water in oil

[baconsdozen]

Do you think the crack in the head was the cause of the water loss etc?.

[Ellwood]

Cracks between the valves seem to be the run of the day on old trannies. Dunno why , it was nr 2 cylinder, same one as 5 years ago. Maybe a result of the water, some say sudden heating and cooling. I would guess that the design is wrong somewhere in the head casting, or the springs are too hard and make the valves whack too hard on the seats. Ive never had any other car that cracked heads. I use additive, but obviously the modern petrol is less suitable than in the old days when we had leaded. Ah well, this is the price of having a cult van i guess. I wonder if the Essex V6 engines crack heads too?

[baconsdozen]

It could be down to overheating,or sudden cooling.The V4 engine has a design flaw (or maybe more than one) but its not in the heads,the mixture distribution is unequally shared between the cylinders causing some to run hotter than others.
The unequal water flow round the block and the shielding of the rear two cylinders close to the bulkhead don't help matters either.However I don't think the v4 is more prone to cracked heads than other engines of a similar vintage.
Maybe you're just unlucky.
At least you found a fault, pulling an engine to bits and finding nothing wrong even when its been running bad is a bit exasperating at the best of times.

[Ellwood]

A clever mate says the reason of the crack is the petrol mixture was too weak/ the fuel nowadays is not as good quality as it was 40 years

PS my fan has lost a blade. what other vehicles have the same fan ?