posted by simonl

Anyway. I recently replaced a mates timing belt after he said it was going to cost him $800. Told him we could do it easy for the cost of the parts on a night shift at work (what could possibly go wrong? we said to each other). Well lets just say that the Mitsubishi 380 which has a V6 east west motor is not the easiest to work on! I still can't believe we had to remove the engine mounts on the drivers side and jack the motor up to unloop the timing belt from the motor and engine mount! Why would you put an engine mount in the middle of the timing belt?

That's become pretty common these days, having to remove an engine mount or two to get the timing belt off. Pain in the bum.

The best one these days is that a few of the Euro manufacturers have moved to fibre optic cables for CAN message transmission between ECUs. Still not sure how you're supposed to diagnose 'wiring' faults on those systems...

Makes me glad I left the trade last year, after ten years in it.

I own a Toyota Surf. Grey import 4Runner you might say but with a lot more than the 4Runners came with. Do a lot of work on them. Timing belts are a big job. Had to do a water pump last Saturday on a 2.4ltr. Asked the owner if he wanted to do the belt, tensioner, idler and seals as well. No he said, I'm confident everything else is ok. Famous last words. Water pump leak was because it didn't have a gasket. Only some of that crap silicon sealant. That stuff has it's place but not for substituting for a proper gasket. Coolant had washed all the grease out of the tensioner bearings. Tensioner roller was corroded and pitted wearing the back of the belt. No grease in the tensioner bearing so I throw it on the ground and say it's stuffed. He then informs me that he needs the car for work on Monday so could I put tit back together with just the new water pump. I did, but he will probably need a new engine by now if that tensioner seized.

Nev.

With faults like some of the one highlighted on this thread, it makes you wish that the ADR design rules or rather rule makers concerned themselves with these issues, instead of slavishly following European and Californian rules. The rules from overseas were bought in because of the conditions there, with Sydney and Melbourne sized cities every couple of hundred kilometres, and generally much higher population densities than we have here. They have resulted in much higher complexities in cars than is necessary, and the adoption of technologies which are not yet mature and reliable, let alone cheap to implement. We also have situations where car computers are changed frequently with often no backward compatability, so that in a relatively short time, a car with good general mechanical condition is rendered scrap because there is no computer available at a price the owner can economically justify. One anecdote I heard recently and for which I have no corroboration, so it could be just an urban myth, but according to my informant, Volvo are now using plastics for direction indicator stalk switches, which are biodegradable, and after about 14 years, these switches are likely to fail, because they want the plastic to degrade rather than live almost forever in landfill somewhere. One can only imagine the cost and availability of replacement parts when they begin to fail if this is true.
I am not against modern innovation, but I imagine that if the ADR design rules stated that any vehicle being sold in Australia had to be able to function fully when using an approved design programmable ECU, to be manufactured by several different suppliers, and that future versions had to support legacy systems, a lot of problems such as these could be lessened. With one design for all cars sold in AU, a local supplier could gear up and have the volumes to make a go of it. Whats more diagnostic systems would only have to handle one ECU design, which should make that cheaper too. Individual vehicle manufacturers could be paid a small fee any time a module was programmed to their specs for a customer, - $Au 20 sounds fair.
Other issues making life difficult and expensive for owners, like the sump bolts mentioned by Simon on his wife's Forester could be made subject to recall by the manufacturer to make good. The manufacturers would soon get the message that sloppy design could cost them, and rejig designs to make filters, and other adjustment points easily accessable, or pay for expensive recalls to remedy. My two cents worth anyway,
Rob.

It's hard to fathom ... my 1975 Landcruiser doesn't have any of these problems.

And the computer hasn't failed once!


Paul

Machtool

I hope you manage to get that radio out without too much trouble.

The stereo that was in my AU Falcon was difficult to get out. The tools to remove it are 2 bits of bent, stiff wire. After playing around for about an hour I finally decided that a large screwdriver and a big pair of pliers would be a better option. This worked much quicker. The aesthetics left a bit to be desired with regard to the stereo, but as it was one of the most useless stereos I have seen, that was not a problem. 2 Din unit that had AM/FM radio and could play commercial Redbook CD's only. What a joke.

After I removed the unit I had a good look at what I was supposed to be doing to remove it the proper way. I worked out that I had to have the bits of wire bent at exactly the right angle, positioned perfectly in place at the right angle to the dash............. In short I could see no way it was possible without being able to see what was happening. A bit different if one had a lot of experience!

Dean

Just an update. I got those radio removal keys last Friday. The radio pops right out, and luckily it some how knows you put it back in the same car. I didn't need to enter the code.

I managed to get the cup holder out, and after dropping half the springs. (I had to get the kids to find them, could see the tiny little buggers).

Not sure what I did, managed to un-jam it. A little needle nose pliers action, and got it back together. I can report it works.

Regards Phil.

I have a Peugeot Diesel 307 which I love for the 4.6l/100ks I average. Now at 270,000ks.
Back at 200,000, close to the 140,000 mile timing belt replace time, I had a look and went nope, Not doing that. Rang a dealer, $1500.00 cost. Time belt only.
Contacted a mechanic mate, who was a bit suss, (been Mitsubishi most of his life but did his time as a heavy duty).
Anyway went round there one Sat morn. got so far and we did not know what to lock where, with which tool. I grabbed a manual online. We needed two 5mm and 1 x 8mm drill bit.
Next week, although he'd never done before, all over in less than an two hours with coffee breaks. We did need to disconnect a mount though...just seems to be the way it is...
Belt $70.00, so not sure where 1500 comes from. At 300,000 will do again with tensioner, and waterpump...

Originally Posted by Machtool

Just an update. .....................
Not sure what I did, managed to un-jam it. A little needle nose pliers action, and got it back together. I can report it works.

Regards Phil.

Great news Phil. You'll be No.1 again in your daughters eyes (for a while anyway). Just explain that the next time she may not be so lucky, and the fix might look much uglier.
Rob.