I had a Rover 214 do the head gasket twice
Never touch anything with a 1.4 K-series engine, they're shit.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 12:30, 1 reply, 13 years ago)

you can dump the 1.4 part
It's the K series that's the problem. Iron block/ally head, and a head gasket made of metal. What's that you say? no flexibility in the gasket at all, and two metals that expand at different rates? Why, I can't see any issue there whatsover.

You can set your watch by 1.8 K series head gaskets going at 40,000 miles.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 12:36, Reply)

And the design
Like a motorbike engine, a sandwich with the head bolts all the way to the sump, so amy mistake in the tightening is a potential time bomb.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 12:39, Reply)

true.

( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 12:44, Reply)

That seems pretty bizarre.
One mistake by the apprentice on the torque wrench and you've got a potential cracked block.
( Kroney, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 12:46, Reply)

Yup, that page in the Haynes manual was proper scary
iirc there were 16 bolts to tighten to a certain setting in a particular sequence, then you had to tighten them a further quarter turn precisely in another sequence, or something like that, it was definitely two different stages. Immense potential for fuckup.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 12:53, Reply)

Somebody designed that engine and the procedure for it.
Once they were done they stood back and thought "yeah, that's reasonable, can't see any end user fucking that up".
( Kroney, Fri 4 Jan 2013, 13:15, Reply)