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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - I've broke it

I was coming back from the round the houses regularity event in Northam, West Australia. I had been driving enthusiastically, passing lines of traffic with trailers whenever the passing places arose. I reached the Highway and was cruising in traffic at about 80kms/hr. All of a sudden the engine started missing, and a terrible knocking developed. I shut the motor down and coasted as far as the next turn off. I started the motor back up, and while it missed, it was quiet. as I tried to limp away it made a compression type of knock. It did not sound mechanical. The RAC did their thing. I have done a compression test, the front 2 are at 240, the rear 2 at 90. Head gasket??
Shawn

Bad luck Shaun

Just did a headgasket on a B and used a Durapro gasket
They are rebadged ACL race series gaskets
The gasket is a ripper , steel one side copper the other and a thin layer of some teflon looking stuff in the middle - top quality looking gasket
Gave it a thin squirt of VHT coppergasket on both sides just to help seal up coolant weeps and it's all good
Tried a retorque after 50klms use and it was rock solid , didn't move at all -- Fairly impressed so far

Also it didn't have them little reinforcing plates between the cylinders that seem to be the downfall of most of the gaskets that have them
I'd steer away from a gasket with the plates, they appear to be a bit of a dud idea, the gaskets blow across where the plates end as there is no support for the sealing ring just after the plate

Cheers Willy

William Revit

Oooops Shawn... Head gasket me thinks... There is a competition one available and it'll not take you long....

How did you get on with the Regularity...?

Mark.
M T Boldry

Head gasket between 3 & 4, the compression type of knock gives it away as that's exactly what it is. Gas pumped through the gap by an adjacent cylinder causes detonation.
Sounds terrifying but usually little damage so long as the car is not driven significantly further. Which fortunately is rather hard to do given the noise and lack of power.
Paul Walbran

This thread was discussed between 13/04/2011 and 14/04/2011

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