Most liked posts in thread: Engine Rebuild Videos

Today I drop the motor onto the gearbox.....my Spares order now says it will be here Friday (which probably means Thursday given the way they've been running lately) but either way it won't matter, I'm stopped till the order gets here as it has the new headstuds in it.....so the head can't go on till then, I still have a few more things I can do to get ready to drop the head on the block, and I have some cleanup and arranging to do before a new arrival hits the shop on Thursday too.

Stay tuned, same Bat time, same Bat channel!

One interesting thing happened with yesterday's video - because the radio was playing in the background, You Tube banned the video for copyright infringement! I had to use the "song mute" program to delete just that song - I listened to the video today and I couldn't hear any difference other than the radio disappeared out of the video for a bit, didn't seem to make any difference to the narration.

 

DHL dropped a few days early so I had the parts I needed to finish this build, coming along nicely now.

 

Nest up I'll drop the motor out of the green Mini and put this one in, I'm also going to do some brake work - rebuild the calipers and replace the rotors and maybe the rear drums as I get a fierce pulsation in both the pedal and the steering wheel.

 

Appreciate the kind words, I hope it's not too boring or not informative enough.

 

I know, I'm not as entertaining as those two, nor do I have an editing team to help with the filmography. In fact, my son pointed out to me that a couple of clips in the first video were out of order!

Next installment on it's way a bit later.....

 

Today I spent all day cleaning parts, I swear I spend more time doing that the the disassembly and re-assembly combined! The worst part is scraping off all the old gasket material, sometimes it is REALLY glued on there! And.........I'm still not done! I still have to do all the nuts and bolts and fasteners, plus paint any small bits, plus weld up that broken bracket, plus....plus....plus.....







I also got the main shaft torn down far enough to get the second gear synchro out figure out why it was crunching in second gear, but you'll have to wait till my next video for the answer - stay tuned!



I got all my parts ordered last night, and then remembered 4 more things I needed as I lay in bed, so got up early this am and sent an email off to Spares to see if they can add it to my order. I didn't get any reply today so either they didn't or it will delay my order some more. Shazbot!

Tonight's video is a shorty.....

 

Rebuilding an engine and/or a transmission is not just taking the old bits out and putting new bits in (unless you're Edd China) but also endless hours of cleaning parts, painting steel parts so they don't rust and corrode, running a tap into every threaded hole, chamfering said holes and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.....

You also discover where work was done previously, and in a lot of cases - how poorly it was done. You also find more worn or broken parts to either fix or replace as I did with the exhaust bracket....I'll weld that up later. I'll want to fit it on the trans first so I can tack it together in the right orientation.

I also found that this transmission had not one, not two, but THREE seals for the shift shaft! It also looks like they used a pickaxe to dig the old ones out and didn't bother to clean up the mess that made before fitting the five (three sir!) three seals back in. So I took a file to it to knock down the big burrs, nothing I can do about the digs in the metal, but I doubt it will leak from there anyway - I'll use a light coating of sealer just in case.



Speaking of sealer - if you don't know the correct way to use RTV, DON'T USE the damn stuff!

I have spent hours wire brushing the stuff out of the threads on the bolts, digging it out of the bottom of blind holes and cleaning it out of the threads in said holes. It also forms a nice little ring around the shaft of the bolt which sticks in the hole and is a mother to get out again! Bottom line, it's a royal PITA. Plus the way it was done on this engine it was still leaking!

The original gaskets have a sort of sealer impregnated in the paper/cardboard, so you really don't need to add additional sealer. When they're old like these they can be a mother to scrape off too. More hours......

Lastly, the steady bush on the trans that the shift steady bolts into was completely perished, the rubber was just jelly, so I had to change that as well. you have to be careful removing and re-installing one of these you can't just beat on it or you might break the casting for the diff. Since this one was just mush I pulled the inner part out then took a hacksaw blade and split the casing so I could drive it out. I also had to clean up the bore that it fits into so that I could tap it back in again.





So, all the parts are cleaned and ready for re-assembly. Parts are on the way from Spares and they did manage to add the extra parts I forgot, so maybe a week before I can start putting it back together. Once the parts get here I'll need to run the pistons and valves over to their respective machine shops, and it will be a week or more before they're done with the engine components so I'll build the trans while I'm waiting on them.

More as it happens.....

 

DHL has finally given me a ship notice, and they claim they will deliver next Wed, which means they'll probably be here Tuesday......so, the race is on! I think the parts from Virginia will hit first, but Ca or England is a toss up right now!

 

The next chapter - does it run?

Well, of course it does!

I warmed it up and retorqued the head, then fired it up again and ran for 20 min to bed in the cam. This is the final run up before I pull it out of the stand and put it in the car - that's a whole 'nother story tho!

​

 

The head is already down at the machine shop, tho they are waiting on valves and guides from me.....in the meantime I forgot to post a pic of how the head turned out - I don't have any good pics of the combustion chambers but here's how the ports looked when I was done......

I also did quite a bit down in the ports them selves to smooth the flow and remove bumps and such. I was limited a bit by the length of the shafts on my carbide burrs, there were some areas I couldn't reach as well as I wanted, but I figure anything I did is an improvement. I have a head for another engine here that was done by Keith Calver and I used it for my model.

Before and after.