Head skim requirement?

[MA70-3.0GT]

Cool, I'll have a look & see if i can't find what's causing that then. Probably will change the belt, funds allowing, as now I look closer there's a bit of damage to the teeth caused by the edge of the oil pump pulley. At least if I can't afford the kit right now I don't have to worry TOO much...

I cheated a bit with the downpipe & just detached the elbow from the turbo, leaving the exhaust system complete. Also as the motor's not long rebuilt the usual siezed nuts issue was not there (helped by stainless nuts being fitted.) In the end I pulled the turbo-intercooler hose off & that gave the room I needed to get the nuts off the oil pipe.
If I can find some silicon hoses for the right money now seems the right time to do that, plus clean up the engine bay as much as possible while I can get in amongst it all. Actually it's not too bad save for the PAS fluid leaking from a hardened hose...

After all the hassle with access to turbo bolts I realised I could have left the turbo on the mani' after all, as the 7 nuts are accessible from above & without removing the heat shields! Still, I'm happy now I can give the whole lot a clean up & test the actuator properly.

So after the struggle to free the turbo, the final stripdown of manifold, cam covers & head was pure simplicity, only hindered by having to grind down an old 12mm allen key to 10mm for the head bolts. (incidentally are 10mm allen head bolts stock? I thought stock was studs/nuts from some descriptions of HG jobs, which said about removing the rear 2 studs to get the head out). Either way they were none too tight & I'm going to take the head into the shop to check warpage 'cause I don't think they were even 58lb!

So to the actual problem, you guessed it - number 6 right at the back edge... I'm not surprised these suffer airlocks looking at the design, the rearmost water jacket on the block has no corresponding channel in the head does it? And this is exactly where it blew... Come to think of it, the head to block mating area as a whole doesn't look overly well thought out to my eye. I'm talking about the intake side water jackets which are completely mismatched from head to block. What's the reason for this I wonder? If this doesn't sound right I'll be posting some pics tomorrow anyway.

The plus side of all this is I got a nice surprise when I looked at the pistons & pots, lovely cross-hatch marks still in every bore & brand spanking pistons with just the lightest coating of carbon (unsurprising considering how rich it ran when I first saw it!).

Oh and it should run & drive better than ever when it goes together again because, unlike the previous "mechanic", I will not omit to reconnect the cold start injector wire, nor the speed sensitive PAS wire!!! Some people just need their tools taken away, I'm not surprised in the least that he's been sacked from that garage!