Heads are now with Mac. Hope is able to make you a good one out of them.

That's brilliant, thank you to both of you.

Sion,

I have both heads - BUT see my new post "Mac is fragile".

Both heads are early with the extra pipe take off but need a real good sort out. If you can arrange for somebody else to take them on that would be brilliant. If not, I really don't know how long it will be before I'm cleared for action again (as it were). So very sorry my friend!

Mac.

Mac

Oh dear, I am sorry to hear that my friend. The important thing is that you rest and get better.

I think the best thing to do would be for me to call round sometime to pick the heads up, perhaps sometime next weekend assuming the weather has calmed down by then. Nick has a mechanic in Ely who will do the work for him, so I'm sure he'll be able to clean one of the heads sufficiently (albeit not to your standards, of course).

Siôn

Well I've had a fun morning cleaning the two cylinder heads up. I'm fairly pleased with the results, as they were literally covered in mud when I started! I started out by soaking in engine degreaser, then a good pressure wash, followed with a toothbrush and elbow grease.

This is how they arrived:


And this is how they are now:


Mac also gave me a head gasket kit:


I've noticed that they are both slightly different to each other, in particular around the manifold area, and the top of the cylinders. Can anyone shed any light on what effect this has (I'm guessing that they may be differences between B14.0/.1/.2) ?

Head 1:





Head 2:

Having NOT done a degree in Renault Cleon cylinder head identification...

I'm guessing head one is the older of the two, with kidney shaped combustion chambers. Head two has wedge shaped ones. The partial siamese of the inlet ports on head two are quite possibly a later modification, I really can't see them doing such a thing on a busy production line, but you never know.

Being lazy, here's a machine shop washed 1108cc variant head from a 1973 DAF:

p2080006 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080007 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080008 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080009 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080010 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080011 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080012 by macplaxton, on Flickr

p2080013 by macplaxton, on Flickr

As you can see, all lovely and eat-your-dinner-off clean, with the exception of the ends where someone in the past has gone mad with the sealant goo.

You can maybe compare the reach of the spark plug threads. Old head would have ½" reach plugs and newer ones ¾" reach.

head 1 = B14.0E, i wouldn't recommend mounting that on your engine under any circumstances (not only the un-ideal combustion chamber, but also the fact that it breaks the oilfeed of the rocker arms every now and then and it has smaller inlet valves)

that goo on the ends or any gasket residu can be very cleanly removed with these kind of brushes from 3M:


even residue from the original paper gaskets will easaly be removed with this. the beauty of these brushes is that they don't damage the aluminium surface, there are different colors for the hardness. i generaly use white (soft) and purple (harder) brushes

i would reccomend taking the rocker arms apart for a cleanup or swapping it over from the old head, would be a shame if the oil port was clogged somewhere

volvodspec wrote:head 1 = B14.0E, i wouldn't recommend mounting that on your engine under any circumstances (not only the un-ideal combustion chamber, but also the fact that it breaks the oilfeed of the rocker arms every now and then and it has smaller inlet valves)

Thanks, yes I have just worked that out myself, by looking at the spec for B14.0E in the Haynes manual. I'm glad I noticed they were different!

I will be taking the B14.1 or .2 head (not sure if I can work out which it actually is) to Nick tomorrow, and I will update the thread when I have some more news.

volvodspec wrote:head 1 = B14.0E

I'm a mug for punishment. My B14.0E is bizarrely still going. (hope it still does after saying that)

Cylinder head is now with Nick and Sallyann, who own the car. They were very grateful for all your help, especially Dai and Mac.

I will report back when the mechanic has had a chance to effect a repair.

Glad the heads will be of use to someone and used to keep another car going.

Well, there's good news, the "Green Goddess" is back on the road!

The cylinder head has been replaced, new valves, reconditioned radiator (it had developed a leak) and it's had a total coolant and oil flush. Nick and his family are delighted, and he sent me this picture of his engineer David with the car all finished:

Great to see the car back together and running again.

Good to see the green one back in action!

Great effort to those involved in this!