The 4A Engine Rebuild

[RogerH]

Hi Folks,

progress on the engine

Had a call from the machine shop. They are starting work on the head and have found a bent valve and one very worn guide.

Over the years I have not had any issue that would cause a bent valve - how do these things happen.

 

Anyway, should get all the engine parts back by the end of the week - horray.

 

I've managed to fit the pax door and get the rear wing to align pretty well - no worse than when I took it all apart a few months ago.

Hopefully I will get the NS wing fitted today.

 

Roger

[Geko]

Hi Folks,

progress on the engine

Had a call from the machine shop. They are starting work on the head and have found a bent valve and one very worn guide.

Of course they found a bent valve, in the vise, just after the valve stem hit the persuader.

[RogerH]

Hi Stef,

you must have a little twisted mind. It never occurred to me that sabotage was on the cards.

I was surprised he even told me. I thought all the valves and guides would have been changed as a matter of course.

 

Anyway, the rear nearside wing is fitted and the gap with the door is parallel - not exactly paper thin but even.

The front wing went on much more easily - again the gap is parallel but not the narrowest I've seen. No worse than before I took it apart.

 

Looking at how the rear wing fits the 'B' post something is amiss. Either the wing flange that abuts the B post is not right or the B post is set at an angle as I have had to put spacers between the post and the wing flange tapering from top to bottom.

One day this may be corrected.

 

Tomorrow the off side front wing will be fitted.

If there is time I shall start to prep the bonnet for a paint job.

There is a crack on the nearside towards the rear - some sort pf flexing must have been going on. The crack will be welded and a support plate attached underneath. I;ll do the same to the off side.

 

I hope the weather holds.

 

Roger

[Geko]

Ha no, I meant they must have found something a bit dramatic to make your waiting time worth its while, sort of !

[stuart]

Hi Stef,

you must have a little twisted mind. It never occurred to me that sabotage was on the cards.

I was surprised he even told me. I thought all the valves and guides would have been changed as a matter of course.

 

Anyway, the rear nearside wing is fitted and the gap with the door is parallel - not exactly paper thin but even.

The front wing went on much more easily - again the gap is parallel but not the narrowest I've seen. No worse than before I took it apart.

 

Looking at how the rear wing fits the 'B' post something is amiss. Either the wing flange that abuts the B post is not right or the B post is set at an angle as I have had to put spacers between the post and the wing flange tapering from top to bottom.

One day this may be corrected.

 

Tomorrow the off side front wing will be fitted.

If there is time I shall start to prep the bonnet for a paint job.

There is a crack on the nearside towards the rear - some sort pf flexing must have been going on. The crack will be welded and a support plate attached underneath. I;ll do the same to the off side.

 

I hope the weather holds.

 

Roger

Roger I have templates for the re-enforcing plates for the bonnet if you wish to borrow.

Stuart.

[RogerH]

Hi Stuart,

that would be handy.

I have TRouble re-inventing the wheel - they tend to be square.

 

many thanks

 

Roger

[Guest ntc]

Roger

Any use?

[RogerH]

Hi Neil,

that's roughly what I was thinking - many thanks.

 

Roger

[Guest ntc]

Hi Neil,

that's roughly what I was thinking - many thanks.

 

Roger

Roger

Copy the pic and print it,easy to make your own like that.

[RogerH]

Hi Folks,

today I hung the offside front wing in place and it fits as well as it did.

When the bonnet is fitted a general fettling will then be given to all the connecting parts.

 

I made a start on the bonnet refurb.

There is a crack on the near side flange about 12" forward of the rear corner. This will be sorted and the strengthening platres will be fitted at the back.

But first the whole thing needed a deep clean. The front end was thick with oily muck. Not oil as such but the effect pf oil fumes and road dirt.

A fair bit of corrosion was getting its tentacles wrapped around anything metalic. And there was some very dodgy rough edges on all the external flanges. These were welded and ground back

The rust that could not be dug out was coated in 'stuff'. That should be neutralised for tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow should be fun - Bonda Primer the front end (lower surface) of the bonnet and few other area. Fitting items back in the engine bay and waiting for a phone call from the engine workshop !!!

 

Will it ever end. Still, luckily its not over-running its five week schedule

 

Roger

[stuart]

Patterns are on their way Roger for re-enforcing plates.

Stuart.

[RogerH]

Thanks Stuart.

 

Roger

[RogerH]

Hi Folks,

strange things happening at the engine workshop

 

Spoke to them on Monday and they seemed to think they were getting on well - it has only taken them nearly 5 months to get started.

However they have a problem. As well as the valve with a bent stem they had to change the guide.

I asked why hadn't they changed all valves and guides - they had done something like 170K miles. Apparently they looked OK.

Sadly the new valve was as slack as a saveloy in a passage in the new guide - thank you Moss.

Today I popped into the workshop with a bunch of possibly good used valves.

 

One issue remaining was that the inlet seats had recessed a little. This was pointed out to me.

I pointed out - why didn't they put valve seat inserts in as they first suggested.

They reckoned that they could do that this afternoon. I suggested there timescales were not realistic and told them to button the head up and I'll take it as is.

It will be no worse than when it arrived in the shop.

 

I will be back next Tuesday to collect everything whether its done or not.

 

How can a professional workshop be so useless. I really am disappointed by this shower.

 

Roger

[Don H.]

Roger, do you really think you'll *ever* be confident in an engine machined by those jokers? Dontcha think it's time you bailed out and found somebody else?

[RogerH]

Hi Don,

the head will be usable but not special. I haven't got the time to have it done properly now.

So I shall build the engine and use it for this summer.

In the Autumn I'll get the head off and have it re-done by the people that I should have gone to in the first place.

The reason for not going to them in the first place (I've used them many times) is because their workshop is a tip. Their work is good but the workshop is a tip.

 

The place I am using at present is reasonably tidy but they have no idea of time and have a feeling they are a little light on knowledge.

 

Roger

[RogerH]

During the night I woke up with a start, which nearly made my heart stop - with all this stopping and starting I was in a tizzy.

My brain engaged the c rad index system and selected - engine builds and crank balancing.

 

The new crank has 8mm plugs at the end of the oil galleries. In fact the truth is they don;t have 8mm plugs ftited.

So at 9am I was on the phone to the workshop and right enough the engineer hadn't realised it. So that is one disaster sorted - but I am tired.

 

All this bu99ering around with the engine problems is causing me to do daft things with the body work and panels.

On Monday I started work on painting the bonnet. Primer on the bottom and top surface.

Tuesday I put the gloss coat on the bottom surface. All OK so far.

 

Yesterday I put the gloss coat on the top surface and it looked really good. Now I have a #7 spatula the paint goes on a treat.

 

After about an hour I noticed a swelling/puddle in the depression next to one of the big side curves.

Now I haven't got an answer for my next action but it was stupid in the extreme - I poked a finger into the puddle. As you would expect it was still wet and gloopy.

Worse still it wouldn't let go. As I withdrew my finger the gloop followed. I made a right mess.

 

But then it got worserer. I realised I hadn't fitted the corner strengthening fillets as talked about in previous posts.

 

Plan of action - I now had to repaint the top surface. The bottom surface would not be much affected by fitting these plates.

So if I fitted the plates now then all will work out. So today I made a couple of fancy plates to strengthen the corners.

 

These will be fixed with two plug welds on the plate rear edge with it sitting on the forward flange of the rear spar/box section.

The side flange will be spot welded together. A little problem here ::::: the spot welder jaws will not close on the side flange as the flange is set at an angle.

The answer I adapted was to file the tips of the jaws at an angle to allow them to come together as if they were flat.

Will it work - haven't a clue. Tomorrow should reveal what happens.

 

The spotwelder should put less heat into the bonnet compared to a plug weld so the top surface should be OK.

I'll try and get hold of some of that heat soak putty to remove as much as possible.

 

Once the plate is in situ I can then get on and finish the painting.

 

Hopefully all the body work will be de-rusted and painted by next Tuesday. The engine will be picked up on Tuesday.

Sometime within the next week it should be all together again.

 

I have also decided to get a new dashboard - the existing one is well shot.

 

Roger

[Nigel A]

Hi Roger

 

Snap

 

My car is also coming back from the paint shop on Tuesday

 

Fingers crossed it looks as good as his other work I've seen.

 

He must have been reading Stuart's posts, as he has used lead in a couple of places.

 

Cheers

 

Nigel

[Revolution]

Hey Roger

 

Had to chuckle at your "finger in the pie" scenario!!

 

Thought you might like the attached

 

Cheers, Nick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cartoon.doc

[RogerH]

[Mark1965TR4aBRG]

You make me feel like a fraudster Roger what with all your hard work and worry.

 

I decided on a new engine and a list of other jobs and drove my car to TRGB only to pick it up again a couple of months later and hey presto it's all good. I would really have liked to do the work myself but just did not have the time or inclination - besides Jason at TRGB builds damn good engines.

 

So now I've run it in, fitted the Webers and lumenition & rev limiter and will go test my new shift light in the easter sun today - before it chucks it down for the rest of the weekend.

 

Good luck on Tuesday and keep us posted!!

 

....have I missed the progress pictures?

Edited March 25, 2016 by Mark1965TR4aBRG

[RogerH]

Hi Mark,

there are sensible things and there are stupid things.

Myself, being sensible do stupid things - I'm a trained engineer don't you know

If I was stupid I wouldn't even consider doing things myself.

If I see an issue I jump straight in, no problem is too small that can escape my enthusiasm for making a mess.

 

Seriously though, this should have been a simple engine build with a bit of tarting up around the edges.

The 5 month delay has given me time to create one disaster after another.

 

But I can see a light at the end of the tunnel - the 11.15 from Paddington.

 

Roger

[Mark1965TR4aBRG]

You're an inspiration to all spannering enthusiasts.

 

I think three Christmas's ago I popped out to adjust something and pulled the head off!! On went the alternator conversion, hi torque starter, new cam etc etc etc. We're all slightly guilty.

 

Next on my list is to sort out the routemaster type gear leaver throw for something a bit more direct.... Any ideas??

[ChrisR-4A]

Hi Roger, I can inderstand your frustration, mine took 6 weeks and I thought that was a long time, but they assembled it as well.

Can you be sure they have fitted and decked the liners properly.?

Edited March 25, 2016 by potts4a

[RogerH]

Hi Chris,

they are only doing the machining, I will be doing the build.

They offered to assemble the head and i asked them not to.

 

I have a queasy feeling that I'll be doing a lot of this again in the autumn.

 

Roger

[Don H.]

...I have a queasy feeling that I'll be doing a lot of this again in the autumn...

 

Isn't the origin of the whole project to test the new crankshaft offering, Roger? To tell the truth, I may have lost the plot in this saga...

 

Taking it down at the end of the season might make sense to look at the crank anyway. You might have an easier time digging into the head again thinking that way.