Niall's 2000 306 XS A.K.A Craig

[Niall]

nice one! did you get your gti exhuast fanny mould on aswell?

Nah not bothering. Got to have my exhaust modified then!

[Niall]

Right today got a shit load more done! Not all good though.....

Started this morning by cleaning up the face of the block again and trying to soak up the oil out of cylinder 3

Got the head fitted and all torqued up, new stat fitted, cams fitted back in and all torqued up.
Got the timing pins in the cams but we then realised that when the belt was changed last, it was timed up slightly out! Could explain my emissions issues I've had since owning the car!

Got it all lined up correctly and cams fitted back on, rear covers fitted back on and everything else connected up.

It started pissing it down even through my make shift garage so gave up for the day and set to investigating why it was burning oil so bad.
Valve guides and valve guide seals are completely shot on cylinder 3 to the point where you can move the valves back and forwards about 1-1.5mm! Dont understand how they got so bad so quickly but either way there done!

Jobs for tomorrow are get the belt on, fit the inlet and other little bits, fill it up and then that very nervous first start!

[4WayDiablo]

goood work neil!

[Jonny b]

Some itb's would look awsome on there

[Niall]

Some itb's would look awsome on there

And would sound even better! Shame I haven't got a spare couple ok k though lol

[Niall]

Right good and bad news. Good news is the car is running. Started first flick of the key and it runs really nicely. Revs a lot better as well.

Bad news is I haven't driven it yet due to the chronic blue smoke pouring out of the exhaust. Thankfully at the moment it doesn't look like seals but it is hopefully oil in the manifold.
Basically I let my catch tank over flow into the manifold. When I removed the manifold to store it, I stored it up side down meaning oil ran down the plenums. On closer inspection, the manifold was full of oil (and I mean, like puddles in the bottom of it!).
Luckily when looking down the ports, all of them are oily and only the bottoms of the valves are oily. And what's the chances of having 8 bad guide seals?!
So tomorrow when the manifolds dried out, will refit that and see how it runs then. Hopefully it will be ok but if not, head off again

[Atterz]

Feck sake thats a shame! Its possible the number 3 valve and guide where damaged by incorrect timing causing a valve to be bent and then subsequent damage from the bent valve moving up and down inside the guide.

[Niall]

Feck sake thats a shame! Its possible the number 3 valve and guide where damaged by incorrect timing causing a valve to be bent and then subsequent damage from the bent valve moving up and down inside the guide.

Possible but this would happen pretty quickly would it not? I've done almost 15k in this. Ar and it only started burning oil in the last 1k. Surely it would ruin the guide pretty quickly after the belt was done last?

[Atterz]

I agree mate, that is really odd, possibly a blocked oil gallery to the head causing starvation and subsequent wear?

[Niall]

I agree mate, that is really odd, possibly a blocked oil gallery to the head causing starvation and subsequent wear?

Actually that wouldn't surprise me. I was shocked at the state the head was in when I removed it. Was also shocked how much of the HG had degraded. So much of it had dropped down into the water ways in the block. Will get a pic of the old HG when I remember.
Luckily got all of it out as it was all in big pieces!

[Niall]

Few pics that I took that I forgot to add earlier



State of the old head. Bad pic so you can't see the state of the bottom of the valves and the caked on oil or the oil running out of 1 of the valves lol



State of the cylinders after a bit of a clean. Forgot to take a photo before I started cleaning them. There was a small puddle of oil in cylinder 3

[Atterz]

Im seriously considering buying one of these instead of the 6 lump and going down the route and losing about 100 KG in the process! Does anybody know the actual weight of a 1.8 engine?

[samass]

im hoping the word you missed out there was 'turbo', right?

[Niall]

Im seriously considering buying one of these instead of the 6 lump and going down the route and losing about 100 KG in the process! Does anybody know the actual weight of a 1.8 engine?

The gti lump is just over 150kg and I know these are a fair bit lighter. Not sure how much!

[4WayDiablo]

When I shat my turbo I stood my exhaust on end overnight drained a lot of it out but still smoked badly for a few hours
At the rate yours drunk oil I'd bet it being all the old crap in the mani

[Niall]

Right more bad news. Inlet was nice and dry this morning so wacked that back on and we still have problems. I'm assuming I've got a bad bunch of seals as all 8 seem to be leaking! After 5 minutes of fast idle the inlet ports were covered in oil again and the smoke was epic!
Just ordered some new seals from Peugeot (wish I had of got them from there before!) at the cost of 45 quid , new HG is on order so will get the head back off after lunch and hopefully have it all done tomorrow evening after work.

Bad times

[Atterz]

Good luck with it mate, shit when this sort of thing happens!

[Ed Doe]

How you getting on buddy? Much progress?

Fingers crossed for this, seems like a good little project going on!

[Niall]

Right update time again! As said previously, I've stripped the engine down to get the head off. Started to undo the first head bolt then....



Thankfully, it left about half an inch sticking out of the top of the head and I was able to u screw it with my fingers. Got the head off to find this



The more observant of you will have noticed that exhaust ports 1 and 4 are soaked in oil!









Now here's where I feel like a dick. The seals have two problems. Firstly, nearly all of them were f*cked. The rubber was Incredibily hard and brittle. Don't know how I didnt pick up on that one!
Secondly, the metal base of them is about 0.5 - 1.00mm too big meaning that they never sat where they should. This probably explains the fact that oil was pissing past them!

So what have I learnt today kids? When it comes to this sort of thing, buy original parts and always measure them up against the old ones!
Now I'm off to probably have an argument with the seller about getting some money back.

[Ed Doe]

Well at least you're half-way to a solution!! Good luck matey, keep the photos coming, we all like photos

[Ruan]

Sucks arses man....

Get the new ones in and it'll be awesome...

[Niall]

Just gone and picked up the HG. Well chuffed. The bloke said on the phone it was a payene one. Got there and he sold it but had ordered me in another one....an original pug one for 14 quid. So my Peugeot dealer lied! There are some on the Country! Lol

Head will be back on tomorrow eve. Going to get the seals first thing before work.

[Niall]

Oh and just to show how much my timing was out


This photo was taken when I first whipped the head off with the cams locked but the bottom pulley wouldn't lock (don't worry, I didn't move it with the head off!)


This one was taken on the second time I took the head off when it was all timed up properly!

Couldn't of helped!

[Ruan]

EDIT: I'm talking out my arse, ignore me.

You're lucky nothing was bent there! Thankfully 1.8s obviously don't have that much valve lift!

[Niall]

EDIT: I'm talking out my arse, ignore me.

You're lucky nothing was bent there!

Nope it's fine. There's a locating notch on the pulley and th rubber is all intact (actually looks like its been replaced at some point recently.) might still have to buy a aluminium one though!

[Ruan]

Yeah, you're aware of that issue then...

I was thinking the wrong way round!

[Niall]

Haha tbh it must have been seriously close!

[Grant]

Shiiiiit man, that sucks arse.

Atleast you know how tho do it with your eyes closed now...

[Poodle]

Looks like you've been having some seriously bad luck, impressed you haven't sacked it off lol. Will keep my fingers crossed it all goes well for the third go.

[C.A.R.]

My 1.8 had chronic oil-burning issues, turned out to be the oil control rings. Have you checked that this isn't the problem on yours? Don't know how much easier it is to do with the head on/off. I know you can test oil seals on valves by pouring a little petrol into them, maybe it's the same with piston rings? Otherwise it's a leakdown test, which looks like you might need specialist equipment.