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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Head gasket

HI,

Been having issue with my midget for a few weeks. Its SORN'ed presently so it hasn't been an issue. Lots of engine vibration.

It was mentioned on this forum that this could be a head gasket problem, so after finding cylinder 1 recording a pressure reading of 25lbs, I removed the head. There is a 1'' lump of gasket missing between cy1 and cy2..not good.

I have my touque wrench, new gaskets, a head scraper, trusty haynes manual. Am I right in thinking 'all' I have to so is scrape any remains of gaskets of block/cylinder head surfaces, put it all back together again, touque correctly (46lbs) and in correct order? Seems quite a simple affair...and I was really nervous about do this at all.

I was thinking about cleaning some of the engine pieces up a bit with engine lacquer - and cleaning the water pump which seems a bit 'used'.

Many thanks.
Mat
M Andrews

Basicaly, you're right. But (there's always a but) when you scrape the old gasket off, make sure that none of it goes down any of the oil or water passageways in the block. You don't want anything floating around that could block the flow of oil. You can block the holes with pieces of paper towels or rags. Just make sure that you pull all of them back out when you're done scraping.

Martin
Martin

If the engine ran for long enough with the gasket blown like that, damage could occur to the block and/or head faces which would need machining to repair them.

It pays to check the area with a straight edge. If you can see daylight between the straight edge and the surface being checked, insert a very thin (~1.5-2 thou) feeler at the point the gasket was blown and check again. If the straight edge rocks on the feeler, it should be fine. If not, it would pay to have it machined to avoid a repeat in the future.

If you don't have easy access to straight edge etc, if it looks OK visually you could just reassemble it and see what happens. If either of the surfaces are a problem, the gasket will let go again and all it's cost you to find this was a gasket and a bit of time. If the gasket survives then obviously there wasn't a problem!
Paul Walbran

Just get it machined.
I was very hesitant about changing mine a while back. turns out it wasnt too bad of a job- just follow the book, and dont rush it. i had the head machined and checked for cracks.

i somehow failed to torque a nut down, and had to do the job a second time. then it blew again- i have no idea why, so i did it a third time. this time it worked. i got pretty good at doing it. LOL

Don
don g

When you replace the H/G use a Payen, as these seem better quality than a lot of them..
K Harris

This thread was discussed between 25/04/2008 and 26/04/2008

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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