172 PH2 Head removal help - water in cylinders 2/3

[MiniRebel]

Went to put new spark plugs in my project 172 and found water on the plugs for the two central cylinders, I did a degrease of the engine at the weekend using loads of water (as it also had loads of oil down the cam belt side of the engine), but when pulling off the leads they were dry and clean, the plugs had water on the part inside engine, but didn't seems to have any rust! But after restarting the car water did slowly drip out of the exhaust.

The reason for the new NGK plugs the car was misfiring when I got it, and with a broken off back box it was hard to tell how bad. Thought I might be able to get plugs and possible leads to sort the misfire.


These plugs were fitted they looked black with water on but no rust. Would these be correct for a 172?


Fitted these

My questions are:
Do head gaskets or heads often go on these cars? I looked in the forums and can't really see any one with this problem.
Does anyone have a guide to removing the head?
What would be the most likely place to look for an oil leak cam belt side?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Dan519]

ones you took out are for a williams. It'll have run ok, but they're not ideal

 

[Russ_16v]

head gasket failure is rare, welcome by the way!

 

[jon_r]

I'd imagine someone has put the wrong seal behind the dephaser.

 

[MiniRebel]

Thanks for the replies, OK being new to these cliosports pocket rockets I've heard of a dephaser, but not sure what that is so will look it up!

Looking at gaskets for the inlet as mine seems to have been sealed with sealant, anyone have any idea how much from renault as the ones on ktech site were about £40

 

[Russ_16v]

Those were probably ptfe gaskets mate, they are very cheap from Renault

 

[MiniRebel]

Thanks that's nice to know, it might not be as expensive, beginning to think it was going to escalate beyond my means.

 

[MiniRebel]

Already spent a few hours researching on this site, it's getting a bit addictive, thinking about what I need to upgrade, before it's even on the road.

 

[MiniRebel]

Decided to start back on the clio seeing as my last car was nicked and burnt out, so finally got the HT leads and battery I kept meaning to try and sort out this misfire, thought I would need to do loads more work seeing as I hadn't start the car for over a year! Like change the fuel out etc etc, but what the hell changed the leads and put the battery in, turned the key nothing much happened no surprise there, remembered last time I fired it up needed a bit more boost even though it was a new battery, so move the the other car over and jump started it, second go started to try and fire up, third turn of the key, it fired up and it now is using all four cylinders! Fantastic, just need to sort everything else but at least she started. Alternator, exhaust and brakes on the list next. getting it ready for the MOT