all sorted now, thanks

 

I've been wondering about your progress wack, man you were so excited to get that motor apart to see how nice it looked compared to your xk's.

I am no mechanic by any means, so I have no idea why the piston could be seized. I'll follow along and maybe learn something myself. Stay positive, this could still turn out well for you.

 

there may be hope on the horizon , the cylinder has been soaked in releasing oil overnight, this morning the compression has gone up from 90 to 100psi so we've soaked it again to see if it picks up any more tomorrow.

The mechanic thinks a blast down the motorway might free it off, if not it's head off, new rings, gaskets, head skim

 

Hi Wack ,
Removing the head will not gain access to the rings I'm afraid , the head will not require skimming unless its warped , if thats the case you will need to skim both heads .

I think that your engine problem is more likely to be a sticking valve , get your mechanic to pressurise the cylinder with all four valves in the closed position , if air is escaping from the oil filler cap it's probably rings , if it's escaping from the exhaust it's probably an exhaust valve and if it's escaping from the inlet manifold it's probably an inlet valve ,

Hope this helps ,

N1XKO

 

Thanks for that N1XKO i'll let him know.

 

I think you're right about the stuck valve, the psi goes up to 150 when you rev it but then drops back when it's ticking over , he thinks a blast down the motorway may cure it so it'a bonnet back on today and fingers crossed

 

It's looking like it's a stuck valve , he's borrowed a camera to have a look inside the cylinder where he can see one of the valves isn't shutting , until he gets the head off he won't be able to see if it's just sticking or bent.

If the head is warped why does the other one need skimming as well if it's OK ?

Thanks

 

I'm not a mechanic, but I would guess the second head needs skimming to keep the compression the same on both banks. Someone can feel free to chime in and tell me I'm wrong though.

 

I am not a mechanic either, but I do know that you are correct in that you need the same compression, and thus, the same force of energy from the combustion so that the engine is in balance. If one bank had higher compression and more power, the engine would be out of balance and that would cause problems down the line. Also, if one head needs to be repaired, it is likely that the other one would need it before very long, so it only makes sense to do them both at the same time. If one of your front rotors needed to be replaced, you would replace them both, same concept.

 

Turns out it was nothing to do with low compression, we swapped all the parts from the old engine to the new one, when I bought it the gearbox came with it so we didn't split it, only after asking on here did I find the reason why it ran so badly

The starter motor ring gear is different on the 2 engines, the crank sensor picks up it's reading from the cutouts on the back which are in a different order which is why it ran roughly, I'm surprised it ran at all

saturday was a long day to take the gearbox out and swap them over but it was very rewarding to turn the key and hear it running right, hopefully Monday when it's tested and there are no leaks it'll be on the road after 6 weeks of head scratching and hard work.

 

Will keep our fingers crossed for you wack!

 

well that didn't go well.

the engine is running fine, put it in drive and straight away it came up gearbox error on the display,the D light doesn't come on but it selects a gear which appears to be 4th judging by the performance.

smething is wrong though as the whole car shudders when in forward motion, reverse seems OK , he thinks it may be the cable which selects the gear might need adjusting but I don't know.

This is just one headache after another , I'm really starting to regret ever getting involved with it

 

Sorry to hear, but don't start guessing here, try to get codes, there must be some.

 

Remember, new gearbox on old TCM may also be causing computer errors. I'd do a hard reset, and there's that 'learning procedure' (going thru gears in certain order for specific time period, etc) that was required in another owner's experience. Will see if I can think of anything else based on what i've read around here.

 

sorted now, it was just the gearshift out of position , thanks for the advice it's much appreciated