Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

I seem to read the same head gasket failure problem related to this engine whether it's the first or last one ever made.

In all those years, how come it wasn't fixed and made more reliable? On paper, it borders on purposeful gross incompetence.

How do you enthusiasts and experts see it?

The latter years the k-series became the n-series working in harmony with lotus engineers and this is where the uprated gasket, oil rails and the prt system (which is still a weak point).

I would imagine it was not an issue until a few years after they had sold a few cars and by the time they realised they went bang

Where to start? The original K Series design intent was for a small light weight engine with class leading power and torque characteristics.

The original design was funded by HMG during negotiations between British Leyland and Margret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit SoS for Trade & Industry. The engine was meant for a new generation of small utilitarian car's following in the footsteps of the Moggy Minor and Mini. It was never envisaged as a 1800 cc engine pulling a medium size 4x4 vehicle.

The original engine is a wet liner block, incorporating a sandwich design of cylinder head/block/crankcase assy. This means that the cylinder head bolts go through the engine and attach to the main journal caps. Thus the crankshaft must not be turned with the head removed.

The main weakness with the earlier version of the engine imo is the plastic inlet manifold and thermostat housing. These fitments make the engine intolerant to overheating. Any aluminium alloy engine will start to overheat if the coolant isn't regularly changed, because of the corrosion properties of the ally' block, in comparison to cast iron for example.

The older single point injection version of the 1.4 K Series incorporated a separate filler neck for the cooling system. This eliminated large air pockets in the coolant rail running behind the cylinder head to the thermostat 'housing on refill. Later M.P.S engines deleted both the filler neck and a drain tap in the radiator.

This makes draining, refilling and bleeding the system very much a time consuming complex job, compared to other designs. The location of the bleed screw should be noted and used otherwise the thermostat won't see liquid and sit in front of a air pocket. A rapidly rising temp' gauge at tickover once warm is symptomatic of air in the system.

In my experience once bled properly the engine performs well warming up quickly and coming off choke reducing cold running and associated engine wear.

The larger 1600 and 1800 K Series involved a redesign of the engine the steel liners supported at the bottom of the block only. This became known as a damp liner or open topped block engine. This is the version that gained the K Series it's reputation for unreliability through head gasket failure. Some one else can continue the story from here.

Its just one of them engines that required a bit more car, as you said once you get the head
gasket upgraded and you monitor the cooling system it should never be and issue but the HG
is not always the culprit, on my 25 and on the Cabby it was the Water Pump that failed.

ROVER-25X wrote:Its just one of them engines that required a bit more car, as you said once you get the head
gasket upgraded and you monitor the cooling system it should never be and issue but the HG
is not always the culprit, on my 25 and on the Cabby it was the Water Pump that failed.

So many years on the market and never sorted. Says it all about Rover then doesn't it?
Very disappointing.

no says a lot about tata, bmw ect.....

Nah leave it alone, people will still buy it.

mrsimon wrote:

ROVER-25X wrote:Its just one of them engines that required a bit more car, as you said once you get the head
gasket upgraded and you monitor the cooling system it should never be and issue but the HG
is not always the culprit, on my 25 and on the Cabby it was the Water Pump that failed.

So many years on the market and never sorted. Says it all about Rover then doesn't it?
Very disappointing.

It's always an interesting debate when HGF and the K series engine are discussed, just to keep it balanced its worth remembering that numerous other marques also suffer from HGF if the car/engine isn't maintained all that well.

i've never had one go on me. I have bought (alot) that have but its a 4hr job including skim so why worry.

Exactally and because it is such a common fault it is cheap to do, why you say ?

Well as dist says, 'Above all, its a ROVER, and some idiot will buy one' or in our case still
buying them since 2002 *laughs*.