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Ollie had his TF 160 transported up to us from Eastbourne, as planned, this week. It was booked in for a simple head gasket replacement, but there was more to be done on this car than initially thought, from the issues we came across as we went along…
You may have heard of the old advert of not taking two bottles into the shower, (obviously depending on your age!) one is enough, this was actually the opposite with the bottles of this evil stuff, ‘Steel-Seal’ not only one bottle was used in this car, but two!! We definitely had hang dog expressions when we saw them when the transporter chap dropped it off, what a great bloke he was, we’ve got his card for future use.
Anyway, we took the head off that was still in good useable condition, thankfully. Even though the car has a PRT someone previously had fitted a thermostat into the original housing on the rear of the engine, so we removed this and put a straight through plate in. The underfloor coolant pipes were pretty rotten, so new ones fitted. Then discovered that the PRT was stuck slightly open, so this was also replaced. On doing this found further hoses that were also leaking, along with the T-piece having a split in it.
With the cooling system being full of steel-seal we put in an oil cooler bypass to prevent further issues with the heater circuit. On doing this noticed that the hose from the thermostat housing to the coolant tank had been taped up with electrical tape, on removing the tape found that it was split.
The radiator was also shot, and when we removed it it was found to be blocked throughout many of the channels. We know this because even though the hoses were disconnected when we removed it, it still poured out over half a litre of coolant. Bit more work to do, with replacing further hoses and then the car will be good to go.
Lotus Elise S1…
Tim traveled up from Wisbech and dropped his Lotus Elise S1 with us this morning, initially this was a squeeze in for a head gasket replacement, but he asked if we could also carry out the cambelt service, and a clutch replacement while we were at it. We declined on the clutch for now!
On removing the cylinder head we found evidence of steel-seal on this also, the return pipes were all blocked. These were all cleared out, including the expansion tank was that was full of gunk!
Cylinder head replaced, along with cambelt, water pump, tensioner and alternator belt. Back up and running lovely and ready for Tim to collect. I’d have happily driven it back for him though! 😀 – https://ift.tt/zkIlbjX
