MG ZR Head Gasket

Lieja

My OH bought a second hand MG a couple of months ago, and this weekend the head gasket has blown.

Garage has quoted £600-700 for repair, but he only paid £750 for the thing and the mechanic said it'll probably go again in the not too distant future since my OH does a lot of miles.

We don't have the money to get shot and buy something else, and he's now thinking that it might be better to just get another engine put in.

I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not, but I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience or knows much about this problem who might have some advice?

Ideally he would be able to get a car on finance, but he's got pretty poor credit. We could afford repayments though. Are the credit checks as rigorous for finance as they are for say a credit card or loan?

Any thoughts or advice welcome

spacey2012

Must be the 1.8 16V K engine.
They are an absolute and utter pig of an engine.
Sounds daft, but a product called steel seal can bodge them enough to sell it on, it can stay fixed for a thousand or so miles.
Your mechanic might not agree, but for £30 it can help you get shut of it.

nickcc

As above pig of an engine known to blow head gaskets often due to liners dropping. In my opinion there's not much point in fitting a secondhand engine as it could soon be suffering the same problem. I paid £650 nearly 10 years ago for a new gasket and head skim on a Rover75, blew again after 12 months.

AdrianC

The K-series certainly has a reputation for head gasket failure - largely due to plastic head locating studs introduced to cheapen manufacture during BMW's tenure.

There are replacement HG kits which include steel locating pins. Replaced properly, there's no reason why it would go again. However, if replaced in a cack-handed manner, then - yes, it will.

Either way, it's a cheap car that's developed a major issue with a bill about the value of the car. Normal bangernomics rules apply.

colino

Great engines spoiled by poor under bonnet design and lack of water capacity. If you have even a minor water leak, it quickly cooks the hg before most have spotted their header tank is dropping. There is a ready market for hg kits and the replacement multi-layered gasket and strengthened oil rail ones will make the car better than new. If you can do the work yourself it could make sense to do it. However to do it successfully you need the proper kit, you need to skim the head, and while your in there, check/replace the waterpump and timing belt. On top of that, you have to scrupulously check the coolant system to make sure its not going to happen again and to do the tricks to flush out the crud from the coolant system and the oil galleries.
So, if your handy with the spanners, crack on and do it. However, if you need to pay for labour and while your doing the job find other parts needing changed (quite often sloppy cam followers), then the bill just doesn't make sense. Probably better to ebay with a full and comprehensive, honest description and hope someone else feels like getting their nails dirty.

Lieja

spacey2012 wrote: »

Must be the 1.8 16V K engine.
They are an absolute and utter pig of an engine.
Sounds daft, but a product called steel seal can bodge them enough to sell it on, it can stay fixed for a thousand or so miles.
Your mechanic might not agree, but for £30 it can help you get shut of it.

How does this work?

I don't even know what a head gasket does! I wouldn't be surprised if this had been used to sell it on when my OH bought it since it lasted such a short time.

Lieja

colino wrote: »

Great engines spoiled by poor under bonnet design and lack of water capacity. If you have even a minor water leak, it quickly cooks the hg before most have spotted their header tank is dropping. There is a ready market for hg kits and the replacement multi-layered gasket and strengthened oil rail ones will make the car better than new. If you can do the work yourself it could make sense to do it. However to do it successfully you need the proper kit, you need to skim the head, and while your in there, check/replace the waterpump and timing belt. On top of that, you have to scrupulously check the coolant system to make sure its not going to happen again and to do the tricks to flush out the crud from the coolant system and the oil galleries.
So, if your handy with the spanners, crack on and do it. However, if you need to pay for labour and while your doing the job find other parts needing changed (quite often sloppy cam followers), then the bill just doesn't make sense. Probably better to ebay with a full and comprehensive, honest description and hope someone else feels like getting their nails dirty.

Well he's certainly no mechanic, changing a bulb is about as far as he can get.

He has a friend who's quite handy though, so he might do it for less than the garage are asking. The garage quote did include timing belt and water pump change if that makes any difference?

It's a 1.4 engine btw, if that changes anything.

Any idea what we'd be looking at getting for it on eBay?

AdrianC

Lieja wrote: »

How does this work?

It doesn't. It can't.

I don't even know what a head gasket does!

The cylinder head is the top part of the engine. The gasket seals it to the main block. It seals the oilways, the coolant channels, and - most importantly - the main combustion chambers of the cylinders. If it fails, it allows the very high pressure from the fuel/air mixture exploding to pressurise the coolant, forcing it out of the engine, as well as allowing the water and oil to mix. Not, as you can imagine, good.

The Rover K-series has a slightly unusual engine design - it makes it very light and efficient, but the well-known head gasket problems have given it a very bad reputation.

Oh, and if it was gone when you bought the car - you'd have found out a lot quicker than two months...

colino

Please don't waste your money on snake oil. That'll cost you £40 plus the antifreeze that you'll have to change, plus oil and oil filter and that's an easy £100 up a close for no benefit whatsoever. ebay.

goonarmy

Get a another k series and be fixing it again soon. The new metal gasket in the mgtf is supposed to be better but id not touch one. And the 2.5 kv is supposed to be just as poor.

scheming_gypsy

If you look on eBay for ZS & ZR's, most of them will mention that they've had the head gasket done or there'll be a question asking if it's been done.