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a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel seal?

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a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel seal?

Postby gasbo » Sun Feb 19, 2023 10:01 pm

my van had been sitting on my drive for a year with what i thought was bad valves or worse but an old school mechanic said 2 and 4 cylinders were down as he pulled the plugs off the dizzy cap one by one checking by ear..the van still starts first time but runs sluggishly and max speed 40mph..i noticed heater doesnt get very hot like it used to so would that indicate blown gasket? anyway mechanic said get another cylinder head in case its damaged but i came across this stuff called steel seal so might try it first...has anyone else tried it? would it improve the engine performance if it works?
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby metalworker0 » Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:03 pm

The one to use is K-seal ..that's the one they always recommending on the rover forums for the problematic k-series engines ..and they tried all sorts before coming to the conclusion that K-seal was the best one.

This bodge is not going to be long lived ..its not forever ..it could last a week or could last 6 months

And the pinto engines are not a known gasket blower.
very easy engines to work on though ..and a head gasket change should be very quick work, if no issues found like head needs a skim etc ...
if you've run it around for quite a while with head gasket problems, then it will need a skim.

and if it hasn't got hardened valve seats fitted it will need them

i don't know what the difference are between 1.6 , 1.8, 2.0 heads ..so you'll have to do some research

recommended are PAYEN head gaskets

all the best...mark
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby gotgcoalman » Tue Feb 21, 2023 4:50 pm

Solid head so unless it's been totally cooked it'll just want a reface.

Heads are interchangeable between at least the 2.0 and 1.6.

Put a known 2.0 on a 1.6 block years ago.
Can't remember if the cam belts were different though.

Used it for years before selling the car



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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby bortaf » Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:09 pm

A head gasket set is less than a bottle of steal seal, personly i'd do the gasket, steal seal works fine, used it many times :)
1.6 head has smaller valves so i'd avoid them personly and just get the old one skimmed :wink:
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby Frag » Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:55 pm

Have you compression tested it ?
If the head gasket blows you would more likely have a pair of adjacent cylinders down,not 2 and 4,or cooling system pressurising,oil / water mixing etc…

This could be burnt valves/seats or even just tight valve clearances.
Are you not running this on LPG ?
Valve seat recession ?
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby gotgcoalman » Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:53 pm

again im going off memory.
firing order.
1,3,4,2 ?

was it 4 degrees BTC with the timing light.

that was using 4 * through a twin choke webber carb though.
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby gasbo » Mon Feb 27, 2023 7:31 am

Frag wrote:Have you compression tested it ?
If the head gasket blows you would more likely have a pair of adjacent cylinders down,not 2 and 4,or cooling system pressurising,oil / water mixing etc…

This could be burnt valves/seats or even just tight valve clearances.
Are you not running this on LPG ?
Valve seat recession ?



loss of power happened all of a sudden,my van was overloaded i reckon..yes on lpg..i tried steel seal and seemed to have helped but didnt last long,the mechanic who checked it said the two cylinders down were adjacent,he said get another cylinder head before he said he'd do it..seen a refurbished one without the cam but £325
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby gasbo » Mon Feb 27, 2023 7:53 am

metalworker0 wrote:The one to use is K-seal ..that's the one they always recommending on the rover forums for the problematic k-series engines ..and they tried all sorts before coming to the conclusion that K-seal was the best one.

This bodge is not going to be long lived ..its not forever ..it could last a week or could last 6 months

And the pinto engines are not a known gasket blower.
very easy engines to work on though ..and a head gasket change should be very quick work, if no issues found like head needs a skim etc ...
if you've run it around for quite a while with head gasket problems, then it will need a skim.

and if it hasn't got hardened valve seats fitted it will need them

i don't know what the difference are between 1.6 , 1.8, 2.0 heads ..so you'll have to do some research

recommended are PAYEN head gaskets

all the best...mark


thanks for tips mate..i will try k seal
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby Jim Archer » Sat Mar 25, 2023 3:02 pm

Just do the headgasket, it's dead simple on these - even more simple than DIs - unless you've burnt the head and block - which you may well have done by now by keep running it.

Head needs to come off the check you've not got valve issues anyway ...

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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby madmart132 » Tue Mar 28, 2023 12:31 am

Hi again Gasbo it could be the head gasket but there is no point doing that unless you get special hardened valve seats fitted as you left out the important part that it doesn't run on petrol !!!
Just to tell you again you need hardened seats in the head , the pinto is not designed to run on LPG at least 5-6 people told you that !!
Why not just get a 2.9 v6 fr a Granada or scorpio and fit that , it will work out a lot cheaper in the long run
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby metalworker0 » Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:42 am

Why didn't he say it was LPG ..this is very important information ....no ..the pinto will not run on LPG without hardened valve seats (will not even run on unleaded)......the damage is probably already done ..and your valves and valve seats have become recessed...which leads to valve clearance becoming closed up , which then stops the valves closing fully, leads to misfiring, back firing, then burns the valves and seats out.

Don't know how much they charge these days ..20 years ago ..it was £120 for a skim and hardened exhaust valve seats on my sierra, this was work that had to be done before i converted it to LPG

all the best.mark
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Re: a mechanic said pinto engine head gasket blown..steel se

Postby madmart132 » Tue Mar 28, 2023 11:14 pm

He also left the part that the engine is a rebuilt unit with less than 4000 miles on it , he has been ripped off and he knows it
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