‘ The original head gasket design was a flat piece of steel with some silicone stuck on the top. It just moved all over the place’
An 8-valve version of the K-Series engine was produced, but it’ s the more popular 16-valve K16 that is better known for head gasket failure
What is the common fault?
When oil gets into the coolant, you can see it.‘ It’ s like cappuccino in he header tank,’ says Steffen.‘ You’ ll also see, maybe a spike in the engine temperatures as, obviously, the cooling system isn’ t working optimally.’
Although rarer, K-Series head gaskets can let coolant into the cylinders.‘ The coolant will be crystal clear, but it will be dropping. It could be a bit grumbly when you first start it, too. I’ ve seen that go on for years.’ Eventually, if it isn’ t fixed, the results of this sort of issue are much more serious,‘ It can go catastrophically, with a big dump of coolant, and then it hydrolocks the engine.’
What causes the fault?
For the rare situations when coolant gets into the cylinders, that isn’ t always the fault of the gasket design, says Steffen,‘ The cylinder liners can drop a little bit, and that will let it [ coolant ] in that way. That’ s rare, but it does happen.’
The K-Series Achilles’ heel is the original design of the head gasket.‘ There were a couple of key flaws with them, the first of which they [ Rover ] openly admitted was the dowel system: they had, a plastic dowel. Combined with a silicone gasket, which the early gaskets were. The original one was a flat piece of steel with some silicone stuck on the top, if you like. It just moved all over the place.’
‘ The original head gasket design was a flat piece of steel with some silicone stuck on the top. It just moved all over the place’
54 The Engine Rebuilder Issue 03