DIRTY STUFF
WILLIAM PORKERW
HEN you reckon you know all
there is to know about cars and
engines, some gremlin pops out
of leftfield to present a totally new
problem. Like what happened with a neighbour
of mine, who’d made a magic barn-find in Forbes.
This was a slightly rusty XP Falcon two-door
coupe, covered in chicken shit and straw, a
deceased estate gem that he got for a good price
off the rellos. Hauled it home on a rented trailer,
ripped in and after an eight-month restoration,
had a shiny new six-pot-powered XP in brilliant
polar white. Rebuilt brakes, suspension, auto,
rear axle, interior and engine. All back to Ford
original, which was just the way he wanted it.
The bloke knew a fair bit about stuff and was
handy with tools. If he couldn’t find something
out from reading a workshop manual, he would
drop over to pick whatever is left of my brain.
Which is where the drama began.
I gave him a hand to fire up the engine and
get it mobile so he could run it in for a rego
inspection. It zipped through the tests and he
gave it 1000km of quiet driving before taking
it to his first All Ford Day. On the way back to
base, it boiled, for no apparent reason. He had to
stop every couple of kays until the mongrel thing
cooled down, and drive home in stages.
He looked for leaks and busted hoses, borrowed
my radiator pressure testing device, and came
up with absolutely zilch. The radiator had been
thoroughly cleaned at an expert radiator shop,
but I said: “Maybe there was mud and gunk left
in the block after you pulled the Welch plugs and
hosed it out, and that’s ended up in the core?
Pull it out and get it checked and maybe that
will fix it.” Did that; damn thing still boiled after a
couple of kays.
What to do? I didn’t reckon it was a head gasket
blown, or a plugged exhaust, as that was all new,
so I said: “Go borrow a two-tube-core radiator
instead of the three-tube you’ve got, and see
how that goes.” Because I have seen this same
situation happen before, where two-tube cores
somehow cool better than three-tube radiators,
which has something to do with coolant flow and
a more efficient heat transfer to the air.
He got a unit from the radiator fix-it people,
put that in and the damn thing still boiled. Okay.
We’ll rip the head off and check the condition
and placing of the gasket, in case it wasn’t fitted
right. Did that, the gasket was on the right way
and totally intact, the head face and block were
flat, no cracks anywhere. So we fitted a newgasket and crossed our fingers. And the damn
thing still boiled.
Only one thing left to check, as we had been
right through the rest.
“What about the water pump?” the XP owner
asked. “I know it was new, but maybe that has
stopped working.”“No chance,” I reckoned. “The fan belt is tight
and water pumps don’t just stop spinning.”
“But can we have a look? It’s only a few bolts.”
“Okay. If that’s what you want. But we won’t
find anything.”
I gave the bloke the honour of pulling the pump
off, and there it was – not a single blade left
on the cast-iron impeller. Bloody hell! All neatly
machined off, and he swore on a stack of Bibles
that it hadn’t been that way when he had fitted it.
So I got out his lead light and put on my best
glasses, to have a really close look at the blades,
and then turned the attention to the cavity at the
front of his six-pot block. And like a true detective,
the real cause for the mystery impeller-blade
wipe-out was suddenly obvious: slivers and chips
of shiny brass, stuck in the block space directly
under the pump. I fished them out and wiped
them across a clean cloth for an inspection.
Brass? Where the bejesus did that come from?
Bits out of the radiator tanks? Not a chance. This
metal wasn’t thin tin brass; the mangled pieces
were a good couple of millimetres thick. And then
I looked accidentally at the side of the block, and
it was a light-bulb moment when I saw shiny new
unpainted brass Welch plugs, surrounded by the
usual coating of Ford Blue engine enamel.
“Did you replace the Welch plugs?” I asked
the bloke.
“Yair.”
“But how did you take the old ones out?”
“I got the big ones by using a chisel and
screwdrivers.”
“And the little ones?”
“I punched them straight through into the
cylinder head.”
“Oh shit. One of them has travelled through
your water jacket, jammed in the pump and
chopped off all the blades!”
Like I said: You never know what new stuff-up
you might run into! sBRASS? WHERE THE
BEJESUS DID THAT COME
FROM? BITS OUT OF THE
RADIATOR TANKS? NOT
A CHANCE. THIS METAL
WASN’T THIN TIN BRASS;
THE MANGLED PIECES
WERE A GOOD COUPLE OF
MILLIMETRES THICK
WHW
ETRE