[RoverRevival]

Some of the worst pictures ever and thats coming from me

I'm glad you are not using that head, i think it needs a lot more than just a skim.

Keep up the good work (and clean your lense).

[220sli2]

hmm that's not a good sign , hopefully the block will clean up okay

[220 GSi turbo]

the head gasket was strangely just completely missing, no trace of it?

The head gasket appears to be stuck to the engine block in that photo

I would suggest placing some oil-soaked rag in each cylinder while you remove the remains of the gasket and scape the block clean. Also find suitable things to block the oil and waterways with while you are at it: things that won't get accidentally broken and/or pushed down the oilway while you are working

Afterwards cover the entire face of the block and cylinders with a piece of thick cardboard or plywood etc and keep it in place while you clean everything else: that will reduce the risk of dirt and other stuff going down inside the engine. You can buy cheap nylon-bristled washing-up brushes from most of the £1 shops: one of those with some white spirit would get most of the oil and grease off, although a proper degreaser like Gunk would probably be better for the job

[E_T_V]

Nothing looks too out of the ordinary there.

Gasket is still on the block which will lift off given some persuasion.

I don't see any oil restrictor in the block, but remember it needs leaving out if using the newer style gasket

With the pistons at half way up the bore run a ring of grease around the top edge of each piston. Then clean up the block as needed. When finished you can wind the pistons up to the top and back down again and all the crud is caught in the grease that will be pushed to the top of the bore.

Everything else can be blown out with an air gun and anything in the oil will be removed when you drain it (I leave it full and drain it at the end of the process when everything is back together).

Some pics when I did mine can be found here.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjXxJwx7

The head was in a similar state and after a skim and clean of the valves all was good. (ignore all the pics about cams I was fitting performance ones).

[Duncan2]

Thanks for the replies and for all the pics.Reassuring to know that engine internals can look ship-wrecked to this extent and still pull through.Some food for thought in the above posts.For instance whether my new gasket is the new sort in the sense of not requiring an oil restrictor within the block which it seems my car does not have.It says on the packaging in fact that its a gasket for Rover 220 or 420 T series engines 1996 onwards.Mine is N reg so I am wondering whether I even have the correct gasket for N123LFH?Maybe not-were the 1995 ones different in some crucial respect?
Also looking ahead I anticipate difficulties with re-fitting the timing belt.I have marks on the belt corresponding to six o clock on the crank gear and marks corresponding to twelve on each cam gear so I am hopeful that recovering the original timing will be okay.However I don't understand how the tensioner is supposed to work.My current rough idea is that you refit the belt on the right hand side using your tipp-ex marks whilst on the tensioner side you leave the adjuster nut loose so the spring pulls the tensioner to the right a little. Meanwhile bringing the belt over the tensioner carries tensioner and belt back to the left against the action of the spring and in this way the tensioner is allowed to find its own position which is when you lock it in place by retightening the adjuster-nut.Does that sound roughly right or is there perhaps far more to it??
Finally I am really hoping that the engine block is sufficiently flat to not need machining since taking the engine/transmission out looks like difficult,heavy work.Thanks all

[E_T_V]

The gasket sets changed a few times.

There are two different types of valve seals (different heights)
There are two different type of cam cover seals (big metal plate or a thin rubber string).

Chances are your car has probably had a gasket change in the past (usually to fix the oil leak from the front/right of the head). The later gasket has the oil restrictor built into the gasket and is less likely to leak in this corner.

So long as everything matches what you take off then I'd not worry.

Timing is simple if you are though about it.

Lock crank timing with the pin in the flywheel (pistons will all be level and halfway down the bore).
Then follow the rest of the instructions in the manual.
Pay particular attention to which cam wheel goes on which pulley (some are different),
And which slot the roll pin is in on each cam.
The two steps above are where people usually go wrong!

There are some good photos from MGJohn which are worth a search for. If you get stuck I'll find them, but it is pretty simple if you follow all the steps.

[Duncan2]

Thanks @ETV I am not finding much posted by MGJohn on the Maestro site but still looking.

[E_T_V]

http://www.rovertech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30180

[Duncan2]

Uh oh.Huge set-back just when I was sure we could get this job done.Our secret weapon was a replacement cylinder head that we got from a nice old guy in Doncaster who told us it was off a Rover 420 Lux.It seemed a dead ringer for the head that we took off N123LFH above and it was unburnt and ultra-clean-seemingly ready to go on in fact.We were about to put it on when I was horrified to notice that the two camshafts on the Doncaster engine were identical-that is to say the exhaust camshaft instead of terminating in a distributor drive spindle had instead a smooth concave recess( the same as the inlet-sidecam-shaft ) in fact.So had we gone ahead and fitted this intact cylinder head we would not have been able to refit the distributor assembly.
We have not yet understood what has gone wrong here.Clearly in order to proceed we are going to have to combine the exhaust cam-shaft from N123LFH with the Doncaster head which is unfortunate because we haven't got a tool for replacing the four cam-shaft end seals.I am at a loss to know why the Doncaster engine has no camshaft with a distributor drive spindle?The old chap that sold us the Lux engine gave every appearance of knowing far more than us so he would surely not have fitted two in-let side ie blank ended cam-shafts by mistake thus omitting the distributor drive spindle altogether would he??
And now the mystery deepens because I see that at the top of page nine in our bible i.e the Rover Engine Overhaul step by step guide there is a short section entitled 'Camshaft Identification'.
Naturally Aspirated Models (that's us) Camshafts are identified by red or green paint adjacent to the rear journal;both types are interchangeable.
Turbo models (not us) Camshafts are identified by means of a paint band adjacent to the rear journal.Inlet camshafts have a green paint band and are fitted with the camshaft sensor.Exhaust camshafts have a yellow band and carry the distributor drive spindle unquote.
None of the above makes sense to me-unless (which I very much doubt is the case)the distributor drive spindle is detachable from and therefore not of a piece with the exhaust cam-shaft itself and it is in that sense that the manual means that in the NASP heads the two cam-shafts are interchangeable.
But really I am very confused atm and hoping someone can enlighten us again.On the face of it it seems patently obvious that on both NASP and turbo engines the exhaust side camshaft MUST carry the distributor drive spindle and despite the Manual the two cam-shafts cannot be identical in either version of the T engine.Sorry to make such heavy weather of this having a bad day.

[220 GSi turbo]

Probably not the news you were hoping for, but I think you have got hold of a cylinder head for a 'Mk2' Rover 420 (also known as the 'bubble' or 'HH/R'). The one that later became the Rover 45.

On these cars, there is no distributor, just a coil pack with HT leads going to the spark plugs operating a 'wasted spark' system where two plugs fire at once (one being on its compression stroke, the other on its exhaust stroke).

So, you either need to swap out your camshaft and distributor parts or get a head from an R8 220/420. Some Rover 820s will also have been equipped with a distributor.