P1585 Code Vanquish 2003
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The group who developed the fix for the 1585/1233 issues have migrated and set up astonowners.com where they document what they are doing. They recently fixed the DB9/V8V Volante roof modules and are now working on the door modules that fail.
They have also properly figured out what causes "the dreaded tick" and have had a rebuilt engine running for a year and 10K miles. The second engine is a 6.5 litre and will go back into a DB9 in the next few weeks.
The cause of the "dreaded tick" has been speculated about for some time. The hypothesis believed by most independents was that it was small end failure and AML changed the design of the small end bush when they went from the 450HP engine to the 470 HP engine.
However, while a ticking engine will often have a worn small end this is NOT the cause of the tick.
What is happening is that the cast iron liners are moving in the block. In any given V12 you will find some liners will have dropped by up to a thou. Any drop allows combustion materials to travel down behind the cast iron liner and build up between the liner and aluminium bore. This causes the liner to distort and go oval. In the most recent "ticking" block the liner was 2 thou undersize along the block and 4 thou oversize across the block.
All Aston V12's have the problem to a greater or lesser degree. The 450 HP DB9's exhibit the problem most often but we have seen DB7, Vanquish and DBS blocks with the issue.
We believe that this problem was engineered in by changes that were made to productionise the engine. AML had very limited engineering staff when the V12 came on stream and they sub-contracted a lot of work to outside partis. Someone made the decision to change from 1.5mm liquid nitrogen cooled liners being shrunk into a 12mm thick aluminium "bore" to a 3.5mm liner pressed into the block.
AML have known about the issue for some time if only because Prodrive who engineered the DBR9s for Le Mans "rebuilt" the engines by re-linering them exactly as has now been done by the astonowners.com group.
They have also properly figured out what causes "the dreaded tick" and have had a rebuilt engine running for a year and 10K miles. The second engine is a 6.5 litre and will go back into a DB9 in the next few weeks.
The cause of the "dreaded tick" has been speculated about for some time. The hypothesis believed by most independents was that it was small end failure and AML changed the design of the small end bush when they went from the 450HP engine to the 470 HP engine.
However, while a ticking engine will often have a worn small end this is NOT the cause of the tick.
What is happening is that the cast iron liners are moving in the block. In any given V12 you will find some liners will have dropped by up to a thou. Any drop allows combustion materials to travel down behind the cast iron liner and build up between the liner and aluminium bore. This causes the liner to distort and go oval. In the most recent "ticking" block the liner was 2 thou undersize along the block and 4 thou oversize across the block.
All Aston V12's have the problem to a greater or lesser degree. The 450 HP DB9's exhibit the problem most often but we have seen DB7, Vanquish and DBS blocks with the issue.
We believe that this problem was engineered in by changes that were made to productionise the engine. AML had very limited engineering staff when the V12 came on stream and they sub-contracted a lot of work to outside partis. Someone made the decision to change from 1.5mm liquid nitrogen cooled liners being shrunk into a 12mm thick aluminium "bore" to a 3.5mm liner pressed into the block.
AML have known about the issue for some time if only because Prodrive who engineered the DBR9s for Le Mans "rebuilt" the engines by re-linering them exactly as has now been done by the astonowners.com group.
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