HG repair or engine swap?

[simo2007]

Evening,

I'm toying with the idea of doing a straight engine swap on my inherited 306 HDi, I have all the symptoms of a blown head gasket (water jacket) including pressurising coolant, hissing radiator cap after running engine and lots of air bubbles rising in expansion tank. I've done several head gasket repairs in the past, but not yet done one by taking the engine out!

I quite like the idea of putting another engine in (bucket list), I've seen one on eBay with 78k on (currently have 170k) and think it might be worth the punt. It will mean less time off the road, and I can also freshen up the ancillaries (gaskets, crank seal etc) on the 'new' engine before putting it in, including clutch and clutch cable. 

My main worry is the compatibility of DW10 engines, I believe mine is the RHY with the Bosch ECU, so I'm guessing everything should in theory be plug and play? Has anyone done a straight engine swap? How easy was it?

I also have the coolant pipes running by the EGR intake since it is a phase 3...

Looking forward to your responses 

[Toms306]

I done a straight swap... Bought a rear ended low mileage donor car for the beam, sold a few other bits but couldn't sell the engine...couldn't even give HDi engines away a few years ago.

Saw a snapped cambelt HDi on eBay cheap, bought it and stuck the engine I'm that over a couple of days. Project thread will be on here but I was probably using photobucket at the time do pics will have disappeared.

[simo2007]

I done a straight swap...  Bought a rear ended low mileage donor car for the beam, sold a few other bits but couldn't sell the engine...couldn't even give HDi engines away a few years ago.

Saw a snapped cambelt HDi on eBay cheap, bought it and stuck the engine I'm that over a couple of days.  Project thread will be on here but I was probably using photobucket at the time do pics will have disappeared.

You're joking? Wonder why the engine was so hard to shift?!

Was it just a straight out, in, plug in, start up?

[Toms306]

I done a straight swap...  Bought a rear ended low mileage donor car for the beam, sold a few other bits but couldn't sell the engine...couldn't even give HDi engines away a few years ago.

Saw a snapped cambelt HDi on eBay cheap, bought it and stuck the engine I'm that over a couple of days.  Project thread will be on here but I was probably using photobucket at the time do pics will have disappeared.

You're joking? Wonder why the engine was so hard to shift?!

Was it just a straight out, in, plug in, start up?

The cars were already getting old, people were just scrapping them if they needed an engine, I scrapped a few decent HDi engines around the same time as well, just sold the con rods to the XUD guys who kept breaking theirs...

Yep, straight swap, started first time! Did have the EML on, but they were old faults which cleared straight away and didn't come back.

Just looked for my thread, turns out the pics are still there to give you an idea.

https://www.306oc.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=23380