Manifold Gasket Replacement

17th October 2016 - Time today for some maintenance on the Traction Avant as there had been a small sign of 'soot' at the No 4 cylinder exhaust manifold joint (circled in red in 1 image) for a while. The cylinder head had been rebuilt before I bought the car so it was left untouched during the engine rebuild in 2014.

Whilst the weather was still reasonably warm, I decided to take the opportunity to replace the manifold gaskets today. Not difficult to do, but the carburettor needs to come off to get at 1 bolt and to get that off, means taking the rocker cover off 1st.

Some of the bolts have restricted access due to the shape of the manifold and luckily I bought a cheap set of combination spanners from Aldi a couple of years back which proved invaluable as the ring ends have nice thin walls.

Once the manifold was off, the gaskets were in worse condition than originally thought (they were changed before I bought the car 4 years ago and were left untouched when the bottom end was rebuilt)

Everything was thoroughly cleaned up, checked for level etc. before refitting and the opportunity taken to change the starter motor once again with one I had rebuilt to original factory spec by 'Rob' at Broadway Electrical in Essex. (The other starter will be kept as a spare given the cars previous history of blowing them  )

New, copper coated, heat resistant, lock nuts were used to reattach the manifold to give things that 'period' look. The fuel feed pipe from the pump to the carburettor was also replaced with some 8mm bore copper pipe in an effort to reduce the effects of Ethanol in modern petrol (the hose that had been in place less than 6 months had already began to feel 'spongy')

In February 2019 it was decided that the low compression on cylinder 3 needed to be addressed so the cylinder head came off the car to be rebuilt. That involved removing the manifold once again so the opportunity was taken to have it machined flat this time at a cost of £50.00 to avoid future problems.

 

Last Update: 14th March 2019 2019