• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

What I found after I pulled the head from my 8

Share this page

PATR8

PATR8

Jedi Knight
Offline
Wow that's crusty. Clean the intake with some degreaser first, then throw it into the dishwasher. Just don't do it while the wife is around. I got caught cleaning a TR8 oil pan in the kitchen sink today. Waited till she left for work, but she forgot her cell phone and doubled back on me.
 
I have found that the longer I am divorced the more I like having my money to myself (the darn kids and their colleges are taking a big bite of my Triumph money).

Other than the dishwasher, what would you recommend? I just got a brand new dishwasher and do not recall the setting for intake manifold being on it. Would some simple green or scrubbing bubbles, or anything work?

I am also going to correct one thing that has been bugging me since I bought my 8 over a decade ago, I am turning the carberator around to make it face the correct diretion. The guy I bought the 8 off of said it was an old racer's edge. I do not know not how it would work but it has keep me telling the story at least three times a year
 
My favorite cleaner is purple power degreaser. Cheap and strong. If they are really bad, you could hit it with a media blaster. The dishwasher is the way to go thou. Once it's really clean and just stained, throw it in on the bottom rack. It will come out sparkling. Picked that tip up over on Grassroots Motorsports website. They are big fans of redneck stuff like that over there. But, I can understand the new dishwasher thing.
 
Maybe.
Maybe not.
What's the report back on seats, faces and guides?
 
head.jpg


valve.jpg
 
Did you clean out that combustion chamber, or did it look like that right off the car? looks like the head gasket was leaking to me. that valve is definitely looking poor. It's possible that the lack of compression caused the difference in the appearance of that cylinder to the others.
 
No head leaks, the head was not cleaned up prior to the pics. The compression was good on all cylinders, all within 5 pounds of each other. The machine show says the seal was very bad. The heads will be down by the time I get back home but I need an intake gasket and carb gasket before I start putting it back together and an will clean up the intake, purple power it will be.

We just got hammered with a snow storm starting at 3 pm and we have 9 inches now. It was 70 last week. This helps me remain patient and realize there is no hurry to put it together. Unfortunately, I am getting ready to spend a lot of time away from home in the next few months so I will have to make sure I don't get in too big of a hurry trying to put the engine together.

The machine shop suggested I look at my fuel mixture and timing too. I am guessing when I work on them.
 
FWIW the front and back cylinders tend to run slightly leaner than do the middle cylinders with the typical four barrel setup on the TR8s. Also remember that Rover didn't use valve seals until very late in the production run of the 4.0 and 4.6. Make sure the machinist checks the valve guides well, and also checks the installed height of the valve springs. Also look at the cam lobes serving that cylinder. What did the spark plug in that cylinder look like? Could have just been a weak spark issue. While it's apart, take a good look at the rocker shafts for wear. Check the pushrods to make sure non are bent. Once it's back together, make sure you go back and retorque the head bolts after 500 miles or so.
 
What would a worn rocker shaft look like? The push rods are good, none bent. The machine shop appeared good (It is my first time using them) as they had the information on the 3.5 and were able to get parts they needed. I know they were talking of testing the spring wear and height so that sounds consistant with what you are saying.
 
The rockers sometimes will wear a ridge in the steel shaft along the edge of the rocker. Hard to believe that aluminum rockers will wear a steel shaft, but they do. Once the rocker assemblies are off, you can slide the rockers over a little and look at the shafts under the rocker. I have seen ridges as deep as the thickness of a quarter. The pockets that the valves sit in are machined from the factory to tolerances that are all over the place. As much as 30 thousandths off. The common upgrade is to recess the pockets to all the same depth and fit taller Chevy springs. The taller springs will allow you to go to a higher lift cam without worrying about valve spring coil bind and failure. The max you should go with stock springs is in the .460 range. You can go .500 and above with the chevy springs. More than you need unless you have a race to win.
 
Just for note, Purple Power and most water based degreasers will stain the living crap out of a aluminum head or any aluminum part if subjected to them anyhting more than a couple of minutes max, leaving it with nasty looking dark grey stain. most machine shops have aluminum safe caustic mix in thier sparay cabinets, and since I betting this head is gong to the machine shop already, they should be able to help with the cleaning of your aluminum head. Looks like that end valve from the picture has some seat recession, so a new exhaust seat may be in order.
 
Major, if you have a machine shop near you and it sounds like your heads are there. They usually have steam cleaners that are like BIG dish washers. I did mine last year ,then ceramic-ed it.
 
I went and picked up my heads today, good and bad news. The heads are fine, they did several checks and as trashed as it looked, it was fine. They said the head was level and true. The bad news, going to have to look for some time on my calender to figure out when I can pull the engine and pull that piston. I was so sure it was going to be that nasty valve.
 
Back
Top