Head removal

Took the head off to solve the oil leaking from the head gasket area. The Gasket was so old that it was "made in England". I wonder if they still make the gaskets there... It was flat and showed signs of leaking coolant and blowing between the cylinders. The advice from the people who will clean up the head was the engine is burning a bit of oil, and we should do a light service without going overboard (or do a total rebuild of the engine). I will take the advice!

Crankshaft pully oil seal, water pump replacement.

Finally got around to getting the crankshaft pulley (harmonic ballancer) off. I was able to slide two spanners down behind either side of it and gently rock it off. Underneath the cover it all looks pretty good, the timing chain and tensioner all look fine.

This is the felt seal that was leaking oil - apparently it was never much of a seal anyway. I am changing the cover and seal over to a later Austin 1800 unit, which apparently had a rubber seal that stopped the oil coming out... quite as quickly...
The water pump was a bit noisy, the bearings were going. It was pretty straight forward to source a NOS unit and install it at this point.