Cylinder head refurbishment, part 1

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I had a major clear out of the garage last week, now I have loads of room to work so I'm going to pull my finger out and refurbish the cylinder head on the MX5.  The major problem is blue smoke on the overrun, and I'm fairly confident this is valve stem seals. I'm also going to clean up the valves 'cos it's done a lot of kilometres (237K of 'em).  I'm also going to do some preventative work (various seals, thermostat, maybe water pump, replacement of old rubber pipes).  Incidentally, this is the budget originally allocated to the Ro80; I've heard nothing on this recently so I've given up the idea.  I would very much like the Golf but I had underestimated the size of my credit card bill.  There's also a chance of being made redundant in the next month, so no crazy spending for now.

This will be the 3rd time I've removed the head.  The plan is to lift the head with inlet and exhaust manifolds attached, as it saves the pain of getting the turbo off in situ.  So far I've drained the coolant, undone the 3 bolts on the exhaust frontpipe, and disconnected the electrical, vacuum, fuel and coolant hoses at the inlet manifold.  PAS and alternator belt also removed, as well as the intercooler piping (for easier access).  I discovered the number 1 and 2 spark plug holes completely full of oil!  The cam cover gasket appears to have failed here.

Tomorrow I'll be ordering a valve spring compressor and all the parts.  Next track day is December 3rd at Brands Hatch, should be plenty of time.

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