Goldie's Engine - refreshing it?

[Kieran]

Well, after the fun of the brakes on saturday, I decided to take it easy on Sunday!!!:inquisiti :inquisiti ........................

:speechles

Anyway - I now have the old 4G32 out of the car. What I'm wondering is what I should do with it - as in, should I just chuck it straight back in, or should I 'freshen' it up slightly... I'm wondering if, whilst it's out the car, I should drop in some new oil seals and a head gasket and such, maybe bearing shells too? I don't know. When I drained the fluids, the oil looked rather black and nasty, and the coolant was positively awful, being a milky, muddy brown colour....

The unit appears to be the original, and has 95,000 miles on it.

Any thoughts?

Here's a couple of piccies for you - didn't look too bad once I'd sprayed it with degreaser and washed it down a bit!:2thumbsup

[bradc]

whats up with the 5 series in the background? ewwww, should we start calling you scottish Kieran? :P

It might be an idea to repaint some of it or polish it up, or are you referring to power increases? If you are going to do it to showroom levels on cleanliness like Ariadne, you'd better start work on it straight away!

[amsoil]

If you mix the modern generally available anti freezes they will react together and form a brown gunge that will block the radiator. This might explain this bit. Not sure how well known this is outside of the trade so be careful with this.:inquisiti

[Kieran]

If you mix the modern generally available anti freezes they will react together and form a brown gunge that will block the radiator. This might explain this bit. Not sure how well known this is outside of the trade so be careful with this.:inquisiti

Oooh - that's certainly what's happened here. Hmm! Lots of water flushing needed then! Does the gunge cavitate alloy cylinder heads or anything, or is it just a heavy emulsion that needs getting rid of? Thanks for the tip Don!

Brad - I was really on about mechanically -as in, should I just refit and see what happens, or am I wise to take the head off, see what's there and such?

[ANTHONY]

i think you should try and do as much as you can, now that its out. as you may get it all back together and find out it need doing at a later date. i dont think you in a hurry so get on with it ..................

[amsoil]

Oooh - that's certainly what's happened here. Hmm! Lots of water flushing needed then! Does the gunge cavitate alloy cylinder heads or anything, or is it just a heavy emulsion that needs getting rid of? Thanks for the tip Don!


I dont know the answer to this but will find out tomorrow and post what 'my man' tells me. Symptoms are usually an overheating engine to start with later followed by head gasket failure then more than once.:inquisiti Once settled I believe its not possible to rescue the rad even with copious flushing.

[Kieran]

I was going to get a new radiator anyway - I think an early Pajero unit will do - similar holes in similar places - nothing a bit of :smash: won't sort. It's interesting you mention overheating, sludge and headgaskets all in the same sentence - that's how the engine in the Coupe met it's fate.

Think I caught this one before it was too late - drove all the way back from Devon with no overheating issues. Will make sure the head is well and truly blasted out though. I'm wondering if it's worth dropping a new head gasket in there anyway..... Shouldn't need to have the head skimmed if it's not overheated and warped?:thinking:

Never done a head gasket before - so I think i'll practice on the broken engine first....:thinking: