Guest username Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 Finally some more progress to speak of, after enjoying the cab for a few weeks I've decided to sort out the radiator support & in doing so went a bit further and stripped the manifolds and fuel injection system out as well. Plan is, along with the replacement rad support & cleanup of the engine bay I'm going to replace the thermostat housing & fan switch, clean/refurb and reset the EFi system and fit a few new sensors while access is easy, probably do the stem seals and certainly replace the rocker cover gasket as that's been leaking a bit too. Hoping when I get it all reassembled & adjusted up it should run a bit better. (Can't run any worse lol specially as I found the main earth lead had also been left unbolted when the seller botched the clutch into it! Might explain the occasional reluctance to start hot...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest username Posted February 18, 2017 Share Posted February 18, 2017 Half tempted to drop the whole engine/box out and clean & paint the lot as well as giving the bay a good clean and tidy lol... it's just so nice and solid under the dirt and grime... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest username Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 (edited) Well, engine/box are staying in and I'm giving it a cleanup in situ mainly due to time constraints and a new toy that has a blown engine so I need the driveway cleared for that swap... Got gasket set/stem seals/fan switch etc on their way though & I'm going to switch the fan through a relay to take the strain off the new thermoswitch as well as wiring in an override button for emergencies lol Also pondering whether to lift the head and fit a new gasket/bolts while I'm about it, since it'll give me a chance to assess the condition of the bottom end and give the whole thing a good clean out (did I say I was trying to save time here?) haha well I'm halfway there and it'll make the stem seal job a lot easier too... Edited March 7, 2017 by username Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest username Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 (edited) Well, head is off (a decision helped by finding the cambelt loose, although the tensioner bolts were still tight! a Gates belt as well... :/ ) and it looks strange in there, the faintest of faint cross-hatch marks left on the bores but with a small lip at the top of pots 1 2 and 3, not enough to catch a nail in but pot 4 is where it gets scary... There's quite a pronounced lip, but it's only on the sides of the bore (i.e. the NON thrust faces, along the line of the gudgeon pins), the front/back of the bore are same as the other 3. Also was noticeable play left to right with the piston at TDC. What could have caused excessive wear on the side faces like this? only things I can think are crank endfloat (negligible) or a bent rod (also unlikely IMO as the piston sits equal height to it's opposite number). Also I noticed the pistons are stamped with numbers, only issue I have with that is that from gearbox end they're numbered 2, 2, 3, 4... it has 2 pistons marked number 2 :/ were they numbered from the factory (meaning I have a mixed bag of pistons/rods) or could it be that a rebuilder just made a mistake when numbering up? Whatever it is, the rest of the motor looks in good shape for an 80's designed lump with over 100k so I'll lob it back together with the new bits and run it as is while I finish messing with the other projects and think about locating a CVH to rebuild, capacity/spec to be decided. Edited March 7, 2017 by username Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest username Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 Head stripped this evening. All but one of the stem seals were sat halfway up a valve & all are hard and crumbly just like Bakelite so not surprising it had a tendency to puff a bit of blue in the morning. Says something for the valve/guide condition that it didn't smoke worse TBH. Cam I'm not sure on, there's no scoring or other nasties and wear is even over the width of the lobes but I'm convinced it's about finished after 103k, looks like the case hardening has worn through on the lobe tips so it'll go downhill pretty quick if I'm right. Much as I don't like to put a sub-standard engine back together, I have other projects on the go too so it's going to be chucked back with new gaskets and top hat stem seals and run as it is this summer. Once the nights draw back in I'll look deeper into whether the block will take a rebore & how the crank looks but if no good it'll likely either be a fresh built CVH or ZVH as I don't want to lose the look of the top end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest username Posted March 27, 2017 Share Posted March 27, 2017 All back together and been for a short drive this afternoon, it's a small improvement over what was before & should last us while I find & build a fresh replacement lump to go in. Just going to enjoy the cab as much as possible and see what it fails the MoT on next month before deciding whether to keep it on the road for summer or not. Hoping it's only little things like a CV boot I noticed but we shall see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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