They are indeed, better than the original ones.
Sad news first, Blake-dog passed away since my last update. He made it to 14 and a half (possible 15, we're not sure how old he was) years old. I do miss him a lot.
Better news now:
Let's have a little update here shall we? The Rover continues to be rather excellent, it's weird having such a pleasant car for so little outlay. The car had been having some coolant loss issues, an occasional smell of fuel in the cabin and had an annoying proclivity to stall when setting off from road ends or trying to park, the sort of situations where you've got low revs but are about to put some on to get moving steadily. It was also putting water out the exhaust, which was scary but didn't seem to be the usual boiling kettle problem.
Now, nothing broke or came to a particular head but it was getting a bit annoying. I was pretty certain it wasn't the dreaded head gasket failure as not enough of the signs I'd expect - low on power, coolant and oil mixing, general feeling of doom - were there to confirm it.
I did the sensible thing and consulted some experts... well, I say experts, I consulted my mate Mike and my brother because they know their way around a K series better than I do. A leaking inlet manifold gasket was diagnosed as being the issue and sure enough, when the inlet manifold was removed the original gasket came out with many cracks and splits and was basically knackered.
I've had a couple of big projects started so I've not had much in the way of free time, an imminent house move has made me equally short on spannering patience so Mike very kindly offered to do the spanner work on this job so I could get on with other stuff. Great! A call was made to Rimmer Bros to order a new gasket and it arrive the next day. Even more great! We'd be sorted in no time.
Except they'd sent the wrong gasket. So I sent it back explaining what I wanted and they told me I was wrong. So I sent them photographs of what I wanted and they said they sent the wrong one. I had to ask if they wouldn't mind sending the correct one and had to confirm over the phone which gasket I needed. It was a right palaver because The System has my car as having a different manifold to what it actually has and therefore I must be wrong.
Anyway, to cut this very long story short the new one arrived today and Mike fitted it. He also freed off the little ballbearing as that had stuck in place which should prevent any problems. Here he is doing the job, he doesn't know I took this picture.
The result of this is that the car is so much smoother to drive around town and park it's unreal. I guess I'm used to some pretty shonky cars because the way it drives now is night and day to how hesitant and irritating it was without me realising. The temperature comes up to normal much quicker which is also nice and the engine sounds even quieter than it did, I guess the old gasket must have been producing a bit of noise with it letting fluids and air get places they shouldn't.
Now, if I can just figure out what that clonk is at the front end when I let off the throttle sometimes (but not always, it's an odd one) I'll be very happy. I'm wondering if it might be a tired engine mount.
