This side of the pond, and within a stone’s throw from the German border, British Leyland was often referred to as Britisch Elend. Which loosely translates as British Misery. And today it was clearly illustrated (again I dare say 😳), to which they owe part of this bad reputation!
I was cleaning some alloy engine parts for the
new Sprint engine, after which these will be bead blasted. And while washing
away the accumulated dirt of some of the parts I found some signs of poor
quality control.
The first was the thermostat housing, which looked fine from the outside for an approximately 40 year alloy part. But it didn’t need a closer inspection to see the machining of the sealing surface was rather poor. After taking circa 0,10 to 0,20 mm off, the bad areas are still clearly visible. No wonder thick carton / pressed paper gaskets work best here!
The other part that slipped through BL’s infamous quality control was this 12 vane water pump housing.
At least this one already looked sloppy from a distance! But while cleaning it and removing some casting burs from the outside, I noticed something completely wrong internally.
As can be clearly seen in the picture above almost the entire passage from the pump to the radiator is blocked. This looks like it is caused by a fault in the casting mould. I have seen some poor casting quality from BL over the years. But not as bad as this one! Luckily the divide was only one or two millimetres thick. Which meant I could hammer it out with a punch. Now I only have to find a tool with which I can reach and remove the burrs. But that is for another day!
Though this makes you think. How could this still be fitted to an engine, that came out of a running car. Probably overheating and blowing head gaskets all the time or …!?
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