Cylinder head markings causing oil leak

[DawieS]

I noticed an oil leak from the tappet cover gasket when I bought the car in February. After replacing the gasket, the oil leak continued. I then suspected a cracked tappet cover, and again stripped off and carefully inspected the plastic tappet cover. I found no cracks with all mating surfaces true and undamaged.

Some IDIOT had punched the numbers 1 and 3 on the mating surface of the cylinder head next to the exhaust camshaft, in line with cylinder no.1 and 3. What is the point? He already proved that he can count when deciding where to punch the numbers!!

The numbers were punched in so deep that the imediate area surrounding them swelled up proud of the mating surface by about half a mm, thereby preventing the tappet cover to seat properly. I had to fill the markings with liquid metal, and carefully file away the raised areas in order to create a true mating surface again.

This is yet another reason why I will never trust local service centres with my car, as they usually do more damage than they repair. Anyone else came across something similar?

[Smaky]

Yes but it's normally numpties stamping the crowns of pistons with thier cylinder number, if they took the time then they'd notice it was already engraved on the side of the conrod and end cap.

Though I don't know why you didn't just use some liquid gasket over the affected area to stop the leak, the seal would have been created perfectly without all that filling and sanding.

[DawieS]

I would never sleep at night knowing that the repair done is not perfect and requires redoing in future services.