Base gasket warning

[TS1-200]

On the way to Warmwell last weekend after about 100mls My TS1 seemed to lose some power going up a hill, thinking that I was out of the power band, dropped into 3rd, and up I went no problem, next hill same thing, only this time it cut out, pulled to the side of the road, engine very hot & no compression, plug out to reveal light grey plug with ally deposits, obviously holed piston, bearing in mind this has been a reliable motor for the last 3 yrs. Why I thought, pulled it apart Monday, sure enough hole in the Racetour piston , cylinder off and it was clear that the base gasket had disintegrated, looking back a couple of months there was oily deposits around the exhaust stub which I put down to leaky exhaust gasket, I replaced this but the oily deposits returned, moral of the story is, if you have an oily exhaust manifold where it comes out of the cylinder its not necessarily the gasket. hopefully I can just hone out the marks in the cylinder.

[RICSPEED]

there was a thread regarding a batch of gaskets that did just that ,many describe the symptoms you have

[TS1-200]

I do seem to remember that, bit late now, but apart from the oily deposits, the only way to check is to take it apart, I don`t think for one moment that mine is the only TS1 running around with a failing(failed) base gasket, not so bad with an Iron GP engine 40 odd quid for a piston couple of gaskets few hours work and its sorted, Racetour piston £150 possible re-nicasil £120 not so funny, when I rebuild it I`ll do away with the gasket, Mark Broadhurst did say to me today they are doing ally .5mm base gaskets now for this reason.

[soosh]

not so bad with an Iron GP engine 40 odd quid for a piston couple of gaskets few hours work.

Know what you mean,and the iron would try and nip up 1st before damage to the piston too.