I'm finaly going to get on with the headgasket on sunday!

Symtoms: extirior leaking, and leaking into cylinder 1 if not more, causing lots of blue smoke to build up in the exhuast when idling.

I've done a few headgaskets now and know my why around polo small blocks, haven't done a 3f tho.

Any usual/common promlems when doing this?

m12 spline iirc?

and can anyone confirm the headgasket part number: 111VG0090

thanks in advance.

nobody?

May as well do the water pump and cambelt while you're at it?

My mk3 put out a load of white smoke when the HG went.

The bolts on the exhaust mani heat shield will most likely be rusted on, and getting the plastic cam cover off is a pain in the arse.

As said, worth changing cambelt. Perhaps waterpump and alternator belt too?

The 3f is the same as any other similar age 1300 when it comes to replacing the headgasket. M12 spline it is and GSF p/n also correct

thanks for confirming that gaz, on the way to pik up some spline bits now.

will be only doing the headgasket for the time being, as everythings else is in tip top condition, but will be replaced when i get tho dollar :)

thanks all.

dont bother trying to remove the exhaust manifold from the head, disconnect the manifold from the downpipe and leave it attached to the head.

I decided to just retighten the head today, before buying all the kit to do it properly worth saving the money in my situation, and to my serprise it worked, stopping all the extrior oil leak, and reducing all oil burning by about 90%, could be just some oil left in there burning though. Only cost £10 for a spline kit :)

after torquing everything up, what do i go and do? snap the middle rocker cover bolt into the head, dam that bolt was very weak.

the rocker cover thankfully seals, so i just bunged up the whole, anyone tryed the lazer bolt remover kit :lol?

The rocker cover bolts dont go into the head directly, vw cleverly put them into the cam caps so just whip it off go the scrappy and replace it with another mk3 one or cut a small slot in the top of the stud or drill it out.

Matt

you can't just replace the cam bearing cap with one from another engine, they are line-bored to match the head when they are manufactured. Doing this will cause damage to the camshaft journals and possibly the head itself (depending on how different they are).

You might find that if you remove the rocker cover again then there is enough snapped bit left sticking out to get hold of it with some needle nose pliers, it wont be tight at all. Or you can file a groove into it and use a flat blade screwdriver.

You do have to be careful with those bolts, the torque setting for them is very low and if you over-tighten even slightly then it snaps them, the shoulder of the bolt bottoms out and the threaded part at the end pulls itself off.

its well and trully stuck in there, and its inside to much to file it.

Looks like i will need to drill it out and tap it.