Thanks Guys,
compression was bang on in the green so no worries there, he says not overly confident..
Anyhow, the head is coming off...all thats left to do is get to those ever so lovely positioned
exhaust manifold nuts.. BUT...during the undo of said head bolts I found at least 2 maybe 3 of them
where rather easy to undo...not so torqued as the rest.
strangely enough in the same proximity as the leakage.me thinks the garage muppet who fitted the
last head gasket some 15k ago (before my time) neglected his mighty torque wrench.
So Danny P. me thinks your 2nd theory might be the biscuit, I'll know for sure once I've had a good
gander and stuck it all back together with another spangly head I have waiting for it.
Thanks for your help guys, hopefully this will be an end to the sad tale...failing that I'll be hunting down
a digi 8valve to slip in whilst I tinker with the broken lump.