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Oh don't you just wish you'd never started something sometimes! The car had done 100,000 miles [40,000 hard miles!] and it puffs smoke occasionally so I thought I know strip the head and fit new guides... lovely. I won't go into great detail about taking the head off as [its boring] and we can all read Mr.Haynes' manuals. But save youself loads of trouble and stump up £40 for the exhaust clip removing tool. This way you can remove the head with the exhaust manifold and inlet manifold still attached. This will mean that you still have skin on the back of your hands [have you seen the gap at the back of the engine?] and you will be able to torque up the manifold nuts before putting the head back on. God knows how you do it otherwise. Once the head is dismantled its relatively cheap to recondition. About £18 for the guides and 'bout £15 to have them pressed in by an engine reconditioner. The other major problem is that the bloke who presses in your new guides will need to recut the valve seats.This will mean that on reassmbly of the head there may be no gap between the shim and cam. Guess what... there was no gap between mine. Major problem. The shims and buckets do not want to be separated EVER. I found that even with the bucket in my hand I could not separate them. Finding someone to reshim is also a problem but quotes from £30 to £80 were eventually found. The thing is there is a tool but thats about £50 too. So I had them reshimmed [for £35]. While you have it all apart clean the mesh filter in the rocker cover with lashings of Gunk. If it gets blocked it can pressurize the crankcase and lead to puffs of smoke from the exhaust. Buy yourself a Mk2 GTi plastic cam cover [from C&R enterprises £11.50]. It fits inside the rocker cover and helps lubricate the cam. |