No Hylomar on liners

The car has been using a bit of coolant the last couple of years. No external leaks and no oil in water or water in oil. I thought I had found the problem two months ago. After removing the timing cover I could see red staining around the water pump. So I fitted a new pump but still losing coolant.

I always vacuum fill the coolant after a drain down but it would not hold vacuum. I pressure tested everything in the cooling system by isolating the various components. It was the engine that would not hold pressure.

So last weekend I took the cylinder head off. I had replaced the head gasket five years ago and there was no evidence of this failing. I decided to check the liner heights with a dial test indicator (DTI) cylinders 1 & 4 were -0.001" and 2 & 3 were +0.0005". The liners were easy to rotate and there was no evidence of any blue Hylomar on any of the liners. The car has done 91,000 miles and is eleven years old but having worked with blue Hylomar as an engineer I have never seen it totally disappear. I wonder if any was ever fitted.

I purchased new liners from Westwood. The dimension from the bottom shoulder to the top of the liner is 50mm. My old liners varied by more than 0.1mm (0.004" thou) on the minus side. The new liners are all bang on 50mm. They protrude the top of the block by 0.075mm (0.003" thou).

The liners old and new are not a tight fit in the block. I can see the original boring marks in the block so this has come from the factory like this. I might as Kaiser has done Loctite the liners in place.

Regards John

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No Hylomar on liners