fraser9764

iTrader: (3)

just sold my brothers first car, mk3 fiesta 1.1 (hcs engine), 67k miles, mint interior and underneath but outside its very tatty.
sold it to the girl next door, she is paying for it on tuesday so it needs to be sorted by then.
Now... it started playing silly beggars, running very rough when cold, water in oil, exhaust fumes ot of the oil cap etc. so i though it must be the head gasket.

whiped the head off tonight to have a look and it doesnt seem to have gone? it has only done maybe 20 miles since it started playing up.


this was the underside of the rocker cover after being cleaned then running for 10 mins.



the mess under the rocker cover



looks to me like the 2nd cyl from the left has been wet though




i peeled he gasket off the head very carefully without touching anything and found his bit around the cyl that looked to be wet.




some random pics of the head/gasket






thanks for any help in advance

joshF

looks like what happened to me





but mine did short runs and no milage so never got warm and ran on shit oil but was ok when changed the oil and ran it

richard youll

thats not head gasket failure that i'm afraid is an ohv ford hcs engine and that is that!!! they just do that, irregular oil changes, and breathers not cleaned properly cause that black death, the residue milkie stuff is just condesation build up totaly normal for one of those

fraser9764

iTrader: (3)

so you mean i took the head off for no bastard reason?!

how do you exlain the running bad when cold then?

Smit

iTrader: (5)

clean the deck and get the head skimmed.. when putting back together clean all the breathers out with a airline (might be all blocked up) then when all back together wit a new gasket maybe flush the engines old oil to get rid of any water that maybe lurking in there.. A new filter and oil may be just what the captain ordered.

richard youll

the ford hcs engine has a few traits that people thing are serious but are just normal for that engine, as part of regular servicing your supposed to replace oil filler cap and the little 3 way breather that pushes into the underside of the air filter box so try and prevent the milky sludge building up but it rarely does, as for the poor running from cold it proberbly has another issue that need rectifying, i doubt you'll even need the head skimming, i cant remember ever skimming a cast head to be honest as even when you get a head gasket issue on an engine running a cast head when i send it for a pressure check they all ways come back passed and no need for skim, bad valve seats and cams wearing out were an issue on the hcs apart from the bores wearing oval!!

richard youll

it also looks like its burning a lot of oil

fraser9764

iTrader: (3)

im not to bothered about it being perfect, at the end of the day is a £270 quid car to get her going!! (just couldnt sell it with what i thought was a knakered head gasket) ah well, i will clean out the breathers etc, stick a new gasket on and throw it all back together. one thing i did notice when dismantling was that the vacuum connection for the servo on the back of the manifold seemed very loose. is suppose this could have caused the bad running.