Hi Folks,
Whilst I 100% agree we should put work in the way of the well known, excellent mechanics on the forum, please don't forget that I occasionally do free repairs for members, and V6 Engine trouble is right up my street
I've agreed to sort this car out for Rae Free of Charge (apart from the cost of any parts).
The car has been trailered to me, and is on my drive.
I haven't done much more than the initial investigation work, so I'll keep it brief.
The car is a pig to start, and only goes eventially at WOT.
As soon as it starts, it does appear to idle OK on all six.
Immediately, with no delay, there is huge pressure in the cooling system.
The header tank overwhelmingly smells of petrol.
The Dipstick, looks like this:
This suggests the issue is
not an oil cooler failure. (which manifests itself in oil in the coolant, not the other way around).
I then, began stripping parts out of the way to enable access for a compression test.
The engine to begin with looked like this. I noted upon opening the bonnet that it has LPG:
So, plenum off:
Off with the LPG Injectors
Off with the inlet manifold, with LPG vapour hoses attached:
Engine, without these parts attached, now looks like this:
Interestingly, the rear multi-ram actuator was not attached to the Plenum and floating loose. It also looks different to ones I have seen before:
Off with the main servo vaccum hose:
Oil Filler Cap:
2-4-6 cable tray:
This next part made me laugh out loud. 10 out of ten for effort
You see above that the coil pack is held down with a bracket of metal across the cam cover bolts, and a block of wood. My first thought, was, maybe the bolts that are supposed to hold it in, were stripped, or lost. (More on this later).
Here are the coil packs. They look in good enough nick, bit of damp has got to one of them but not harmed it.
1-3-5 Spark Plugs
2-4-6 Spark Plugs
Now, out with the compression tester:
And here are the readings:
Driver Side
Cyl1
Cly3
Cyl5
Passenger Side
Cyl2
Cly4
Cyl6
That's where I finished for part one.
The engine currently looks like this:
I'm doing this for Rae on the understanding that it will take me a little bit of time, as I'm currently doing two weeks physiotherapy and for both work and physical health reasons I can only dip in for a couple of hours at a time.
Interestingly, the block of wood on the nearside head, is because there are no bolt holes for the coil pack to bolt on to.
This means that the head is from an early, non DBW V6 engine, so it has had surgery before.
I also note upon a quick look that the 2-4-6 inlet cam is a "G" cam, meaning that camshaft is from a 3.0 and not a 3.2.
I'd be interested in the history leading up to that, but probably will never find out.
Also need to check the T vents are from a later model, as they do vary.
Updates to follow.
Kind regards,
James