Voli gets a head job

[Gremlino]

After a few uncomfortable months with our house move and subsequent dramas I was pleased that I finally had an interested potential buyer for Voli at the end of November.
The happiness soon turned to horror as she decided to yet again boil over on the test drive and I was left wondering if I was going completely mad after I thought I'd cured the problem by changing the thermostat and having the radiator re-built 

I left the car alone for a few weeks then asked my old friend Mark Devaney to do the obvious thing and pull Volis head off ( ).

Yes the head gasket had gone on number four to the corner waterway and this was pressurising the coolant causing the overheating and water ejection......just a shame it would only do it intermittantly

No other problems and the engine is otherwise in fine fettle, bores are good with no scores or crowning and the valves and combustion chamber are fine needing only a de-coke. I'm getting him to do the bottom oil seal and secondary shaft oil seal while the head is off as without the charger being in the way its fairly straight forward.

What surprised me was the size of the inlet valves, I knew they were fairly large compared to a normally aspirated engine but these seem huge (35mm). Also the waterways seem a different shape.
I managed to get a headgasket ok from Germany and this hopefully will all be put back together after the head comes back from its light skim (dont want to raise the compression!) and valve re-cut.

Anywho, enough of my chat......have a look at the pics...... 

[Gremlino]

Charger detail...

[Gremlino]

More...

[Gremlino]

And the engine block type number....

[Tas131]

It could be a parallax error with the camera angle, but they look to be around 43.5mm, standard inlet valve size on 2l 131 superbravas sold in OZ.

[paulcas]

Hi Graham,
hope you are well. Good to see that Voli is on the mend.

Met up with "Spitter" and Jane yesterday who said to say hi and Merry Christmas.

All the best.

Paul 

[djape1977]

standard inlet valves for fiat's twincam. they vary from model to model from 41 - 44mm. my 1,8 has 43,2mm, and 2,0 has 42mm.
head gasket from croma turbo can be very usefull. it's easyly obtained and is meant to take higher pressure than ordinary head gasket. only needs a slight modification to be fitted to 131/132 engine. it lacks a single water galerry hole. just make a new 8mm hole in a right spot and that's it

[theredx19]

Get the engine tuned correctly afterwards as the valves seem very black but then it could have been on cold start but it is very important as the exhaust valves are sodium and tend to be weaker so the fuel ratio is very important...

[Gremlino]

Thanks everyone, hope you all had a good day today.

The valves just seem much larger than I remember from days gone by.....my memory playing tricks on me 
I suppose I've got used to looking at 128 valves and modern multi valve sets which are small by comparison.
 
As for the heavy carboning....we found that the re-circulation breather was completely clogged up and the mixture was over rich. This will be set up properly when all  back together....I have been able to get hold of the Volumex workshop manual so I'll study this before tackling the tuning.
Perhaps a trip to the rolling road would be sensible. 

Thanks also for the advice on the head gasket, I was able to obtain the original  Federal Mogul Goetze
item and was not expensive.
The Volumetrico engine gasket set is also still available which means nice new gaskets for the charger and manifold.

I'm really looking forward to getting her back up to good running order even though I have to wait a few months for the better weather to use her regularly again.

Paul, thanks for saying hi to G & J from me, seems ages since I last saw them.....hope you wore waterproofs when you met up as I bet G had lots to talk about 

I'll post more pics as & when I get back to the workshop.   
 
G

[jasonh131]

Hi Graham
 is the head all back together ,machined and polished  or have you a while to go yet

[Gremlino]

or have you a while to go yet

Hi Jay,

I haven't been down to the workshop so not much movement there.

Should be all back together in a week or so,  I'm doing a quick re-comission on Sharons new car and I'm also putting time in on my every day motor.
 
Be sure I will put up pics once I get back to Voli.