Technical HG interval

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Technical HG interval

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since the wife still wont let me buy a replacement screen for the laptop for £22 and i have nowhere to hook up an external monitor and my work collegue still has my HDD... I dont have access to autodata and something which has been bothering me recently is at what interval should the HG be changed on the 1.6?

Basically i have to put tyres on, sort my airbag light, get a new cat and repair my exhaust flexi before Feb.

im runnin into 98000Mi so If i need to do it soon i wanna budget for it. Im pretty confident the valve guide seals are gone which is why the cat has blown itself to bits, understandably im a little apprehensive about putting a replacement cat on for it to melt itself into oblivion in a few months time because of the extra hydrocarbons in my exhaust.
 
Do you mean a head gasket???

Cant see why its a changeable part. Its not something that's routinely changed like oil, etc.
Its either gone and needs doing or its fine and doesn't!!!

In my humble opinion anyway.
 
Do you mean a head gasket???

Cant see why its a changeable part. Its not something that's routinely changed like oil, etc.
Its either gone and needs doing or its fine and doesn't!!!

In my humble opinion anyway.

Muppet's right...the time to replace a head gasket is when it fails!
 
im generally of this consensus too but i know the 1108s and early If not the later 1242s generally blew around 55000Mi, coincidentally about the same sort of age and mileage that the timing belt was due to be changed. I didnt know If the 1.6s had the same sort of design flaw
 
it is poorly... Its thrown a cat!

And Theres nice big puffs of blue smoke when coasting then gettin back on it as well as accelerating HARD... If Thats possible in a 1.6.

Also looses a litre or so of oil every 4-6 weeks with no visible leaks big enough to warrant the loss
 
i would point to valve stems buddy, any blue smoke on start up? also i don't know much about the 1.6 but the 2.0 20v marea's have a valve that some times get gunked up with crap from the breather pipe and doesn't operate properly and this every now and again puffs blue smoke (quite alot sometimes depending on how many short trips you do) i changed that part on my old gold one (4 cars ago) and it was fine after that
 
i would point to valve stems buddy, any blue smoke on start up? also i don't know much about the 1.6 but the 2.0 20v marea's have a valve that some times get gunked up with crap from the breather pipe and doesn't operate properly and this every now and again puffs blue smoke (quite alot sometimes depending on how many short trips you do) i changed that part on my old gold one (4 cars ago) and it was fine after that

none that i can see on start up bud to be honest Ive never looked.

Afaik theres none of that breather malarky on the 1.6s
 
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one of the lads at work has Just mentioned about a value spring compressor... Apparently You set the cylinder to TDC and use a little tool to compress the valve spring... Anyone know If there is one for the 1.6
 
Last time I replaced a broken valve spring (old Triumph Spitfire), I used the Ghetto approach. Wound engine so that the piston in question was at its lowest point, removed spark plug and fed in a load of hairy blue rope. Then turned engine over by hand to move piston to highest point thus holding valve tight from beneath.

Oh how I had fun refitting the valve collets with a set of molegrips.
 
in the time i initially posted this ive seen about 4 'worrying' puffs of blue smoke from behind... under hard acceleration (up a slip road onto a motorway) i can sometimes see smoke in the headlights of other vehicles (a little like a diesel under hard acceleration).

Theres no smoke on start up and trying to get it to replicate the symptoms is incredibly difficult. ive had valve guide seals gone before and its as obvious as a smack around the face when you look in your rear view.

shes still using oil at a rate of about a liter to every 800/1000 miles but im using fully syn. and understand that this is about the right usage for fully syn. im doing between 1000/1200 miles a month. half of that being motorway and half being around town.

the standard air box will be going back on this week at some point because the cone filter hasnt really given me the desired MPG hike i thought it might so the mrs can have that on her new Coupe.

MOT time is fast approaching and with a list of jobs already, stripping the head off is something i can well do without unless ABSOLUTELY necessary (the timing tool rental is a lot of money and its 8hrs i could spend doing something else, probably to the Coupe)

im torn... i dont *think* my seals have gone but the odd occasion it does spew plumes of smoke from its arse its scares the living bejebus out of me and all i can see is pound signs floating from my engine bay like when you buy something off of the sims.

help me guys... im scared... somebody hold me and tell me its ok and i dont have to take the head off!
 
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