Corsa C 1.2 head gasket

[Mikefromlondon]

I've never come across anyone who has used this.....looking forward to a genuine comment!
I do use a compound called Wellseal on head gaskets though.....its a viscous brown liquid that hardens like a lacquer and its highly thought of.
John

Only that I know of someone who lost his coolant regularly, his HG was diagnosed as the culprit, and he added that stuff, which looks like some liquid with copper like powder, and comes with a sort of complicated procedure, like you drain your coolant first to get rid of anti-freeze, then god knows how many steps you need to take, and warm engine up etc etc, leave it to cool down for some time like overnight, and so it is not just pouring it in and forget, so i suppose the results will only be achieved if the gasket has a small breach, and this guy swears and I have no reason not to believe him as he lived in my the same street so it certainly worked on his car he said, it was a Ford Focus, however, he knew this would be like temporary fix which may last 6 months or who knows how long, so he went and exchanged it with a Toyota something now.
It was about the same time my car was loosing a lot of coolant, so i ended up buying one, and when i read instructions, I nearly fainted so couldn't be arsed, as it said to drain all the water and my car has no draining point unless you remove the bottom rad hose, which are usually really hard to get out and risk breaking the thermo-plastic flange, so i left it and a few days later I had a hydro lock, so the head had to come off

In OP's case might be worth trying as he is thinking of scrapping the car soon. as long as he follows those instructions, I am sure the stuff is designed to work, as long as you follow instructions to detail. If a product did not do what ot claims to do, trading standards would soon be onto them.

It is a bit like super glue, where we think it is the magical thing that can fix most broken bits together, often it does not.

Edit:
Just found mine that I did not use in the end, it is called Seal-Up,
Instructions says:
1. Drain entire engine and rad and flush with clean water. (presumably you will need to run engine for a while till it gets hot and then you are able to flush it thoroughly
2. Refill with plain water and replace filler cap loosely so as to avoid pressurising system, run engine at idle until it reaches normal temperature.
3.with engine running, carefully remove rad cap, (filler cap) add more water to cover radiator core if water level had gone too low.
4. Shake the stuff well, pour it in, and keep engine running minimum 20minutes or until the leak stops.
5. stop engine, allow it to cool, the open radiator cap and drain plug, and drain away the entire coolant and the stuff you added,
6. Then allow engine to sit for 12 hours, or minimum 4 hrs,
7.Refill with clean water and flush the system again.
8. After refill with clean water and antifreeze, and you are done!

I found that I did not have the time to sod around draining and refilling so many times, so I never got around doing it, I still have the stuff with me.

( IT actually contains Sodium Silicate (liquid glass) that has copper colour, so not quite copper fillings as I thought as it looks like that)

ha ha! but don't go for what i went for, there may be other more suitable products where you just pour and forget, no draining required, may be I should have done that too, so check on google various other and possibly better products too.

 

[Burnerman]

I think I'll stick with the mechanical repair mate!
John

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

I tried some K seal in my Rover L series, it may have bought me some time, but wasn't anywhere near a permanent solution, head gasket still had to be done. The guys that do the head gaskets have often put pictures up when they're stripping down a K series and someone's used K seal, its not pretty! Im hoping for the time being daughter will have the sense to keep topping up the coolant, and keep it running.

She's no exactly light with her right foot, pushing it at 70 up and down the Motorway back and forth to Uni, and up to Nottingham to visit her Mother. Would constantly thrashing it cause a failure this quickly though?

 

[Burnerman]

So long as the engine has coolant, it will be fine but if it runs out then the engine will pack up in minutes.....if she checks things then you are in with a chance.
One check point - if the coolant is disappearing, the heater function is the first to go so that may stimulate action!
John

 

[Mikefromlondon]

TBH, that K-seal appears to be the stuff I should have gone for, and may be then my HG would not have deteriorated to the extent that I suffered a hydro lock, but the stuff that Ford Focus bloke used was seal-up, and hence why I went for the same and found it was far too complicating to proceed, too many steps.

 

[DaveHerns]

I've never used K Seal but it does have a bit more positive feedback than the old Radweld or Barrs Leaks I used in my Cortina years ago.
I wonder if anyone has tried that stuff Quentin Wilson plugs for worn out engines? Is it called Restore? " 2 tins saved me £10k for a new engine in my Bentley"......

 

[Burnerman]

Just shows - where there's money jangling, people will say owt you like!
If your cylinders are Donald Ducked, no liquid will sort it!
John

 

[DaveHerns]

For me Quentin Wilson lost any credibility he ever had when he started advertising that stuff. They claim it makes knackered RX8 ****el engines run!
Q W is now advertising some car warranty scheme.

 

[Diver Fred]

A question...
When the head gasket was replaced did the car go back after a period (1000 miles or a month) to have the head bolts re-torqued?
When I used to do my own engine repairs that was always a proceedure - particularly with new bolt/studs on a cylinder head following head gasket replacement (OK so that was in the '70's but). Doing that was a standard proceedure to stop the head gasket from failing as thermal effects settled and set.
If it was expected but not done then that could be the cause of the problem.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

I think when you use stretchable head bolts, it does not require re-torque, quite simply because these bolts are torqued to a certain level within the stretch band limits, so this is why they have a different torque technique where you tighten them bit by bit and then use angular turns, again bit by bit, for example it may tell you to tighten all bolts as per sequence to say 25ft lb, then after reaching this basic torque, you then tighten using degrees of turn, i.e. 90deg in the same sequence and again the 2nd time another 90 degrees, and 3rd time again 90degrees (1/4turn) and a final sequence at 45 degrees, being the final. (This was done on a Vauxhall Zafira recently on a mate's car) this means as long as the bolts are not over-stretched and behave like a very strong and powerful spring, pulling the head down, rather than a solid bolts where the maximum torque and the pull remains constant, stretch bolts can continue to pull the head down as the gasket settles down and take up any difference. So it does not require re-torque after 500 or 1000 miles as in some older cars was once necessary.

Of course if you over stretch these bolts you will go past their elasticity limit and they would be useless, and they will no longer pull your head down tight against the gasket. Hence why they recommend using brand new bolts each time.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

For me Quentin Wilson lost any credibility he ever had when he started advertising that stuff. They claim it makes knackered RX8 ****el engines run!
Q W is now advertising some car warranty scheme.

Did you mean Rotary W a n ke l engine used on Mazda cars.ha ha filter came in!

 

[DaveHerns]

Blimey, we can't even talk about rotary engines without censorship !

 

[Mikefromlondon]

and one time I wanted to turn my water off using the stopcock, and it got filtered, and may do so now again.

edit: That made a change, stop cock. Seems like filter has learnt the context.

 

[JohnD]

stretchable head bolts

Well I didn't know that.

Do they have a "neck" machined into them to reduce the thickness at the elastic part?

 

[Mikefromlondon]

John, No, they do not have a neck machined, its purely the material they are made of, I don't fully understand, hence I said "I think" why they are called "Stretch Bolts" which was a term i came across on another forum, where everyone said I must use new bolts as they are stretch bolts, and old stretch bolts cannot be or should not be used again, I asked why? and no one could explain why but all said if I want to suffer another gasket failure soon then go ahead, but I pondered why these bolts are called Stretch bolts, I mean do they stretch? do not all things stretch? so whats the different?

Of course no one on those forums was able to explain the real reason behind reusing stretch bolts, but i searched into it and found that all metals stretch, some do more than others, so you have ordinary nuts and bolts and you have high tensile steel bolts, that can take a lot of effort to stretch, so whatever the case, it is all to do with Young's elastic Modulus, so i did search on google and came up with this http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/young-modulus-d_773.html

Then I asked the reason why these bolts are used in the first place if they are over-tightened they would stretch permanently and won't go back to their original length, which means they will become weaker and won't be able to pull down on the head with the same force as new bolts.

So this was the only logical explanation I reached hence negates the necessity of re-torquing modern cars after a few hundred miles of driving, (running in etc)

however, I googled this now and was glad that what i thought, it was right as other people have discussed this on this forum
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=24079


Although everyone said I should not reuse old stretch bolts, I cannot see this logically, because by very nature of them, they have a linear stretch curve, so let us for the sake of argument and explaining, let us say after the bolt is tightened to a point where it starts to stretch, and if you applied more torque, it will stretch further, but still hold the force steady , so you then turn it a little more, it stretches a little more, still within the elastic limit, where no permanent distortion has occurred , Manufacturer's of such bolts know through their research and development as to how many more degrees if you turn that bolt will it go past the stretch limit and become permanently deformed, so they tell you how you need to tighten that bolt bit by bit, like first to about 20lb/ft, then to 25lb/ft, then turn 90 deg 2 or 3 times and a final 45 degrees . All Head gaskets comes with instructions. Therefore gasket manufacturers and bolt manufacturers collaborate to achieve best results, so they know the bolt would at its most efficient tension without being sent past its elastic limits, and provide even tension and still has plenty room for some error margin. So long as this has not gone beyond its so called plasticity, i am sure older bolts can be reused, but since it is difficult to know if any old bolts had gone past the elastic limit, therefore it is safer to not use old bolts but use new bolts for the sake of saving about one pound per new bolt, and a 4 cylinder head uses about 12 bolts.

In my case I bought some cheap after market bolts that as I was tightening, some bolts were not behaving as expected, i.e. I felt that some bolts needed a lot of effort to reach final angular movement, others turned with a lot less effort, so I did not want to keep tightening to get the same feel as if a bolt snaps, then i will have to get the head out again to remove broken bolt!

I then ordered genuine bolts that only cost £12 per set made by elring, these needed proper effort and when tightening all bolts felt requiring same effort and i felt more confident with them.

Another link on stretch bolts http://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/stretchbolts.html