NZM018

So almost 2 months since the last post. With the wedding coming up fast, I’ve pretty much now completely stopped spending money on NZM018 until the end of the year.

I did splurge last month, $30 on some 2 gauge cable to make a run from the starter motor to the distribution block. This was used in conjunction with a upgraded run of 2 gauge coming from the boot to the starter motor to solve very lazy starting being experience. The large run was a hook up from my mate John at Jhonta.com

The original run from the boot was 4 gauge, but had two sheets making the copper more like 6 gauge. With 2 gauge installed, the car comes to life in an instant. It also idles a lot smoother.

A few weekends ago, the car started to get hot so I pulled over to check for any glaring issues of which I couldn’t find any. Being not far from home, I limped the car home keeping an eye on the temperature. The car made it home safely, I parked it and left it for a couple of weeks being a little angry at what was probably going to be a big problem.

The simplest and cheapest cause would be a faulty thermostat – the other end of the spectrum is head gasket or head. So I went with the cheap one first up, simply removing the thermostat to a. see if the motor started to get hot still and b. to put the thermostat into boiling water and test it as well.

On running the car for a while everything looked good, temperature normal. I had the car taken for a short drive around the block for testing as I’d had a few drinks. On arriving home, idle was on 3 cylinders. Feeling the radiator hoses revealed a very solid touch; highly pressurized.

On running the motor with the radiator cap off, big and constant air bubbles were coming out. All signs point to head related, my money is on the head gasket. When the MLS item failed (mentioned a few posts back), the mechanic replaced it with a standard composite item. I have no idea why as I blew one right after the first time this motor got rebuilt, but I’m not a mechanic and they said MLS was the reason for the oil leak. Whatevs.

I think what’s happened is that the head hasn’t been torqued correctly and started to leak between the sheets in the MLS item. To save costs on the warranty repair, a composite item had been selected at less than half the replacement cost. Running a lot more power than stock doesn’t do much good for the composite type gasket, below is a picture of the last time this happened.

Pretty much exactly what I expect to find again when the head comes off. I’ve located a Cometic MLS item to put in again but trying to avoid spending the money for now. It will be the third MLS item that I’ve used and installed on the motor, assume it will work find just like the others have…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 4:05 pm and is filed under NZM018. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.