3 replies to this topic

[Besmirchment]

Hi there

I'm having a bit of a nightmare with the head gasket on my Cooper MPi and was wondering if any of you ladies and gents have encountered a similar problem.


I'll start at the beginning. Last year, the diff pin failed and beoke into pieces inside the gearbox, so my mate who's a mechanic with a particular interest in Minis, helped me remove the engine, in order to fit a rebuilt diff. Whilst the engine was out, we decided to fit a new clutch and, as there were signs of oil leaking from the head gasket, it made sense to do this at the same time.
Once the head was off, the gasket wasn't in too bad a condition, there was a bit of leakage from the oil way to the outside of the block, but no internal leakage, and no sign of water in the oil or vice versa.
We cleaned up the surfaces of the head and the block, but didn't skim the head, as the gasket hadn't actually failed as such, and it wasn't the reason we'd removed the engine. We also fitted new oil stem seals.
Once re-assembled, the engine fired up nicely, but within a minute or two, smoke or steam started coming from the back of the emgine, which we initially thought to be oil burning off the exhaust manifold, as a lot of oil had leaked out when the diff failed. However, it turned out to be water leaking from the head gasket. Also, a lot of water had ended up in the oil turning it a milky colour.
We removed the head again, and found that the rubber seal around the oil way on the head gasket had come away, so we assumed we'd been unlucky enough to get a faulty replacement gasket. The following day, we fitted another one, but the same thing happened, with water flowing from the back of the engine.
The head was correctly fitted to the specified torque settings, and we couldn't see any obvious reason for it happening, The head shouldn't have become warped or distorted, as it had been absolutely fine until the point the engine was removed.
One thing which we were a little unsure of was which way round the gasket should go; the MPi gasket has a rubber seal around the oil way at the back right of the engine (looking facing the car), and a copper seal at the left side, where the MPi block & head doesn't have any water or oil ways. We compared the gasket to one for an older Mini, which had a copper ring on both sides. However, the hasket can be flipped over so the copper seal is around the oil way, but seeing as the gasket was marked 'front' on the other side, we're pretty confident we got it right.
As a precaution, we've now sent the head to be skimmed. Does anyone have any ideas why this might have happened?

Many thanks.

[Besmirchment]

This problem is now sorted, just thought I'd post in case anybody else experiences the same thing.

In the end, got the head skimmed, but it still wouldn't seal properly, we could see this without even starting the engine.

My mate had a word with somebody else who's had the same problem, and he'd said that he'd had problems getting the MPi specific head gaskets to seal, and in the end had just used a older style BK450 one which had worked fine.

Tried one, and it's worked a treat!

The only difference I can see is that the oil-way on the MPi gasket is surrounded by a rubber ring, whereas on the older type it's a copper ring just like all the others.

[nev_payne]

I was under the impression (may very well be wrong) that the MPI gasket had extra holes? Or was it simply just reinforced?

[Besmirchment]

All the holes were in the same place, the only visible difference being the one on the MPi gasket with the rubber, rather than copper, surround.