This was the NAUGHTY CORNER

If there is a step between the head and the manifold, it is most likley that heads have been skimmed - not out of the question if they are performance items - but the inlet manifold was not skimmed on its faces to match.

The cologne v6 was the same in my granny for the discrepancy between head and inlet manifold. If you can, use a razor/stanley blade to trim the protruding gasket and just use a dab of sealant of your choice to take up the slack

Hylomar is a great sealant, not so good for gap filling though. If no gaps ok, if a gap needs filling then a good RTV sealant is better.
Don't sweat the engine, if it runs well it's been done properly.

My gut feel is no. Based on the noise being present for much longer than the crude running, which only appeared on the last two trips out.

Also, the noise seems to come from the glove box. It doesn't, but that's where it seems to come through, which is why if it is tappets I suspect the N/S bank. the rear most n/s are actually in need of adjusting.

But having said all of that, it hadn't occurred to me it could be connected. So it's worth thinking about that. The noise could have preceded reaching a critical point where its now affecting running.

Just tighten the "odd" one to match the rest, and see where that leaves you.

My wife had a friend over to stay last night. As she left she came and had a look at my car. She's not a car person.

My wife's friends, who are not car people at all, will always have a look at my car and say the same two things:

1. Oh it's lovely isn't it.

My car, by any measure anybody might car to utilise, is most definitely not lovely. When you stand next to it and look at the paint, it's like Halfords sent a probe up to the moon packed with satin black paint and sprayed a patch of the moon's surface black. It's just not lovely at all, but the assumption is that I'm a bloke and I'm therefore so passionately proud of my car that the only appropriate thing to say is how lovely it is.

It really can't be misconstrued as lovely. In order to try and stop them walking away thinking "my god the poor sod's utterly deluded", I fi d myself trying to explain that, we'll, no it's not lovely at all its a very very rough and imperfect car and "lovely" isn't really what I look for in an old car.

That then leads them to feel they need to reassure me. That I'm feeling inadequate and having a crisis of self-effacement. "Oh no it IS lovely Tim and it's yours and not many people are as lucky as you", or other words of gentle encouragement.

"errr, right. Okay"

The next thing is always a look in the engine bay if it's open. And without fail...

2. "OHHHH hasn't it got a tiny little engine! It's looks like a sporty car but it's got such a tiny engine!"

A difficult one that. The previous 5 times it's transpired they're looking at the carburettor once they've been perplexed by the vast empty space at the front of the engine bay... But to try and correct them seems pedantic and pointless, and past experience tells me that attempting to do so gets entangled in an assumption that they've possibly wounded my fragile male ego by remarking at how tiny it is. The car being traditionally seen as a social symbol of male virility and a phallic representation. So in the past when I've pointed the actual engine out it's lead to a really awkward moment where they have very clearly had a little internal panic along the lines of "Oh my god I've just inadvertantly attacked the very core of his male sexual identity and now he's desperate to prove its bigger than it looks" and they try and compensate by then going "Oh my gosh yes it's enormous and very powerful looking, wow I'm impressed".

They've obviously never looked at an engine before so have no way to gauge its size, and they clearly walk away going "We'll it's got a really big bulge but there's nothing in it".

So now I just agree that its possibly the smallest engine ever made, and I wish I had a bigger one.

Tappets all done.

Just decided to have a half-hearted attempt at cleaning up the rocker covers. My car buddy who runs an immaculate P5b always chides me for not cleaning and polishing something up if I've got it off the car. I totally get the logic of it but for me it will add another £20 of cleaning products and another two hours of faffing around, and I'm usually in suppressed crisis mode so all I want to do is get the ruddy thing back together to see if it's going to blow up.

Using what I had to hand though (Cutlery, DVD case, Old bra) I decided I'd give them a little bit of a wipe over.

Then I cleaned the insides and the contact face ready to fit the new gaskets.

I bought the gaskets about a year ago from BurtonPower and put them straight into my parts bin ready for when I need them. Having never taken these rocker covers off before it had never occurred to me they might not fit. They're Essex rocker covers. How different can they be?

So I have to assume there's a difference between the old type Essex and the later D-port type, or that I somehow ordered something entirely different by mistake (Cologne maybe) when I clicked the order button... because these puppies are definitely not going to fit

So there ends my fun for today!





The funny thing about my thought processes is that my job is largely based on how a company can find a solution within the guts of a problem. So when I looked at these gaskets with their obviously too small, incorrectly shaped and differently numbered stud holes, my brain immediately started thinking "okay, so how can we make these work" and started flashing up a mental powerpoint presentation featuring a step-by-step walk through with scalpels and duct tape.

I will say this though... it is very mildly less shouty trying to fit the spark plugs in the O/S bank with the rocker cover off ... so I may well just leave them both off so I can change the plugs easier next time. It's only oil FFS.

Nah, they look okay in the pic I guess but they've been on there for years now, and have been crushed down. They've been weeping oil for a long time already. The mating area is compressed absolutely rock solid. I did think about sticking them back on but decided that it was probably just going to end up being something I have to do all over again. So I'm going to wait for the new ones and hopefully just do it once.

I'm really not that bothered to be honest. BP are always quick to send stuff out and they only cost a few quid for the pair. It also gives me a few days to pause and have that confidence destroying 3am panic-thought before I fit the new rocker covers and put everything back together.

It also means I can think more about trying to resolve my leaking sump plug, because that definitely got a lot worse after driving for three hours on Friday. Once parked back up it was more than merely an occasional drip. I've had to put my oil tray under the car. It's doing whatever comes after 'dripping' but before 'trickling'. It's not anywhere near good enough to be driving around. It's going to give out and dump all my oil.

I've had to face the facts today... this old dog will not be in attendance at RRG. At the very least I have to finish the tappets job up, do a decent and thoroughly dependable job of resolving the sump plug, and then continue trying to figure out exactly why it's stumbling when hot. It also struggles to start when hot now too and that's going to be something else entirely different that I need to tackle. This car has just decided to have a complete nervous breakdown and throw me everything it can at once. I haven't even mentioned that the brake fluid, topped up about a month ago (I don't mean merely 'topped up' I mean it was refillled after new brake cylinders were fitted), was down at the 'danger' line when I looked on Friday. Might be something to do with the servo maybe, but equally it could be a leak somewhere else and I haven't got anywhere near looking into that yet.

I'm going to be in my wife's Skoda yeti for the RRG weekend. I have no time left to try and fix all this to get it there.

Good tip Glen. I'll check it out.