Skoda Rally Blog

After the problems with the head, there was more work to do than before – first up was to check the ‘insurance’ head I bought a while ago on eBay – it hadn’t been very well packed, and cylinder 3 had two valves open on it (as it still had the cams in) and I was worried they may have been damaged, so they needed to come out to be checked, which fortunately showed they were in good condition.  In addition the machining in the ports on this head was a lot better than on the original head the car came with, so clearly VW cleaned up their act on them.  Next, the ported head was taken off, and everything readied for the new one to go on, which went pretty smoothly.  Fortunately the car has ARP head studs fitted, so they don’t need replacing each time you fit the head.  Unfortunately although the head gasket looked mint, I didn’t want to risk it so replaced it anyway.  £25 well spent there then.

Next up, I needed to check the cams’ timing, as they are adjustable with verniers and need to be set spot on.  Long story short, 2 hours led me to make measurements that were accurate enough to know I wasn’t a million miles out, but not accurate enough to know if I was a degree out or not.  But certainly good enough for the time being.

Now came the lengthy process of bolting everything back on.  On the Felicia this is a piece of cake – it’s a very simple engine, and as I’ve done it so many times I know it inside out.  But with the Ibiza it’s a different kettle of fish; I dismantled it ages ago, and it’s the only time I’d ever seen it.  So progress was slow and it was quite a game of Mechanic/Detective.  Most of the electronic things are fortunately easy enough to do, but some of the mechanical bits needed a fair bit of head-scratching.  By Sunday night, however, it was all back in one big piece, albeit minus the exhaust and power steering pump drive belt.  So I thought I’d try to fire it up to cheer me up a bit, but alas the battery was flat, so no dice at all – enough to turn the lights on the dash on and run the fuel pump, but no chance of turning it over.  I put it on charge and put it all to bed for the night.