[Man in the Car]

I think the period is pretty obvious tbh - "for the Rover 75 or any other car built in the 1990s/early 2000s"

I don't know of anywhere that such a list is publicly available. Have you tried contacting MG Motor at Longbridge. They still hold some of the records from those days and some of the MG Motor staff worked for MG Rover.

As the request has been initially posted under a thread regarding the K series engine, I am assuming that there would be a particular interest in that range of engines - in which case I would highly recommend getting hold of a copy of The Rover K-Series 16V Engine by Des Hammill (published by CPPress; ISBN: 1 84155 688 2) as a good starting point. In it, the author lists all the component suppliers for that range of engines.

A visit to a scrapyard and removal of interior trim parts may reveal a number of makers names for smaller parts as there is often a label stuck to the rear of such parts which has the suppliers name on it.

If you are able to come up with a comprehensive list of component suppliers, I am sure many of us here would be interested to see it

 

[Ghgdhf]

The problem with the FL is the extra oil cooler for the IRD (Intermediate Reduction Drive/transfer box)

 

[Dean Baker]

Just wondering if any one can help me recently brought a mg zr 2005 got back realised there was a lot of oil and gunk in the coolent anyway I've changed the head gasket the bolts I didn't change but they didn't look like there was any problem the timing where our by about 7 8 notches? Was a bit weird but I put it back now there seems to be having a lot of water spraying out the back and when I put the throttle on seems it sprays a bit more any help would be greatlful dean

 

[JOHNDQ]

Just wondering if any one can help me recently brought a mg zr 2005 got back realised there was a lot of oil and gunk in the coolent anyway I've changed the head gasket the bolts I didn't change but they didn't look like there was any problem the timing where our by about 7 8 notches? Was a bit weird but I put it back now there seems to be having a lot of water spraying out the back and when I put the throttle on seems it sprays a bit more any help would be greatlful dean

Sure the intake manifold isn't leaking

 

[yellowperil65]

hello mate slightly off topic just put a post up about bcm repair how much to change window relay if i get it to you asap
thanks
russ

 

[Hayeswest1]

Rover 25 for sale - Any takers?

Evening people,

Having already had the head gasket sorted on my rover 25 1.4 (2003) a few years back, i'm now looking to sell it.
I've been gifted a beautiful Rover 75 by my father in law, which feels like operating cruise liner in comparrison, and so now
need to sell the Rover 25.

Anybody know where to start? Any tips more than grateful.

I've been offered poor money from the local garages etc, and scrapping it seems such a shame.
New tyres, belts recently changed and it's a decent looker without too many scratches.

Anybody know somebody who might be interested??

Cheers.

 

[RoverChad]

Surely, someone at MGR must've known why the headgaskets failed at an alarming rate (even though they'd argue that its a tiny percentage of the total produced - I wonder if *every* HG will go at some point)?

Is it becuase if the reason leaked out that someone (read: everyone who suffered) would sue them for it???

I don't remeber the early 90s stuff ever having a reported problem with the HG, so what changed?

New machining process, new tools???

Or was it the switch from wet to damp liners? Which (I'm guessing here) drop (surely they must rise to com into contact with the gasket) over time becuase they're the weakest part in the ladder frame construction?

Or was it some other change that was introduced with the different liners?

My understanding of it is, and I'm willing to be corrected, that at some point BMW changed the dowels from metal to plastic as a way of saving money, which were prone to perishing quicker and resulting in a blown head-gasket. This was roughly the point at which the HGF issue started to emerge, since this was never a problem as you said that affected early Rover 200s produced under BMW, but it must be remembered that BMW shafted Honda's relationship with the Rover group because Honda supplied parts and engines to the group, which they quickly ditched when BMW took over the company.

There was a story I read some time back of the engineers (more so MG Rover Group than Rover Group, nee BMW) knowing of the problem existing and engines failing at an alarming rate, and engineers begging management to let them modify the engine (presumably where finances allowed, which were presumably 50p and a jam sandwich) but management overruled them and told them not to bother. It's almost hilarious really - a very good engine let down by crap head gasket design, causing the demise of a car company and solidifying the reputation of being unreliable crap cars - because of the head gasket. You couldn't make it up.

Engineers did at least acknowledge it by having the courtesy to stick a low coolant warning light in the cars in the facelift models, and certainly was in my 2005 Rover 45. Well, at least it tells you before the head gasket decides to let go and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than redesigning the head gasket - but the damage was already done by that point and the K-Series legacy of unreliable engine continued even if the rest of the engine was otherwise sound, lightweight, and gives a very good performance-to-weight ratio.

That said though, the issue didn't really blow up until the early 2000s, especially with the 2003 Watchdog programme in which MG Rover bosses went on the defence and insisted it was a non-issue (I've been told they were shockingly cavalier about it) - Even by that point, the revolutionary design was fifteen years old, but MG Rover had no money / desire to invest in new engines because doing so is massively costly.

There were also discussions of Rover jumping into bed with Proton, so it's likely we might have had an Rover styled Gen-2 in place of the aging Rover 45. When that fell flat, Fiat offered them the opportunity to use the slow-selling Fiat Stilo platform. Rover bosses never bothered to return their call.

There were actually attempts to bring MG Rover to court shortly before they went bust for selling cars with evident defects in the head gasket design (solicitors and everything) but by the time they went bump, there was no one left to sue.

 

[Man in the Car]

My understanding of it is, .......

...just slightly off the mark

Whilst much of what you say has been bandied about for some years, the truth is that there are many issues within the K series engine which combine to give rise to a high rate of premature failure - all headgaskets on all engines are a weak point, and will almost certainly fail at some point, but the apparent average for the 1995 on K series is about half what Rover had originally aimed at/expected.

The issue effects the reworked K series engines which were built from 1995 onwards (the point at which the blocks were redesigned to accomodate cylinders for 1.6 and 1.8 litre capacities in addition to the 1,1 and 1.4, which were all that the K was originally intended to be.

The injection moulded plastic location dowels were introduced to reduce the problem of head face damage during the locating process at Powertrain, and were introduced in 1991 (several years before BMW took control of Rover Group), and they were superceded by a return to metal dowels in 2001. The plastic dowel issue can probably be regarded as a bit of a red herring - they were used on the original 1.1 and 1.4 litre design of K series engine prior to 1995 (and these earlier engines did not have a particular propensity for HGF), and the head gasket failure rate for the post 2001 engines which were fitted with the metal dowels did not appear significantly different from the failure rate of the engines with plastic dowels.

It has been often reported that the issues with HGF became apparent whilst under BMW ownership, but at the time neither Rover Group nor their BMW owners were unduly worried because the K series was due to be phased out in the early 2000s when the new BMW engine plant at Hams Hall began production of a new engine for the Rover range (also to be fitted to smaller BMWs). The disposal of Rover Group effectively cut off this supply of engines, and MG Rover didn't have the finances to afford to pay out a lot of warranty claims, so they were rather forced to try to bluff it out by denying that there was a problem.

In response to being given grief by Ford (who by then owned Land Rover), a head gasket development program started around 2002, and culminated in the production of the standard Multi Layer Steel head gasket that became available first through Land Rover in early 2006.

There is also the not insignificant matter that it was several years before dealership technicians and engineers at Powertrain became aware that there was an issue with poor sealing of the Inlet Manifold Gasket, which allowed coolant to leak into either cylinder 1 or cylinder 4 (or both). This lead to coolant loss and a misfire which was routinely assumed to be HGF, and of course it was standard procedure to remove the manifolds and replace the gasket during a normal head gasket replacement - it is thought that a great many presumed head gasket failures and head gasket replacements were carried out where in fact, it was probably only an IMG failure. Rover initially replaced the original black silicone elastomer IMG with a redesigned one which was green, but even these seemed prone to leakage, and it wasn't until after the Chinese takeover and reworking of the K series that a more robust viton IMG became available, and this seems to be a cure for IMG problems.

Likewise (from my own experiences), the newest multi layer gasket which was used in the Chinese produced versions of the K series, seems to be a fairly solid and reliable head gasket, with few if any premature failures reported (and also seems to be a reliable solution when retro fitted to the Rover Group/MG Rovere era engines).

I really would recommend a read of Des Hamill's book - it goes into some detail, and makes it very apparent that ther were multiple issues with the 1995 on K4 - premature HGF were not down to one single factor

Regarding the potential tie-up with Proton - it was probably a very good thing that they couldn't reach an agreement, I don't think a Rover based on the Gen-II would have done MG Rover any favours TBH.

Likewise the discussions with FIAT - MGR had been planning to use the JTD diesel engines in the 75/ZT to get away from having to buy in the BMW units at high cost. They had several prototypes fitted with the JTD (some of which got sold off by the administrators and are still about), but FIAT turned round and hiked the price, forcing MGR to walk away from the deal. Likewise, the Stilo platform was well beyond what MGR were able to afford by that time, so there never was any possibility of that deal coming to anything.

Matra also offered MGR a Roverisation of the Espace (which thay had designed and manufactured for Renault), and I believe MGR would have been very agreeable to having Matra continue production of the Espace in Rover guise, but again, the money to pay Matra for it simply wasn't there. It is a shame, because a people carrier would have been a valuable addition to the range at that time, and the Matra Espace was well liked and respected among Renault owners at the time - Renault's own in-house designed and manufactured replacement for the Matra designed car was a little less than well received by Renault fans.

 

[RoverChad]

My understanding of it is, .......

...just slightly off the mark <img src="http://forums.mg-rover.org/images/smilies/smile.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smilie" class="inlineimg" />

Fascinating stuff Man in the Car ? It was a crap state of affairs for MG Rover. Makes me wonder how dire the finances were when Phoenix took over the plant - and how much BMW nicked all of their best bits and left Rover for dead and unable to do any better.

Must slightly disagree with you regarding the Roverisation of the Gen 2. It might not have done them any favours for sure given Proton's reputation, but it could be genuinely interesting as to what MG Rover could have done to it as a way of replacing the aging 45 which, for all intents and purposes, was ten years old by the time it was Facelifted, itself a reworking of the Rover 400, which that in turn was based on the chassis from a Honda Civic from the late 1980s ? A Rover Gen 2 might not have been any good - but they could have tweaked it just to enough to make it palatable to British tastes especially in regards to suspension and interior design ? They would have at least had a 45 replacement ?

 

[Man in the Car]

Initially, the GEN II collaboration looked very promising, and we had a good many threads in the general MG Rover section of this forum back in 2003/4 where the possibilities were enthusiastically discussed.

However, when the finished article emerged in 2004, I think the MG Rover management were just as appalled by it as much of the motoring press (Proton designed it principally to compete with bargain basement brands in the far East, and it was widely, and forcefully panned by western motoring journalists). Its styling was sadly lacking, it was mechanically poor (with resulting poor performance and economy) and suffered a number of particular issues (not least giving the impression of being prone to catching fire).

MG Rover already had a bloody nose as a result of buying in the Tata Indica and rebranding it as the CityRover, and I think they were very wary of the risk of making the same mistake twice, so walked away from the GEN II. All that MGR and Proton had entered into was a memorandum of understanding that they would collaborate on examining the feasibility of joint development projects; I am not sure that there was ever any definite agreeement that MGR would make use of the GEN II beyond looking at whether it was feasible to turn it into a Rover model. They presumably thought there wasn't, and by that time they were probably didn't have sufficient money to put into a joint venture or licencing agreement with Proton anyway, and were also expecting to have RD60 ready for production within a few months of the time it would have taken to get a Roverised GEN II into production at Longbridge (both were medium sector saloons, so a launch of the RD60 Rover 45 replacement within a year of a Rover GEN II probably rendered the GEN II idea redundant anyway).

As we subsequently found out, RD60 wasn't actually as close to production as MGR were trying to make out, but that's another story altogether.

Phoenix were offered the design work on the R45 replacement that had been done so far, but John Towers rejected it as being too expensive to build for the volumes that the separated MG Rover were likely to achieve. I think BMW would probably have sold everything to Phoenix, but the Phoenix directors didn't have the money themselves, and to retain things such as the (mainly BMW designed) 45 replacement, the MINI development etc would have meant them foregoing much of the £500 million that BMW agreed to put into Rover Group in lieu of what they would have had to pay in redundancy pay had they reached agreement with Jon Moulton/Alchemy (the alchemy plan was to quickly run down production of Rover and MG saloons, and concentrate on low volume production of dedicated MG sports cars, and would have meant that something over 90% of the Rover workers would have been made redundant).

Phoenix desperately needed all of that £500 million to see them through to when they could reach a collaborative agreement with another manufacturer and get new models out, which they hoped would then bring the profit in. Sadly, an aborted agreement with China Brilliance set that plan back, and then when the potential partnership with Proton came to nothing, they had almost run out of money (which was why the subsequent talks with SAIC ran out of steam in 2005 - MG Rover had been effectively bankrupt for several months, and were only able to continue trading because successful conclusion to the discussions with SAIC were deemed likely to provide the financial support that would make MGR liquid again).

Sorry; we're getting rather off the head gasket topic - I'll shut up

 

[RoverChad]

Initially, the GEN II collaboration looked very promising, and we had a good many threads in the general MG Rover section of this forum back in 2003/4 where the possibilities were enthusiastically discussed.

However, when the finished article emerged in 2004, I think the MG Rover management were just as appalled by it as much of the motoring press (Proton designed it principally to compete with bargain basement brands in the far East, and it was widely, and forcefully panned by western motoring journalists). Its styling was sadly lacking, it was mechanically poor (with resulting poor performance and economy) and suffered a number of particular issues (not least giving the impression of being prone to catching fire).

MG Rover already had a bloody nose as a result of buying in the Tata Indica and rebranding it as the CityRover, and I think they were very wary of the risk of making the same mistake twice, so walked away from the GEN II. All that MGR and Proton had entered into was a memorandum of understanding that they would collaborate on examining the feasibility of joint development projects; I am not sure that there was ever any definite agreeement that MGR would make use of the GEN II beyond looking at whether it was feasible to turn it into a Rover model. They presumably thought there wasn't, and by that time they were probably didn't have sufficient money to put into a joint venture or licencing agreement with Proton anyway, and were also expecting to have RD60 ready for production within a few months of the time it would have taken to get a Roverised GEN II into production at Longbridge (both were medium sector saloons, so a launch of the RD60 Rover 45 replacement within a year of a Rover GEN II probably rendered the GEN II idea redundant anyway).

As we subsequently found out, RD60 wasn't actually as close to production as MGR were trying to make out, but that's another story altogether.

Phoenix were offered the design work on the R45 replacement that had been done so far, but John Towers rejected it as being too expensive to build for the volumes that the separated MG Rover were likely to achieve. I think BMW would probably have sold everything to Phoenix, but the Phoenix directors didn't have the money themselves, and to retain things such as the (mainly BMW designed) 45 replacement, the MINI development etc would have meant them foregoing much of the £500 million that BMW agreed to put into Rover Group in lieu of what they would have had to pay in redundancy pay had they reached agreement with Jon Moulton/Alchemy (the alchemy plan was to quickly run down production of Rover and MG saloons, and concentrate on low volume production of dedicated MG sports cars, and would have meant that something over 90% of the Rover workers would have been made redundant).

Phoenix desperately needed all of that £500 million to see them through to when they could reach a collaborative agreement with another manufacturer and get new models out, which they hoped would then bring the profit in. Sadly, an aborted agreement with China Brilliance set that plan back, and then when the potential partnership with Proton came to nothing, they had almost run out of money (which was why the subsequent talks with SAIC ran out of steam in 2005 - MG Rover had been effectively bankrupt for several months, and were only able to continue trading because successful conclusion to the discussions with SAIC were deemed likely to provide the financial support that would make MGR liquid again).

Sorry; we're getting rather off the head gasket topic - I'll shut up

No no, please continue, I'm genuinely interested and curious to know more about the tie-up since, from a motoring world point of view, the concept of an MG Rover / Proton tie-up are worlds apart from what the brand values represent. Is there a popcorn smiley on this website? Haha

To try and keep it on topic of the head gasket, when I first bought my 2005 Rover 45 petrol (knowing of the head gasket issue, but was buttons to buy and I was curious to own a Rover to replace a hated Mk. 1 Kia Rio) my first thought was why not try to salvage the reputation of MG Rover of offering cars by ditching the K-Series engine? I know BMW selling the group to Phoenix gave them Powertrain Ltd. which made the K-Series engine and thus could run 'independently' as a car maker, but if a completely new engine design is out of the question because of cost (or even modifying it so there isn't any problems) how economical would it have been to have leased the engine from another company and stuck it in their cars? Would this have been extremely expensive?

What about (and this is just my mind wandering with thoughts!) Proton engines in Rover cars, like the Proton-Lotus engineered CamPro? I can't see Proton being too unhappy with Rover using their engines - Proton was struggling in the 2000s, and I'm sure would love a reason to have got more money out of the British market. Fiat and Peugeot might have been too expensive. If I was the CEO of a motor company and I heard damaging reports of head-gasket problems on my vehicles, I'd be trying to weed out the problem on the engine or replace the engine with an inherently more reliable one. Albeit quietly, because coming public of the head gasket trauma only would invite law suits I imagine.

Don't feel compelled to answer, I'm just musing But I'm curious to know if because they didn't have the cash to unveil new models, how well it would have gone down if Rover facelifted their current vehicles (as they did) but in the facelift did away with the K-Series engine so the bosses could at least say they're adapting to survive. Sadly, few people will touch Rovers, definitely not a petrol, because of its reputation with the head gasket failure, even if Vauxhall at the time were known for their head gaskets going pop as well

 

[Man in the Car]

....... Would this have been extremely expensive?........

I think it probably would. MG Rover were already buying in the BMW diesel engines to fit to the Rover 75 and MG ZT, and were trying hard to find a cheaper alternative. Moves to re-engineer the 75/ZT to take the FIAT JTD diesel came to nothing because FIAT decided to put the price up to a point which meant there was no advantage over continuing with the BMW sourced engine and gearbox. Perhaps also of interest is that when BL proposed development of the new Kseries engine in the 1980s, the Government of the day tried very hard to persuade them to use Honda engines instead (seeing this as a way of the Government getting out of having to provide the £250 million or so that the new engine development would require). BL management dug their heels in on the grounds that it would be ultimately disadvantageous to be dependent on another manufacturer for all their mid range engines, the Government gave in and BL got the money, and we got the K.

I don't think MG Rover were too concerned with replacing the K series. Apart from not having the money to afford to develop a new engine, nor buy engines in, I think they were confident that they could redesign the head gasket in the K series to overcome the failure problems. Unfortunately, the company collapsed part way through this development programme, and so the new gasket was perhaps finished off in a hurry under the direction of the administrators and so didn't end up offering quite the guarantee of reliability that had been hoped.

SAIC took more time (I suspect also employing the same engineers who had been working on the head gasket redesign at MG Rover) and came up with a six layer MLS which has no solid fire rings, and over ten years since the Chinese made engines with these gaskets fitted started manufacture, it appears to have done what was required, and made the K series reliable (fair enough, SAIC made some other changes to the engine, including a different casting method, but the new gasket itself seems sound). Those of us who have fitted the SAIC head gasket to MG Rover K series engines have generally been impressed with it, and there have been very few problems reported with it.

The confidence that MGR had in solving the head gasket issue is perhaps borne out by the fact that they were in the process of making the necessary adaptations to the mapping and throttling of the K series to make it Euro IV compliant, thereby extending its useful life beyond the end of 2005. Sadly the company expired before those versions of the K series reached production.

Head gasket issues aside, the K is an extremely good reliable engine - it is very rare for it to suffer other serious problems, but the HGF issues rather blocked out any other thoughts from most of the car buying public.

 

[RoverChad]

MG Rover were already buying in the BMW diesel engines to fit to the Rover 75 and MG ZT, and were trying hard to find a cheaper alternative. Moves to re-engineer the 75/ZT to take the FIAT JTD diesel came to nothing because FIAT decided to put the price up to a point which meant there was no advantage over continuing with the BMW sourced engine and gearbox.

Fascinating. May I be a bit cheeky and ask how you know so much? Did you work at MG Rover? ?

Bit of a mistake on Fiat's part to jack the price up - not necessarily because it would have helped struggling Rover, but I think it would have been a good marketing tool for Fiat to showcase how good their engines could have been in big cars - Fiat aren't usually known for making big cars, and those that are made tend to be dismal marketing failures - like the Fiat Chroma for example - and seeing how it would perform in a 75 might convince people that their engines are quite good in big Fiat's.

BMW must have made a fortune in royalty payments over their engine. Would dumping an updated / upressed L-Series diesel engine into the 75 be totally out of the question for performance and economy reasons? It seemed to work a treat for the 25 / 45 ?

 

[LeRich]

BMW must have made a fortune in royalty payments over their engine. Would dumping an updated / upressed L-Series diesel engine into the 75 be totally out of the question for performance and economy reasons? It seemed to work a treat for the 25 / 45 ?

A tuned M47R would be a better engine than a tuned L-series although I expect the ouputs to be similar.

A heavily revised version of the L-series called the G-series was due for release only months after the company went under. The G had common rail injection and was meant to be even better than the Fiat JTD and BMW M47 engine. A few prototypes escaped the crusher and were sold off by the administrators.

More info: https://www.aronline.co.uk/engines/engines-powertrain-2000-2005/

 

[goodmanndocs]

The K-series in the FL goes well.

The problem with the FL is the extra oil cooler for the IRD (Intermediate Reduction Drive/transfer box), the engine is very enclosed with the undertray (keeps the crud out and heat in), heatsoak and airflow can be an issue. A simple air scoop cut into the engine undertray keeps it all cool.

Check out these K4:

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Not many engines would trundle on with 3 cylinders.

Clutchdust (LR technician) claims that the MLS gasket can be used on heads that would otherwise be scrap. Not sure if he was referring to, warped, porosity or pitted damage?

 

[Man in the Car]

Certainly not warped - such a head would require a skim regardless.

The MLS+shim type of gasket will save ahead which has annealed and become otherwise too soft to resist the clamping force on the fire rings - fire ring indentation due overheating and resultant annealing of the head being a major cause of HGF (obviously, if the head has fire ring indentation, it will need to be skimmed before fitting the new gasket).

The SAIC 6-layer gasket has no solid fire rings, thus minimising the potential for indentation anyway. It does need a flat and true head surface though, so the head will probably need a skim in most cases.