Topic

My wife's pride and joy of over 14 years is injured - possibly fatally? car was run over winter as was normal practice to keep it turned over, however it lost all coolant which went unnoticed - oops! Result engine overheated all coolant lost and timing belt cover partially melted. Car is now at local garage - who have looked after it for sometime. The Boss (wife) wants it back up and running - is this a realistic possibility or has the engine been ruined. Any advice would be most welcome. Many thanks in advance.

I gather you're in Pomgolia (the UK), like most of the members here.
Given how many cars rust out overnight there, I would think there would be perfectly good engines readily available,
It would probably easier just to bolt one of these in.........and when you do, fit a bloody low water alarm, if you had one of these you wouldn't have blown it up in the first place!

He is right. The engine will be scrap. Consider the condition of the car as the cost of buying and fitting a new engine may well exceed the cost of another one once the first is sold for breaking.

Before writing it off too quickly, have you tested it?

Check oil is OK. does it look OK, or milky. If Ok:-

Fix original leak and refill system (with water initially to test).

Any water loss just doing that? If not start it up and see what happens.

You may be lucky, and just require the timing cover plastics replacing, but more likely oil seals and possibly head gasket/head damaged.

But what have you got to loose to find out?

If it got hot enough to melt the timing cover, it is close to seizure. The engine is 99.99% certainly wreckage, probably more.

My mates old MG Midget 1275 A Series overheated to the point where the plastic oil filler cap melted into the rocker cover. We got it going after changing the head gasket but it only lasted a thousand miles or so before the crankshaft failed, almost certainly as a result of the overheating. Given that that was an old all cast iron lump I can't see any way that a K Series would survive this sort of heat.

I'm with GORSQ on this one . Refill the engine coolant , find the leak ,check the engine oil and test for the enevitable gasket failure . Never assume all is lost .