How not to be a pin head

["agiyo" <agiyo@domain.elided>]

The engine from Mortimer, the internet's most famous Berlina, has found its
way to my stewardship, and soon to my Berlina.

The head's come off, things look good except for the blown head gasket. I did
notice something which may have led to false head torque readings, and perhaps
to the blown head gasket.

This block has spiral roll pins pounded into the head mating surface oil
passages, to keep the o-rings from collapsing into them.  Anyone who's been
into 105 cars any time at all has seen several varieties of these things.
They range from roll pins which leave a gap (which the o-rings sometimes
collapse into) to aluminum rings about 1 mm. thick that just sit on top of the
block, with several other varieties extant here and there.

The pins in the Mortimotor are very substantial, and looked to me like they
sat a bit high.  On a hunch, I looked in the head's oil passages, and found
ridges of aluminum which had been displaced by the too-beefy roll pins.  So,
to some extent the pressure of torquing the head down was pushing against the
roll pins, not crushing the head gasket.

Whether that actually led to the gasket letting go, we'll never know.  I don't
think I can safely remove the roll pins, so I opened the oil passages in the
head just enough to fit cleanly around them and remove the aluminum ridges.
Everything should now be OK, and torquing the head nuts should actually apply
the correct crush to the gasket.  I will, of course, figure out something else
to screw up; it is the nature of our work in the Institute of Empirical
Blunders.

Incidentally, my Berlina is that metallic gold, which Gort could have been if
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" had been a color film.  Gortimer it is, Gort
for short, and it is only in deep respect for the gentle persons at AONE that
I don't break into limerick.

Peace,
Joe Cantrell
Portland, Oregon
'72 Spider
'73 Berlina
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