Dom's engine top-end rebuild

You've probably done it with all your timing larks but always turn over the motor by hand before pressing the starter to ensure nothing solid hits anything else solid.

When doing bike engine I always used assembly lube on cams, followers etc.

I didn't have any assembly lube but have used generous amounts of oil on everything as I was refitting and keep givin everything a liberal bathing every now and again.

I'll probably give it a good few turns with the starting handle when its assembled until oil starts to seep out of the rockers. I know this is all probably overkill but after spending a fortune and ages doing this I might as well give it a bit of elbow grease to ensure it works 1st time!

I'm not sure whether to try it before filling up with water or not. Putting the rad back is a bit of a PITA if I need to undo it all again. What would you guys do?

D

wouldnt worry about special lube as you plan is more than adequate to get oil round ,it will run okay for a few minuets with out water to try it ,i would just to make sure nothings amiss before fitting rad etc

Got a bit closer this afternoon. Put the lifting hooks back on the head - slightly more difficult than it needed to be because the old bolts were cross threaded!

Lifted the head about 1/4" off the block with an engine crane and put two bolts in to line it up then lowered it and fitted all the bolts semi-tight and fitted the rockers.

Not nipped up the tappets yet or the head bolts but everything spins nicely with puffing noises from the spark plug holes

Then I had to go off and meet the missus in the pub. So tomorrow should be D-day

D

The cylinder looks almost too nice to cover up.

Ha, yes, that head looks far too nice and shiny to put in my grubby motor!

Another frustratingly slow day today. No pics cos I left my camera at the garage.

Got all the ancilaries on like fan, alternator, fuel pipes, oil feed, dissy etc and gave it a test fire without the water plumbed in. First go was a bit disappointing with lots of pops bangs farts and smoke coming from the wrong places. Then I worked out I'd set the ignition timing all wrong. Second try and I got it running sort of ok but not idling properly. It sounded good when I gave it about 2500rpm but was either too rich or too lean. Plugs looked a bit wet so will try reseting the carb.

I'm not sure the oil is going round like it should. There was plenty going all over the place when it was backfiring but the tops of the rockers didn't seem to be squirting like I'd expect. Any clues on how to test this. When I was turning it over on the starter with the plugs out nothing much came out of feed to the head.

At one point there seemed to be smoke coming from the thermostat housing so hope the manic backfiring didn't damage the head gasket. Will fit rad and water tomorrow and see how it goes. Looks like the timing and carbs will need a fair bit of tinkering to get it running nicely....

Anyway I think I'm happy now....off for a well earned pint but I feel buggered. I'll probably nod off in the pub

smoke would have been steam from engine block drying from the heat of running,petrols allways take a bit of juggling to get running sweet often not completely till after a little run of a few miles or so

Well, I didn't get a chance to go to the garage today - my well earned pint turned into a not so well earned gallon and I couldn't get out of bed this morning.

Anyway I've been thinking about the possible oil problems. Are there any checks I can/should do? Running without the rocker cover didn't really tell me anything oil seemed to be coming up the pushrods when it misfired and blew all over the shop!

How much should be weeping/pouring/spraying out of the little holes in the rockers?

If I crack the seal on the feed pipe to the head while its running should it squirt out, seep out?

Any advice I don't want to bugger it up. On a series III I thought that the oil just went up the feed pipe but does it also come through the head gasket? Could I have put that on arse-ways?

up the pipe ,there is a feed holoe on the block face but its locked with a little core plug ,is used on 200 tdi though,if you have oil at the top its fine ,should splatter a little ,weeps out of rocker holes,

Ta, I'll hopefully get to have a proper look tonight

D

Managed to sneak away this afternoon while I waited for a process to finish.

First I thought I'd better satisfy myself that some oil was getting to the rockers. First I cracked the banjo on the feed to the head and turned it over...one drip weeped out after running the engine for about 30seconds...not good enough.

Second, I undid the pipe and turned it over to see if anything was coming out of the block....oh yes...lot of nice thick oil all down my leg!

It turned out to be the banjo bolt on the block was blocked with crap. How long it had been like that I don't know. It wasn't particularly tappety but I'm definitely going to give it a good flush through!

Next spent an hour or so prepping all the thermostat housing, pipework etc, cleaning metal pipes up as far as possible etc and filling with water. Somehow I managed whilst distracted to put it all together without the thermostat so redid that.

After that false start I filled up with 50/50 antifreeze and ran it for about 10 minutes at 2000rpm. It sounded ok when I started but was very rattly at the end of 10 minutes. I'm hoping its just the tappets need redoing.

I'll let it cool down and redo the tappet clearances and re-torque the head on Wednesday.

Nearly ready to take it for a test drive but thought I'd better come home!

Well spent a few hours on this today (mainly worrying about oil). It would have been longer but PC copper got me on the way to the motor factors...buggers had changed the speed limit without me noticing it!

Anyway after flushing the oil with ATF I got everything back together and it seems to run very nicely compared to before. I was impressed how well it set off when I'd got the idle mix about right then was even more impressed when I realised I'd left it in overdrive. So looks like I will be able to stick the 3.5 diffs straight back on which is good becuase the 4.7 on the back sounds like its about to eat its own arse at the moment.

I suspect I need a bigger progression jet and possibly main jet to do it justice (got a Weber 34 at the moment). It feels a bit flat when setting off but goes well with a bit of extra mixture. will run it for now like it is. Trouble is I suspect it is running rich at idle and not rich enough after.

I've got a wide-band lambda sensor for a bike-racing mate to try out...he'll have to braise me a hole for it on my exhaust pipe first though so I can have a play! Until then I'll have to make do with my colourtune plug to see what's going on. Tonight I just ran it up the hill outside my garage and see what it felt like in 1st and 2nd.

pleased for you ,jobs never finished though

Cheers mate, just been out to pick something up.

There's a long uphill drag near us (longest continuous gradient in the country) and my garage is about half way up. Made it all the way up in top except for the hairpin! Usually my clutch knee is aching by the top! Not sure if its faster - not risking another ticket but it's certainly got more low to middle end.

Well happy!

Took my landy round to my mate's garage today to ask him to braise a collar in for my lambda sensor. He's a bike racer and _hates_ land rovers with a passion. He relented when I said he could borrow my lambda set up for the TT next week. He must be the only one left in his class on carbs so should help him to make his fasterererer...I just want to make sure my up coming 1000 mile trip is cheaper!

Ooo, I'm off to the tt. Who is he(unless you don't want it public).
I love waving my appendage at people I have a remote connection to.

I'm sure they won't mind a bit of publicity! Stephen Ramsden and John McWhir, they're running a sidecar outfit roadracingsupporters.com • View topic - Steve Ramsden & John Mcwhir - CoN Sidecar it's one of the only ones still on carbs so I think they'll need all the help they can get to find a good setup for both the mountain and the windy bits. You can't remap your carbs half way round a corner!

I keep meaning to go and watch, my sister lives out there but I'm off to Le Mans 24hr the week after and need to earn some bier jetons!

Thanks but im a bit more of a solos man really as I used to race. Never the less I shall give them some vigorous gesturing.

Well, it still is driving better than before. I will definitely be putting the old diffs back on because now I don't need to change out of overdrive even on hills.

I've now fitted a wideband lambda sensor, rev counter and vacuum guage and been running around in it. I find that at low revs under load the mixture reading is up and down like a bride's wotsit. The vacuum guage reads spot on and doesn't wobble about at all so I'm suspecting that there's a problem with me ignition.

The dissy is a "new" (copy?) from simonbbc. I've ordered a set of electronic points for the future but need to get this running well before next week as I have to give the sensors to my mate...So I'm off now to get/borrow some new HT leads and rig up an over-spec points condenser (I've heard new ones are a bit hit and miss) out of some high voltage (10kV) capacitors I've got for vintage TVs.

For the rest of the rev range the mixture seems to be ok but I'm a bit confused by the behaviour on the over-run it reads super rich. is that just misfiring when it pop-pop-pop pop-pop-pops down hills - is my vacuum advance wrong? (It does what its meant to when I suck on the pipe!)

Crap day today. Wanted to try to get carbs tuned in - mainly for economy but also to stop them being stupidly lean at WOT / fast cruise as I don't want holes in me pistons....

Anyway it never seems to rev right and still "wanders" now with new cam, chain and rebuilt adjuster it should be more stable. So suspected ignition so got new condenser then tried to get a new set of HT leads. Set off for Halifax and my exhaust inter split at the hanger!

Halfords don't keep em, Charlie Browns looked at me as if I'd landed from Mars, ended up in an independant Asian place in Halifax and finally got 5 non-matching but ok leads.

Got back replaced all the bits and reset the gap after cleaning up the points (they were very pitted which is a bugger cos they've only done 4000 miles!)...no bloody change! then I had a brain wave.
1) Try blocking fuel return no change still wandering
2) Try blocking fuel feed no change
3) try blocking oil breather to air pipe and removing oil filler cap - bingo!
It's not chugging out smoke or anything obvious but there must be some kind of "feeback" going on? Does this sound like I've got piston problems?

Anyway played around with different idle jets and got it to idle an "progress" nicely but not got air or fuel jets yet so called it a day.

Here's some pictures of what my mate called my new "gay"ges...