I came home today with a rover 214, p reg, for £200 because it needs a head gasket. there is also a kind of knocking sound from the engine described to me as pinking and could be ignition timing, can anyone give me any advise or suggestions as to how to fix or if im totally wrong?

thanks

Set fire to it.

Hateful things.

Old people with hats drive them.

Slowly

And badly.

Ignition too far advanced. Fix the head gasket and then set the timing. The detonation could have caused the damage to the gasket, and in fact may not be a gasket but a holed piston or similar. You won't know until you get the head off.

I'm not familiar with the 1.4 engine, so I can't tell you how the timing is adjusted, but there will be a Rover forum somewhere where they will tell you.

lol, its for the misses to learn to drive in, i brought her a pug 106 and the clutch was ridiculous and she couldn't control it, plus there was no power steering.

doing the head gasket on sunday, but i would like to sort out this knocking, anyone have a clue?

why cant i thank you on your post? :S thanks anyway.

is this a job that needs doing on diagnostics? or is it a case of setting the timing properly taking the belt off etc?

read the service history and last year there was a new belt and tensioner so maybe this has had some cause to the knocking..

Pinking is normally caused by ignition timing, not valve timing, although the valve timing being off could also cause some nasty damage.

When you take the head off you will have to set the cam timing anyway. According to this thread, the ignition timing is fixed by the crank sensor, so valve timing could be your problem.

so what do i do to check the ignition timing? diagnostics?

If that thread on the other forum is right, nothing. It's fixed.

i understand nowww

i think..

so as long as i get the valve timing right, the sensor should pick it up from there and it should just be correct?

thanks for the help!

the older k series engines with single point injection had a conventional distributor, but on all the late ones the ignition timing is ecu controlled and isn't adjustable per se, i'm not an expert on the mems ecu's but i'm sure they can be adjusted electronically..

when you take the head off, make sure you don't turn the crankshaft otherwise you will push the liners out of the block...

the knocking you can hear is probably cross firing between the cylinders caused by the broken gasket (probably the centre two)

Check out this site for all things Rover. Certainly helped me a lot when I had my 214

MG - Rover.Org -||- The ultimate site for MG and Rover enthusiasts!

your on the wrong forum buddy, i got a mate with a rover coupe who swears by the rovertech forum,

Welcome to Rovertech.net

The crankshaft position sensors on those are notorious for going flaky and can completely wedge themselves in. If it's running dog rough then that's always worth a look.

If the head gasket on a K-series is gone, the engine's scrap. End of. You can't fix it short of a new head which costs way more than the car's worth.

If the head gasket on a K-series is gone, the engine's scrap. End of. You can't fix it short of a new head which costs way more than the car's worth.

Depends on how it goes. If it lets the oil and water mix then it gets real messy but can be clean up and sorted. If it does what mine did and lets exhaust gas into the cooling system (expansion tank reeked of exhaust fumes) then thats easy, replace gasket, skim head and rebuild. Mine went on for another 40000 miles.

Head gasket failure is a common problem with K series engine but can normally be repaired as long as you don't let it overheat and warp the head. A lot of people make the mistake of not retifying the cause of the failure, which could be something as simple as a blocked radiator, which then of course leads to it failing again.