Replacement Engine project

[peteracs]

Ok, I offered up the sump pan I was aiming to use onto a 2l block with 2l oil pump installed and yes it does not fit, ie it must be 1600 one, so went to my ‘storage facility’ for various oily parts probably not required, ie next to shed under plastic sheeting and recovered two sump pans. Both were 2l and yes they are approx 1cm or so deeper to cope with the additional pump height.

I think I will continue modding the 1600 and add it to the Spider as it is very noticeable that the oil pressure dips on cornering which has meant my spirited driving has had to be tempered to suit the engine, hopefully this baffled sump will restored some chuckability to the car without worrying every time…… the sump on the 1600 has to come off as there is a weeping of oil around part of the gasket.

I have picked the better of the two 2l ones and started cleaning, not my favourite job as as much oily muck on the outside as in.

Peter

[peteracs]

Back to the crank after having it sitting around for many weeks. GC recommends putting a teardrop relief into the main journal oil feeds to the con rod journals (see his book for details). I did this with some trepidation and thankfully largely succeeded using a small oval shaped burr. Not the easiest job and I still have to make sure that there are no rough edges to wreck the bearings! GC recommended final polishing with Scotch-brite pads and oil. He used the grey ultra fine which I did not have, so ordered a couple and will post some photos with the finished job, hopefully looking all pristine.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

A bit more work to do on the crank, so not yet finished, mainly cleaning before I put the new bungs in.

The other job that I have been on with for months, spending a bit of time on it every so often is tidying up the head and replacing the valve guides. The only other head I have modified was my old Mini head in the 70s, which went quite well given all I had was a couple of books by a guy called Clive Trickey (still have them). I had knocked out the old valve guides  and gleaning info from GC’s book, I set about tidying up the inlet and exhaust ports. The VX head has good sized ports already, so minimal amounts of metal needed removing is my understanding. After this a clean up of the chambers best I could without again removing much metal.

Then onto the valve guides. I sourced these bronze ones from AE Car (https://www.aecar.co.uk/) who also have various parts for the engine, bearings and head bolts etc. I discussed fitting of the guides with Jon at Stanwood and he gave me some useful pointers. First up was measuring the protrusion of the guide top from the head using a n other head. Having done this a suitable set of washers were found to give the correct amount. Also a set of washers were sorted to pack out the section on the guide where the valve stem seal fits. This was to avoid putting pressure on and hence damage to the that portion of the guide and to just put pressure on the shoulder below where the seal sits. Finally the same punch which I used to remove the old guides was to be used.

The next job was to make sure the holes where the guide fits was not too small for the new guides and hence cause the head to split when inserting it. Jon suggested approx 1 to 1.5 thou smaller than the guide diameter. I had bought a set of small diameter hole gauges which arrived damaged, but decided to go for a slightly more expensive and comprehensive set to hopefully get the holes as needed. All the holes were on the slightly small size thankfully and I used a small diameter flap wheel on a drill which was the perfect size for the 14mm hole to ‘hone’ out the hole to the size needed. After some cleaning to get rid of the dust etc, it was now time to see if I had got it correct.

It is interesting GC preferred installing the guides at room temp for both guide and head, just using lubrication, others suggest heating head or freezing guides. I decided the GC method sounded sensible and I proceeded with the first one with great trepidation…… I should not have worried as all went in ok, a couple were a little more tight than the others, but all went in ok. I used a hammer in preference to using the press as lining up the guides in the press would have been a pain and the amount of hammering was not excessive, unlike the original removal…..

So happy days, I now need to get a volume reading from the chambers as a start of working out the requirement to achieve the around 10.5:1 CR.

Peter

[WestonE]

Hi Peter

Impressive work and more than I have ever attempted as I paid GC for this.

Eric

[peteracs]

Jon at Stanwood has finally bored, honed and faced the block. A fair old wait to get this done, but at least now I can look to get it mounted on the stand and start dry building to see how it all fits together. Still have a bunch of things to be machined/balanced, but at least I can get on with some of the jobs I am down to do.