Well 18 months on from the last post on this thread, and things have moved on somewhat, however Big Blue's future still hangs in the balance.
I continued to use my 190 for the rest of 2014, despite the increasing levels of coolant usage. This reached the point where the expansion bottle could be emptied within 300 miles of driving. The car has now covered 71500 miles from new - barely run in!
I had also changed jobs, at the same company but working different hours, meaning I faced an 80 mile round trip daily, and was expecting my first child - born yesterday (16/8/15)
. As a result my needs changed, and I now find myself the owner of "Big Blue II"; a 61 plate Skoda Octavia VRS estate.
As I now had a new car, it was time to work out what to do with the original Big Blue, which now sat parked on my drive.
As things stand, apart from the (suspected) HGF issues, it has MOT until January, still drives spot on, but needs new front discs and pads (the wear light came on the last time I used it - perfect timing!), the exhaust is hitting the underside again (not beyond the wit of man to fix) and has an advisory for a tie rod end ball joint (easy cheap fix). I have also fitted a gold resistor to the replacement fan, so that is functioning correctly.
I arranged for it to visit M&G in Bradford, as they were recommended by my best mate, who used them for some big jobs on his ZS 180 Mk2 (Before he stuffed it into a Merc!) They confirmed that it was most likely HGF.
To cut a long story short, I have decided that as the car is effectively "doomed" anyway if it is HGF, that I would take it apart and see how bad it was, and whether the engine was repairable. (after all, it's worth no less in scrap as a non-runner, surely?).
The intent is to take a look, and as long as there is nothing horrific such as a cracked head or block, have a go at rebuilding it.
Here are some pics from the "autopsy" so far:
Still looks the part:
Awaiting it's fate at M&G:
This is what the engine bay once looked like:
All 6 spark plugs had this pink staining:
A pile of parts soon began to build:
The IMG didn't appear to look too bad:
Some mayo around the filler cap, otherwise just black sludge:
The engine bay now looks like this:
I'm at the point where I need to take the timing belts apart. Unfortunately the kit I bought doesn't appear to have the correct bits for the 190 cams - GRR! Looks like I may just have to do without...
With any luck, I can get this back together and up and running again...