Wet liner heights (or depths)

[Dic Doretti]

          My engine has been rebuilt by 2 sets of professionals in the last 6 years before I bought the car due to water contamination of the oil and at some considerable cost. I have just stripped the engine and have found the liners actually slightly below the deck height so it is not being fully clamped in place leading to water in the sump. I wonder what I will find when I take the liners out, perhaps no gasket! The first professional was a classic car specialist and TR owner. This shows the importance of deck heights and carefully choosing your professional restorer. I can rebuild engines but uploading pictures on the forum defeats me.

          Cheers Richard

[Bfg]

Frustrating !!

I've read about the liner heights on this site using the search facility, and I think it was Mickey Motorsport who said that the liners need first to be dry fitted and the head bolted and torqued down to compress the figure of eight gaskets correctly,  and then the head is removed and the height of the liners checked. Only then are they adjusted to tolerance.  Disclaimer :  This is from memory so it's worth your searching for that advice and making sure I haven't missed any important point.

If I have remembered correctly,  and the prior engine rebuilder didn't do torque the head down before checking the amount protruding, then they would have assumed the liners were too tall (by the amount the gasket compresses) and trimmed that height down.   That of course supposes that gaskets were indeed fitted. 

I presume there are different gasket thickness available from the usual suspects, for when you do the job yourself  ..or else you''ll have to double up on the gaskets.

I was interested to see that the gasket set I bought has copper figure of eight gaskets, whereas the pistons and liner set had aluminum ones.  I might only presume they compress differently under the same torque setting. Perhaps the less dense have been used and compressed more ?

Anyway I'm sure someone else will be along soon to give a more definitive answer.

Best of fortunes this time around.

Pete.

[Bfg]

p.s. uploading pictures ; firstly they need to be of a smaller size than any decent camera will record it at.   I use a free to download program called PIXresizer to reduce mine down to about 100 kB.  Then just drag the photo from your explorer listing to the paper-clip shown (below left) in the window you write your post or reply in.  Then click the + sign to add it to the post.

[RogerH]

Hi Richard,

up loading pics is easy.

I use MS Paint to resize pic down to 100Kb

Then simply click on 'Choose files at the bottom of the text box.

Find where your pic is stored - double click and bingo.

 

As for liner heights

You need to be able to clamp the liners down whist measuring the height. This will remove any warp form the Fo8 but I do not squish the Fo8 with the full torque.

I use a 1/2" diameter silver steel round bar and feeler gauges to measure the height.

The liners and block MUST be very very clean.  If there is any corrosion of the block seat then JB weld will fill the cavities nicely. If it is serious then it may need machining

Try and search for Mick's comments on this but my version is little different.

Measure at four points around the liner and get them equal .  0.003 - 0.005" is the range but try for equal all around within this range. eg all at 0.004"

Do NOT have#1&3 pot at 0.005" and '2 at 0.003" this will not give the full load from the head on to the line. 

If it has to be then #1 & 4 can be lower then 2 & 3. TRY very hard to get them all the same - it can be done.

If a pot is seriously high then the seat can be turned down.

For sealing I use WelSeal on ALL faces block, Fo9 and liner - do not be mean with it.  It will not migrate once installed.

If it all works then do NOT forget to redo the torque loading after 500 miles or so.  Slack each head nut in turn and retorque.

Many people replace the head bolts and use ARP bolts. I reuse my old bolts if they clean up well and have no corrosion. New standard bolts work OK.

 

Roger

[Ian Vincent]

I have considerable experience with blown head gaskets as a result of liner problems but hopefully these are now solved.

I follow Mick's advice of carrying out a trial fit with everything clean and dry and clamp the head down to about 80lbs ft and leave it overnight.  When I remove the head I clamp the liners with large thick washers, again as recommended by Mick before measuring carefully.  I use a Shardlow depth micrometer which I bought S/H on ebay for £20 (and which I have calibrated) which makes the measuring a lot simpler. (Good quality s/h engineeering tools seem to be plentiful at the moment which is probably a sad indictment of the demise of our engineering industries, or maybe its the rise of electronic and CNC machines?).

I set my liners on the high side (0.0055") to allow for any F08 crushing although I suspect that is minimal when one considers the fact that everything has already been crushed.

There are three different types of F08 seal, plastic coated steel which are .015" thick, copper which are .018" thick and aluminium which are .021" thick.  I use the copper ones and as a quick fix for a depressed liner have made my own thicker ones from copper sheet (available in a variety of thicknesses from .55mm upwards).

As a final point, when you buy new liners, the ends are are not necessarily machined perpendicular to the bore.  My local machining company are very good at capturing and addressing that issue.

Rgds Ian

Edited March 5, 2020 by Ian Vincent
Old age

[RogerH]

9 minutes ago, Ian Vincent said:

 

As a final point, when you buy new liners, the ends are are not necessarily machined perpendicular to the bore.  My local machining company are very good at capturing and addressing that issue.

Rgds Ian

Hi Ian,

the liner seats need to be parallel with the top of the liner so that equal readings can be established.

Roger

[Ian Vincent]

3 minutes ago, RogerH said:

Hi Ian,

the liner seats need to be parallel with the top of the liner so that equal readings can be established.

Roger

Agreed.  When I took a new set of liners to my local machining company they checked the seats and the upper surface and corrected them as part of the process for bringing them back to the correct height

[RogerH]

Things need to be done 

[Dic Doretti]

          One mystery is now solved as the so called professionals used their special silicon sealant in lieu of a figure of eight gasket. Needless to say it didn't work but the water in the sump was drawn up by the oil pump and destroyed the big end bearings which are white metal so not an easy repair. Down loading pictures is dependant on the time of day, possible in the mornings but not in the evenings, **** broadband courtesy of BT.

          Cheers Richard

[RogerH]

Hi Richard,

could it be that your TR 'specialist' didn't fit the Fo8 seals as they made the liners stick up too high - 

 

That must go down as this years 'mega bodge'

 

Roger

[Motorsport Mickey]

It's disturbing to see engines still coming to light with badly fitted liners.

There are many "specialists" who scoff at the "agricultural and stone age engineering" used in TRs and other cars with wet liner engines, then when they are entrusted with building one they make a real bodge of it...and there is no excuse for it. These engines are design classics, imagine going to Honda, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes etc and asking them to supply an engine that can be reliably improved by the owner on it's original supplied horsepower by over 100%, rebuilt by the average owner IN HIS OWN GARAGE, and every single component can be replaced with the engine still in the car (Ok..doing it with the block is "aving a larf" ! ) Oh ! and last a 50 year + lifespan and their design studios would all book a permanent holiday !

The machining and finished surfaces on the interior components on TRs are  light years away from what we run even in everyday vehicles now, and when you get Trucks running 4 valve cylinder heads and VGT (Variable Geometry Turbocharges) with 1600bar in the fuel lines then we should realise that a corner has been turned. Unfortunately that corner is not visible because the view of it is blocked by engineers and auto engine machine shop trained operators queuing for other jobs having been made redundant or sacked !

If further advice is needed upon Liner height fitment (the above offerings all get a Gold Star and a tick from me) check out the search box under that heading, there are at least 8 threads (some posted by me) which go into the detail of how to measure, record and have them altered all with the engine in the car if needed. Any problems just whistle.

Mick Richards  

Edited March 5, 2020 by Motorsport Mickey

[Dic Doretti]

          I have built a number of TR engines, one in the street in the west end of Glasgow which went down to the south of France several times and over the Pyrenees. It is not rocket science it just needs care and attention to the details. It is shocking a classic car restoration company cannot manage this. As you can see this is not a TR engine but very similar.

          Cheers Richard

Edited March 5, 2020 by Dic Doretti
grammar

[stillp]

6 hours ago, Ian Vincent said:

 

There are three different types of liner, plastic coated steel which are .015" thick, copper which are .018" thick and aluminium which are .021" thick. 

"liner" should be 'Fo8 seal'.

Pete

[Andy Moltu]

Fit liners with Fo8 gaskets -   clamp down with your old head gasket as Mickey says. Remove and clamp again with washers.

Check liner protrusion is within limits. it is importenaant thet the middle cylinder liners (2 and 3) do not sit lower than 1 and 4 (No lows between highs).

If they are not within tolerance, take out and use thinner or thicker fo8 gaskets and repeat until they are within tolerance.

The "ultimate" way is to set them almost right, get a machine shop to machine thel liners level then machine the block face to get correct deck height but htat works out pricey and you can often achieve the same results with time and fiddling swapping liners over and different thickness gaskets.

I think you can conclude that whoever built your engine either hadn't a clue or simply forgot the Fo8 gasket.
I think they might ind that an awkward phone call to take!

Aldi sell a decent micrometer from time to time at a knockdown price.

[stillp]

What engine is that Richard? A possible excuse might be that the F08 gaskets weren't available for that engine, but that doesn't justify a bodge like that!

I was lucky with my engine - nobody told me how critical the protrusion was, and they all seemed to stick up a bit, so I just tightened the head down and left it at that. Seems to have been OK for 31 years so far... (tempting fate I know).

Pete

[Ian Vincent]

30 minutes ago, stillp said:

What engine is that Richard?

A Citroen?

Rgds Ian

[Dic Doretti]

          Correct Ian, it is a 1949 Citroen Light 15. The engine was designed in the early 1930s and copied by Triumph for use in the Vanguard and with a redesigned cylinder head was used in the DS giving a lifespan of around 50 years and that is not including the wriggly tin van. Fo8 gaskets are available from specialists in a variety of sizes.

          Cheers Richard

[Ian Vincent]

I was sort of cheating.  A couple of years ago when I was measuring up my TR engine to make some F08 gaskets I found that the c-c distance on the cylinders was exactly 100mm.  When I posed the question as to why an engine designed in the UK in the late forties would be so clearly metric, I found out that the TR engine was a copy of a light 15 engine.

Rgds Ian

[ianc]

The classic Jaguar XK engine uses liners (not sure that they are entirely wet), and I think that the Renault 4 had wet liners.  I owned a Renault 4, and it was great fun because it had excellent road-holding, so once wound up could cross country at great speed.  Also, excellent load space with the back seats folded.

Ian Cornish

[Ian Vincent]

The classic Alfa Romeo twin cam engine was wet liner but they had rubber o rings at the bottom of the liners to seal them. When I had one back in the 70’s the handbook advised you to warm it for 3 minutes at 1500rpm before driving off. It had a hand throttle lever for that purpose. 

Rgds Ian