Okay so as you know, I, like many of you decided to tackle the dreaded HG repair and the ran into some post repair complications. I thought I should summarize the exercise so that other can learn what to do and not to do. First off my mechanic skills are okay not great. I have a buddy who is pretty good so that helped a lot. What was a phenomenal help were the videos that Atlantic British has on their website. Before started the tear down I watch that video like three ( also available on YouTube) times. Followed al the suggestions about marking parts, putting parts in little containers and taking photos. The scary part of the tear down was the sound of the head bolts cracking from being loosened for the first time since leaving Solihull. It sounds like God snapping his fingers or having a high velocity bullet go over your head.
The head gasket rebuild kit from AB was also essential. While I did end up with a bunch of extra parts, the only thing I had to purchase away from them was injector O-rings and new filter baskets. got them from The injector shop:
https://theinjectorshop.com/products...a71ec36d&_ss=r
I also purchased new lifter from AB as one of them had collapsed.
The adventure really started on the rebuild. As we got ready to start the rebuild I watched that video three times as well. I had my heads milled and cleaned up by a local shop that builds racing engines. In cleaning up the surfaces, I discovered that the sleeve of #4 had pushed out above the block by just under a millimeter. The HG leak was on the other side BTW. Pulling the whole block was not an option for me due to space and equipment. A friend with 40 plus years working for Audi rebuilding their engines suggested that I used dry ice put into the cylinder to contract the sleeve and press the sleeve down using a 1/2" thick steel plate which he drilled holes to match the head bolts. This worked like a charm. I knew this was not a long term fix ( as one assclown here repeatedly pointed out) but since I ran with a slipped sleeve for 40k miles and it took an original 75k for the slipped sleeve to make its presence known I was good with that. We got everything buttoned up and the engine ran like a champ! But that is when the WTF started.......
We had to replace the DS oxygen sensor connection as it some how got broken. We spliced a new one in and I started popping O2 codes. We went back and re-repaired that and thought we were good .Then the whole O2 system went nuts with no voltage, perpetual open loop. Could not for the life of me figure it out. I had been having O2 related codes for a while and the car could not pass emissions here in CT and having only one legal car at my house was a PITA. I finally conceded defeat and took it to a LR Indy with a reputation as one of the best in the Northeast. He determined that our repair while good and might have been okay if the PCM module was not toast. The mechanic repaired out repair and put in a used PCM and reprogrammed it.
So for those of you who are thinking about this repair would say it is not as daunting as you think. My total costs in terms of parts, tools, coolant, oil etc. was probably around $600 and $200 for the head work., not including the mechanic. The mechanic was $600. So all in to get my car running again was $1400. When I started this I was estimating that having towed up to my mech (75 minutes away) or having done locally was going to be around $3,000. So, in summary for the less mechanically inclined, watch those AB videos multiple times, lots of photos and have plenty of storage space for the parts. Take your time (I did it over a couple weekends a only a few nights).
Here endth the lesson.

 

 

so do you think you fried your ecu hooking up the O2 sensor incorrectly? if so, good warning to all....

 

That is a possibility. However, I was tossing codes prior to the whole repair like 1174/1171 so it may have been on the downslope but the bad repair may have cooked it. I would go with a 85% chance that the bad splice was the cause of the fried PCM. When I get a chance I will ask mechanic.

 

Thanks. You need to update your time hack for affording the gas. 2021 prices are even higher that 2014

 

Thanks. Great info to know. Congratulations!! I was faced with this decision 2 years ago and decided to just pay to have a shop do it. Knowing this....Probably would now have done myself. Or at least tried.

 

Yeah, but when I added that line gas prices had dropped back to 1999 levels, and had dropped sharply from just a few months before. They've been up and down since December 2014, and according to this chart they're now about half way back to where they were in July 2014.

 

For me here in CT I was buying premium at $2.92 p/gal until 1/20/21. Somehow it has gone up to $3.29 p/gal now. So much for drill baby drill.

 

Yeah, and it may be likely to get worse before it gets better again. "Drill baby drill" is not the theme song of the current administration and congress.

Sorry for hijacking your thread, but you brought up that line from my signature.

 

You hijacked nothing..... merely a deep intellectual discussion about the economics of running a Disco and the tailspin the current administration is putting us, especially Disco drivers in .