Best head gasket kit ?

[Philly1time]

Anyone do a head gasket on a Disco I ? looking for the best place to get the gasket kit.
British atlantic maybe ?

 

[Disco Mike]

They have a great gasket set, make sure to also buy a new t/stat, hoses if needed, head bolts and then go to British Parts of Utah and order a set of 8 mm STI plug wires if you haven't replaced the factory wires yet.

 

[joey]

Unless you want to do the job again, call Nathan 502-396-7274 and ask for a head gasket kit.

 

[Philly1time]

I ordered the set from B.A. (Sorry Joey)

Mike, yea already did tstat, new radiator, heater core, hoses, got the wires, water pump, new brakes, struts.

After all this its going for sale. I have a Disco II that will be my back up truck. Im purchasing a New RR SC

Thanks for the input guys.

 

[Disco Mike]

Unless you want to do the job again, call Nathan 502-396-7274 and ask for a head gasket kit.

Joey, why do you not like the gasket set from Atlantic British?

 

[joey]

The Kit from AB will basically start leaking again within weeks or months as it would even do at the dealer. Nathan has a contact for a different type of head gasket and better head bolts... he has installed on 6 or 7 Rovers so far over the past 2 years an not one of them has had a leak since.

 

[Disco Mike]

I was just curious, mine gasket set came from AB as have some of my friends and so far we have not experienced that problem
I will have to check with Nathon and see who's stuff he is using, Thanks.

 

[Chongo]

No such thing as a " Better head gasket "

Engine

The engine in the disco 2 is the old buick 215 v-8, with no roller cam, and no rotators on the exhaust valves like US engines. The dry cylinder sleeves, “ these are not wet sleeved engines”, are straight, un - flanged and made of steel, while your block is made of aluminum. This creates a thermal condition of dissimilar materials. Many mechanics blame a blown head gasket on this thermal condition as a, “dropped liner”, but in reality at about 210 degrees operating temperature the cylinder liner actually moves around .004” of an inch away from the head gasket ring , this releases the tension on the head gasket between the liner and the head. This also releases the tension between the head and the head gasket between the liner and the head, and reduces the heat sink value on the head gasket steel ring, {this is why when you remove the old head gaskets on a land rover the steel ring on the head gasket is usually yellowish or has a burnished color}, causing premature head gasket failure. Now note what I said, the head to liner distance is getting larger by .004” not the head separating from the block, but the liner actually grows 50% shorter than the aluminum block walls. And since the stock land rover liners seat at the bottom of the bore, and on the main bearing saddles the expansion ratio starts at where it seats, at the bottom of the bore, not the top.
Expansion ratio of steel is 6 parts per million per degree
Expansion ratio of aluminum is 12 parts per million per degree.
No real such thing as a dropped liner according to popular belief, it is a thermal problem with dissimilar materials. And there is only one bullet proof cure, Top flanged liners, sometimes called top hat liners in the British market.
There just isn’t any other long term substitute for this issue. Different head gaskets are only a myth, not the cure, production short cuts caused this problem, Buick when they had built these engines cast the liners in place, Rover bored them out and pressed them in with polished side walls. Perfect ingredients for cylinder bore walking........Which is what happens.

Cracked blocks

A rare issue

Land Rover Bosch engine blocks, or the old buick 215 block usually cracks on the main bear saddle bulkheads, just below the liner. This is caused by the straight walled liner. Since the straight walled liner has no lip or flange at the top of the bore to seat against, it must seat against the bottom of the bore. Where the crankshafts main bearing saddle bulkheads hold all the tension from the tightening of the cylinder head bolts. As you tighten the head bolts, the head is pushed towards the block, pushing the steal ring head gasket towards the cylinder liner, forcing the liner to push hard against the bottom of the bore in the block, which is the main bearing saddle bulkhead. Switching to top flanged liners eliminates this issue. This is a rare issue, but I have seen this
several in my lifetime with this engine.

Head Bolts

Head bolts must be replaced every time you remove the head, they are not regular bolts, but a special designed stretch bolt. There is a tightening sequence principle that must be followed although contrary to popular belief, and the service manual, as long as the principle is adhered to the sequence can be changed. The principle is uniformly and incrementally tightening the head down. The actual order doesn’t matter.
Take a good look
how the head gasket is designed and it comes with a sticky adhesive on the
composite part of the gasket. This will work beautiful if both surfaces are left
perfectly dry, and free of oil, i.e. lacquer thinner. Use NO OIL PERIOD on the head bolts, You’ll regret it if you do. You see the oil you put on the threads, like the book tells us to, will push off the threads as you thread it into the threads of the block and it
gets between the block and head pushing into the gasket areas ruining the effects of
the adhesive on the gasket, Oil and adheasive isn't usually a good combination......

What I did and this works well, I put only 2 layers of Teflon Tape on the threads of the new head bolts and a small amount of grease just under The bolt head. What this does is not let the bolt head gall into the heads and lubes The threads into the block without any oil. I believe this is an area where a lot of people have got themselves into trouble, and they followed the book. This would probably cause gasket failure in a few thousand Miles or so, and would probably be blamed on the mechanic or machinist, when it is A procedure problem. Use the Teflon tape on the bolts, it runs in nicely and life Is good.

In testing the book vs. torque standards I found the service manual, “again” in error as it says to tighten all bolts to 15 ft. lbs. then 90 degrees more in sequence, then a additional 90 degrees for final torque. This is bogus, and utter nonsense. My findings after doing this left the 3 long head bolts at 50 - 58 foot pounds of torque, while the short head bolts read 68 - 72 foot pounds of torque. I found that almost an additional 90 degrees was required on the long bolts for a total of 245 - 270 degrees before the long bolts achieved the 68 - 72 foot pound equivalent to the short bolts. This makes the tension and torque on all bolts even. If the tension on all bolts is not the same, I couldn't care less what you think, or what the manual says, un even head bolt pressure is one of the best ways to blow a head gasket.
Due to the dissimilar materials of the steel bolts and aluminum heads it needs a stretch bolt design. Don’t go buying studs for this engine, you won’t be happy with the long term effects.

Best wishes……..Chongo

 

[Chongo]

The Cost Of Cutting Corners

THE COST OF CUTTING CORNERS


Buick/Olds/Rover 215 cubic-inch (3.5 liters) V-8 motor

The Buick/Olds/Rover 215 cubic-inch (3.5 liters) V-8 motor is one of the most fascinating and long-lived engines in automotive history. Originally conceived as an economy powerplant for GM mid-size cars, the "215" has been built in both the US and Great Britain, and has powered an astonishing array of vehicles, from sedans to sports cars, SUVs to racing cars. So, take a closer look at this history of this incredible engine, and check out the high-performance options available to the "215" enthusiast.


Buick 215 history

The Buick/Olds/Rover 215 cubic-inch (3.5 liters) aluminum V8 was originally announced in 1960 as a potential lightweight economy engine destined for General Motors new line of compacts: Buick Skylark, Olds Cutlass and Pontiac Tempest. First appearing in the 1961 model year, production ended in 1963 after over 3/4 million engines were produced. Two versions were available: Buick's model and the Olds, which featured different heads, valve train and valve covers. Pontiac used the Olds version.

The reason production ended so soon was a high rejection rate during the casting process, as GM utilized pressure casting of the Reynolds 356 aluminum alloy around steel sleeves. The assembly was then heat-treated to T-6 condition; but the heat treating caused the steel sleeves to shift and thus rejection of the entire block.

Eventually, GM cured the casting maladies, but the advent of new thin-wall iron casting techniques soon rendered the aluminum motor too expensive. The General quickly adapted the V8's architecture to cast-iron, lopping off two cylinders to create the workhorse Buick V-6. And in 1965, negotiated production rights with the British Rover Cars company. Rover, seeing the motor as its salvation for an aging product line, found that sand casting the block and installing press-in sleeves, (rather than cast in place), at a later point precluded any production problems or costs, but the beginning of longevity issues. This is where the liner issues began. In the Rover mass production techniques, the outer wall of the liner design was changed from a very coarse finish to a fine polished finish, for an easy mass production press fit. The thermal bonding in the cylinder cast in place assembly process, was eliminated completely. This allowed the smooth external walls of the new liners to provide easy installation but allowed the smooth walls to thermally expand at different ratios under the laws of dissimilar materials. Head gasket life would suffer indefinitely and plague this engine throughout its new design. It was destined to never again achieve it’s once robust popularity, as when General motors took the extra time not to cut corners.

The engine went on to power the ancient P5 Rover sedan, then the modern 3500 (a transplant into the 2000 TC), and finally the legendary Range Rover. It continues to power Land Rover products today in 4.6 liter guise.

The first company to realize the 215's performance potential was the exotic Apollo GT, a Ferrari-like sports car styled in America and built in Italy . Only 88 cars were sold before the company went under. The engine also found favor among European racing teams, powering several sports-racing cars (including the original McLaren), and in Repco-modified Olds form, propelling Sir Jack Brabham to two world Formula One championships in the mid 1960s (certainly NOT your father's Oldsmobile!). In 1969, the tiny Morgan company rejuvenated its archaic 1930's-era sports car by injecting it with the Rover V8. Zero-to-60 times of around six seconds were common...

In 1970, MG (now part of the vast British Leyland empire and sister company to Rover) was looking to improve the performance of its MGB sports car. An outsider, Ken Costello, actually showed them how to do it, as he had begun small-scale production of V8-engined MGBs. MG's own version appeared in 1973, just in time for the first oil embargo, and lasted only two years. Only some 2591 cars were produced, all in "hard-top" GT form.



Original 215 configurations

The original 215 aluminum V8 appeared in the Buick Special and Skylark models, while the Old's version was offered in the Olds F-85, Cutlass, and Jetfire models as well as the Pontiac Tempest.

The Buick version used only five bolts per cylinder to mount its heads, and the heads had a combustion chamber following contemporary Buick practice. The heads were also angled "upward" to create a "flat top" look common to Buick engines of the day. Buick altered compression ratios via piston height and design. You can bolt a Buick head to an Olds block.

Olds engineers went their own route with cylinder head design, preferring a Chevy small block-like combustion chamber and an extra bolt (six in all) around each cylinder to mount the head. The valve cover was also more conventional looking. (Ken Costello built his first MGB V8 using an Olds engine picked up in Belgium !). The valve train is also different. Old used different heads with the same pistons to produce higher compression ratios. An Olds head will not work on a Buick block because of the extra head bolts. For performance applications, you'll want either 829 heads (10.25:1 C.R. for '61-'62 4 bbl auto and manual cars, '63 4 bbl manual cars), or 534 heads (10.75:1 '63 4-bbl automatics). Two bbl heads (No. 746) have low compression ratios and aren't suitable for any performance work.



Rover configurations

Managing director William Martin-Hurst purchased the rights to the Buick version of the 215, and set his engineers on improving production techniques. Rover began installing an improved version of the 215 in the ancient P5 Saloon (sedan) in 1967. The same motor was installed in the more modern P6 2000 to create the 3500 (3500 cc or 3.5 liters). It soon found its way into the new Range Rover of the 1970’s.

A 3947 cc unit (created by increasing the bore to 94 mm) appeared in 1988 in the Range Rover, and later in the 1993 Discovery. A 4.2 liter motor soon appeared as the result of a longer-****** crankshaft. In 1995, Rover launched the 4600 cc engine, using an even longer-****** crank and a reengineering block with cross-bolted main caps.

Components for early engines are virtually interchangeable with the 215. The 4.6 liter engine, however, is different.



Chongo

 

[wolf]

URL not working

The Kit from AB will basically start leaking again within weeks or months as it would even do at the dealer. Nathan has a contact for a different type of head gasket and better head bolts... he has installed on 6 or 7 Rovers so far over the past 2 years an not one of them has had a leak since.

Hey Joey;

I tried to get to Nathan's site via that URL you have posted but I just get sent to some dealer search site - what gives?

Wolf