2 holed pistons and destroyed bores: With pics!

Soldato
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Southport
Recently my friend's Rover 600 was running a little 'rough' (bobsleigh85 on here), losing power and smoking more than usual. Also, his oil level was creeping up... ominous!

It all came to a head, as the car started accelerating by itself on the M55 even when all feel were off the pedals. I overtook him in the ZS just as black smoke filled the motorway, and pulled onto the hard shoulder in front of the car just as he managed to stall it.

Under the bonnet, oil was absolutely everywhere, so immediate suspect was blown turbo. Although failures are unusual, it is on 134,000 miles so it wouldn't be out of the question.

We did disconnect the boost hoses, and try and start the car - it did run but was misfiring and rocking badly (even for a diesel!).
When we tried again the next day after having it recovered, it didn't start at all.

It has the solid canal-barge engine known as the L series, which is practically bomb-proof and just about the only reliable-until-hell-freezes-over engine Rover ever made, IMO of course. So we have absolutely no idea how this happened. :p

Have some pictures:

Oil, everywhere!

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The Rover returns to it's natural habitat, the back of a recovery truck.

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Fuel pump with belts removed:

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Happy faces! For now anyway. At this point we assumed turbo failure. :p

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The original turbo, next to the replacement we sourced. Note the slightly different compressor housings, we still can't get our heads around this apart from perhaps a casting revision at some point.

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All manifolds stripped off.

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Off with his head! :p Note the oil over cylinders 3 and 4...

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Holes in pistons 3 and 4:

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...and some epic bore damage!

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The 'ooooo, expensive!' look:

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Time to drop the lump and fit a replacement, I think :D
 
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Now I'm not exactly scared of a spanner, but likewise I'm no professional, but I can't get my head around how that would even happen? :confused:

What could/would be the cause?
 
You know what, I can't be arsed with the attitude of these forums to what I like to do in my personal time.

I spend my time posting something like this in the hope people will enjoy reading it, not just leaving a one word sarky reply!
 
Now I'm not exactly scared of a spanner, but likewise I'm no professional, but I can't get my head around how that would even happen? :confused:

What could/would be the cause?

We don't actually know, we just know something has let go in an epic way!

We're going to look into it more this coming Friday. :)
 
Just seems odd. If it had been one piston I'd have imagined something got between the piston and the bore, but with it being two of them, in what looks to be the same position, I'm rather confused.

And if it was something catastrophic, why not all four :confused:
 
Just seems odd. If it had been one piston I'd have imagined something got between the piston and the bore, but with it being two of them, in what looks to be the same position, I'm rather confused.

And if it was something catastrophic, why not all four :confused:

Duff rings forcing the pistons up the side of the bore, wearing the edge away? Probably way off the mark. I'd be wondering where the bits of piston are :S
 
Very strange. If it was a 2 stroke I'd point at lean running straight away. It's not though so I won't.
What an odd failure.
 
Just seems odd. If it had been one piston I'd have imagined something got between the piston and the bore, but with it being two of them, in what looks to be the same position, I'm rather confused.

And if it was something catastrophic, why not all four :confused:

It is very odd, just like the inner race of the diff bearing in the gearbox being worn away for no reason when we inspected that.

Cursed car? :p
 
Poor rover. My parents still miss there old one I have to keep them away from autotrader but still fear the day they bring another one home :p

Still I enjoyed the pics will you be making a thread when you fit the new lump :)
 
You can get bad ones, granted they have a pretty bad rep (just a bit!) but I've had 4 now, and aside from the 620ti (which I knew would go wrong a lot, and I have the bill to prove it :p ) they've been excellent.

But yeah, this doesn't help does it :p

That's rubbish and you know it :p

The ZS has hardly been the pinnacle of reliability has it?

Both of my Turbos have been pretty awesome reliability wise. Apart from well known weak spots (gearboxes), an alternator and a head swap on the red one (from when it overheated on the M6 due to no cooling fans) they've been spot on. The way you and Jamie drive, I'm not surprised you have problems ;)
 
The ZS has been pretty good, the clutch exploded due to a poor garage repair before I bought it. :p

It's had a hard life from me, and over 20,000 miles it hasn't been TOO bad. :)
 
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