Hyundai cylinder head job - never again

[Crater Creator]

Well I just finished this - stepdaughter has a "first car" which is a bit of a shed, and has been playing up.
The consensus of opinion was a cylinder head gasket leak between cylinders 1 and 2, after doing compression tests. Note - I did not do the tests - stepson did them when I was not here.....
There was nothing wrong with the gasket. Gutted, as it has taken me DAYS to strip the thing down and rebuild it.
Although the car's basically worthless, I couldn't help but blast and paint the pulleys which were heavily corroded, and change all the valve stem seals, etc. All completely pointless but I can't help myself!
I suspect the problem was just a bad HT lead.
Lesson learned - again....

 

[gordon stephenson]

I feel your pain, Long time ago my brother decides that his Mk2 jag's poor starting was due ti a blown head gasket, Anyway I worked on it till the early hours of the morning and found nothing wrong with the gasket, On trying to start it did further checks and found it to be sucking extra air through a corroded aluminium valve on the vacuum tank, Temporary fix, I blocked off the tube to the manifold and it burst into life at the first push on the button, Gutted!!

 

[wristpin]

Years back I serviced a single pot engine on a cultivator. It ran fine in the workshop but when returned to the owner it ran fine for a couple of minutes in work, went pop, stopped and wouldn't restart. Investigation and following suggestions ended with a complete strip to investigate a possible fault with the mechanical decompressor on the cam - no joy.
Finally swallowing pride I spoke to a man at a company that had been dealing with those engines " for ever" .
"What did you set the points to?" My reply was " the book 20 thou" His answer, " shut them down to 16"
End of problem - never forgotten!

 

[Rig Pig]

It's fun working on someone else's diagnostics. a couple of years ago I had a look at one of my wife's mates cars - they were skint and the garage had diagnosed a faulty injector, over £150 worth. So I rang the local scrapyard and got one for £20 while she collected the car. As you can guess after a lot of faffing about I replaced the faulty spark plug.... and got stuck with a second hand injector that doesn't fit anything I own!

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I always ignore what a customer suggests is the problem and fault find the issue for myself, it always saves time in the long run. Especially if the customer is trying to throw you off the scent as they are worried that you will find out that they have done something really stupid!

An example:
We fitted about 12 of these in an office

Customer was really happy and then about 3 months later they called us back to say they had had a backup generator test and now hardly any of the sockets were working.
I turned up on site and sure enough the power socket outlets were dead, each individual socket had a 5 amp fuse and most had blown.
I was pondering how a generator run could have blown all the fuses when I spotted a 3kw fan heater tucked under one of the desks,
"Have you plugged the fan heater in to the desktop outlets?"
'Yes the generator run mucked up the central heating timer so I tried to use the fan heater and that was when I realised the desktop outlets didn't work, I tried nearly all of them with the fan heater and they sort of tried to work but then stopped.'
The idiots had blown the fuses in the desktop outlets by trying to draw 13 amps from a 5 amp supply designed for laptops and monitors!

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Bean there, done that.

Listen to sister partner. They had a Astra Van, with trouble getting it into any gear. I said clutch issue.

No, said all wise partner, it us the gear box.

Sourced a good second hand gear box, I know it was good. I drove the van before removing it.

Struggled on my own to remove it, they had an urgent appointment they couldn't miss.

I said when gear box is out you best fit a clutch, no no can not afford that. It doesn't need it.

Box out, clutch is like a rabbit after a date with a 12 bore.

I leave it so they can see, they come home with a new TV.

I pack up and go home.

Fall out was immense. Family did not believe me.
Long story short, fitted a new clutch, the gear box.
Tested it, all good.


Last job I did for them.

 

[cumbriasteve]

When we were in the trade a guy drove into the garage to ask how much for... I think it was a new diff /back axle/or something around that area, he had been to three garages with the constant rumbling noise and they had all quoted stupid prices, The old fella took it for a blast up the road, came back and tightened the bolt holding the petrol tank strap and he drove away a very happy man.

 

[wookie]

I said when gear box is out you best fit a clutch, no no can not afford that. It doesn't need it.
<snip?
I leave it so they can see, they come home with a new TV.

I pack up and go home.

Fall out was immense.

I'd be surprised if you still talk to them, I know I wouldn't.

Had a fallout with some friends who came to stay with us for a holiday, their car broke down so my wife spent the week ferrying them about, they ate us out of house and home, when I ran them home because car still wasn't fixed they filled my boot with food and drink that they had brought with them and not used or offered to share. Haven't spoken to them since on principle.

 

[arther dailey]

nephew bought a transit cheap,as the guy selling reckoned clutch on the way out, now my nephew doesnt know a wheel nut from a diff, asked me to give my opinion, ye ok but I am not working on it for you, quick listen, put my boot against the exhaust hey presto no death rattle, clamp had come loose on exhaust!I wouldnt get the luck.Arther

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Another one to make you smile.

Neighbour down the road, knew a bit about cars.

That’s the dangerous bit.

Brought a car on E bay. 1400 Astra, blown head gasket.

Symptoms. Loosing water, white sludge in rocker cover, water from the exhaust. Drove it home, I followed.

I suggested, before ripping it to bits do a leak down and compression test.

I suspected the inlet manifold gasket had gone. There is a water feed to it.

No. No was a reply. I have got the gasket set. I will do when we get home.


Home. Strip down, as the nuts holding the inlet and exhaust manifold were a bit hard to access he left them on.

Rebuild, no head skim I will add.

It was the same. Head off, he had it skimmed, how? Don’t know because the manifolds were still in place. He had an engineering department at his works.

New head gasket, the same. 2 bottles of “K seal”, still the same.

His wife asked me to look and help.

I popped the inlet manifold off, was not had, 5 nuts were loose. Gasket had gone past it sell by date and had a nice little channel in it. Yes some were a bit of an inbuggerance to reach.

Squared the face off on glass and grinding paste, cleaned up the head face. Rebuilt.


Mrs TYA had to knock the door out to get my head in.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

@wookie
I have slowly moved away from my family and refuse to have anything to do with any branch of them.

Some say I was foolish, but I no longer have to put up with their pettiness, arguing, backstabbing and demanding work for free. Or abusing my friendships with others.

I see it as their loss not mine.

 

[Ton-up]

I bought a '05 Navarra for £1200 of a mate of a mate who had put it into two garages to get the jumping and surging when in 3rd/4th gear sorted. Neither managed it, so he bought a Ranger. I looked on web and saw this is a common fault and it was the neutral switch on the gearbox!
Took it out and faced half a mil off the mounting face on the lathe so it could go in a bit more and hey presto, absolutely purfect!
The guy was gutted when told. Especially when it had a fast idle switch on the dash that only worked in neutral, and would have told them in a second!

 

[dobbslc]

I once replaced a Suzuki GSXR400 head because the last owner blew up the motor but it was still smoking!
I though I'd got a duff replacement so I rebuilt it with new rings valve stem seals gaskets etc made a nice job of it and it still bloody smoked!
I just couldn't work out why!
Then though if the old engine went bang it would of shat a load of oil into the exhaust so I bodged an R1 end can one an bu@@er me it ran fine.
I put the old one back on and it smoked like a trooper again!!!
By now you can guess I was a bit peeved so I got on the bike and proceeded to thrash the **** off it for an hour (these things rev to 14000rpm) so it was a bloody good thrashing and it eventually cleared!
Cost me £400 just for the rebuild aarrgghhh.
Stick to Yamaha's
Stick to Yamaha's
Stick to Yamaha's
Stick to Yamaha's
Stick to Yamaha's
Stick to Yamaha's..........

 

[Kayos]

@wookie
I have slowly moved away from my family and refuse to have anything to do with any branch of them.

Some say I was foolish, but I no longer have to put up with their pettiness, arguing, backstabbing and demanding work for free. Or abusing my friendships with others.

I see it as their loss not mine.

I'm the same, I was once visiting a site with a no phones policy and when I retrieved it at the end of the day I had 13 missed called from mum, 7 from my sister and 5 from my dad plus various voicemail messages

I assumed someone had died, but no. My sister had a gas inspection and they condemned her cooker and would I go reconnect it, erm no, that would be illegal. I don't speak to any of them much now

 

[gerrymoore]

As a young lad of 17 I bought a mini for £50...a lot of money then! Had no power so, having read lots of car mechanics, I decided it needed a de-coke. Stripped it down cleaned everything to an almost mirror finish and put it back together. It wouldn't start. Tried everything but couldn't get it to fire even though I had a good spark. I'd given up when my dad (a man of very few words) came home from work, looked down on the floor, and said.."try putting the pushrods back in"......

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Not happened to me.
But a good family friend.
His wife had a Metro.

The clutch was slipping, quick strip down showed the fly wheel crank case seal had failed.

New 3 piece clutch and seal.

I was working, but popped in on the way home. Not much to do.
Tidy up.
Put tools away.
Collect my Seal press I lent him.

Hand him a box.
With a new seal in it..

I did not know he knew so many naughty grown up words.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

We had a 100% mint Capri 1.6LS. 10 years old but had done less than 10,000 miles as previous elderly owner stopped driving it for heath reasons when just over a year old and stored ever since. Vast amounts of money spent with main agent on genuine parts to recommission before previous owner realised he could no longer drive hence being sold to us. After a couple of weeks it wouldn't start. New plugs, points, plug leads, distributor cap, rotor arm, coil & brand new carb (ouch price), made no difference. Battery was already new. Compression test showed no problems there. Distributor stripped down and carefully checked. After a lot of head scratching started at the beginning again and looked at distributor in more detail. There was an steel earth tag attached to the alloy body which had a small lead that went to the points base. There was corrosion between these parts. Strange thing is there was still electrical continuity so allowed spark to be created at plugs but must have had resistance that stopped spark being sufficient to start engine. Once contact area between steel and alloy cleaned it started perfectly. In the end it cost me over £300 to cure a problem caused by tiny bit of alloy corrosion.
Wished we'd still got the car. I got hit by a car whilst on my bike so couldn't use the clutch and wife then lost use of her right arm in another accident (she has been assessed as only having 20% use) so needed power steering and Capri was replaced by an automatic MKII Golf 1.8GL. Capri was then left to stand and during a very bad depressive period I towed it to the scrap yard even though still very sound (never welded) and just over 20,000 genuine miles.