Lancia Beta Forum

It's been over a year since my Spider 2000's engine expired, while in the hands of a French garagiste, and I've only recently been able to get the engine repatriated and bolted to an engine stand. I'm unable to strip the engine at our place in Sheffield, as my workshop is in the cellar and the prospect of getting a fully built engine down (or up) the cellar steps fills me with dread and a sense of my own mortality...

So the engine is on a stand in the utility room in Stafford, where it will be dismantled, and then the individual components will be ferried back to Sheffield for further work. While cooking the Christmas dinner I managed (much to the dismay of my wife) to remove the cylinder head and take photos of same and on Boxing day the sump pan, oil pump and oil scavenge pipe were removed.

I'm still awaiting final proof of what it was that caused the engine to stop in a partially seized condition.The engine could be rotated back and forth a few degrees, but any more than that and the engine would lock up solid. My current thinking, based on what I've observed of the cylinder head, is that the exhaust valve on cylinder #1 dropped in (for reasons as yet unknown), bending the valve sufficiently to only allow a few degrees of engine rotation.

Equally disturbing are the witness marks on both valves and pistons on all cylinders that would seem to indicate running with incorrect valve timing. A couple of years ago I'd given the car to a (different) French garagiste to replace the cam belt and do an oil/filter change. I'm unsure whether the marks date from that time, or from the few minutes of running the car managed after having its water pump and cam belt replaced (the latter not on my instructions) by the garagiste in our village before it cried enough.

Any comments gratefully welcomed. Here come the photos, in the following order:

Cylinder head, with very obvious witness marks on valves.

Another view of the valves. Exhaust valve on far right looks suspiciously off axis compared to others.

Close up of valves on cylinders #1 and #2

Birds-eye view of the block/pistons. Again - notice witness marks.

View of block from an angle. State of bores looks pretty encouraging. No gouging or wear marks that I can see. Motor only has an indicated 60k miles on clock.

Kudos for getting the head off during Christmas dinner prep!

Those witness marks are bad, particularly on the valve cut - outs. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find four or more bent valves and possibly cracked piston skirts too.

I wonder if the belt was incorrectly tensioned and jumped a tooth or three and you're now stuck with the auxiliary shaft lobe fouling No.2 rod. Witness marks on the rod next to the top of the bolt ( or on the bolt head ) would be evident.

Not sure I would get away with using the Utility room, no, definitely would never get that past the management, though if the only place.....

I think you are in for complete strip down and check each part and suspect as Stuart says, all the valves which have had contact will have some deformity and I guess the guides will need to be replaced as well, the bottom end should also be checked to see if that has sustained any damage as well as possible issues with the pistons.

Peter

Yes, the more I look at those photos the worse it appears. I can't believe for a minute that the car could have run for hundreds of miles like that (i.e. since the cam belt was replaced by the 1st garagiste). It has to have happened during the brief period the engine was run after having the water pump and cam belt replaced back in November 2015.

I'm not as concerned as I would otherwise be about the valve/piston contact due to the fact that I'm intending to fit Eric Weston's old Evo head, and brand new pistons and rods. As long as the crank is undamaged I should still be OK (he said, optimistically). Having said that it's a real shame that what had been a very sweet-running engine up until that point could be so easily wrecked by careless work.

The engine itself will be stripped down to its last nut and bolt and then refurbished from the ground up. I'm planning to give the crank to GC to check out, drill and plug etc., as well as balance it to work with a VX flywheel and clutch I'm acquiring. If there's anything remotely amiss with the crank I know GC will find it...

Graham

Definitely miss timing so expect 8 bent valves and maybe cracked valve guides. The pistons would probably be OK, but you would throw them away for the re bore this engine would be given for a re-build. It makes no sense to re-use the pistons at that age and mileage. So you have a sound crankcase and hopefully a sound crank for re-use. The head would be a reasonable base for a re-build with new guides and new valves.

At least you caught it before the rods broke or the pistons seized.

Eric     

Eric,

Yes, that's about what I'm expecting to find. The pistons will not be re-used, neither will the rods (I have some new GC Cunningham rods ready to use), so as long as the crank and block are OK it's not the end of the world. Very annoying, but not fatal.

How long would the engine be able to run in a condition like that? From the degree of mis-timing that's apparent from the photos I'm tending more and more to the view that it's the fault of the last garagiste I took it to (the one that replaced the water pump and cam belt). This would be consistent with his story that he left the car idling after completing his (botched) work and 'it just stopped and locked up'.

Graham

Graham

The last garage for sure. If this had been given load and revs it would be in many broken pieces.

Eric

What I don't understand is that he should have heard a 'tinging' noise as soon as he started it up and/or the belt slipped. Every apprentice mechanic must learn that you have to be dead careful on first start up after a belt change? Especially a relatively complex one like the Beta's. Then again, I guess people are just careless.

Yes, the more I look at it the more I regard it as a complete clusterf***. Greed compounded by stupidity and arrogance. The second garagiste was more interested in pointing out faults the previous guy had made (he'd omitted to secure the water pipe to the back of the bracket that has the pointers for the cam wheels) and was urging me to go and get my money back. If he'd paid more attention himself he wouldn't find himself in receipt of a large bill when I return to the village in April...

What really winds me up is that I did not ask him to replace the cam belt; he simply did that so he could bump the bill up. The cam belt had been changed only a thousand miles or so previously and the mileage it had been changed at was clearly written on the cam cover. I only wanted a new water pump fitting. As a result of this he's caused me a countless amount of inconvenience and a great deal of expense. I think I may be asking a French friend of mine to compose a letter to a solicitor.

I haven't stripped the head yet (been more concerned with getting the sump off and cleaned up), but when I do (probably first week of Jan) I'll post pictures up. If I've learned anything from this little episode it's to only allow people I know and trust near my Beta. Either that or do the job myself.

Thanks for everyone's help and comments.

Since I last posted I've managed to make some more progress stripping the engine down in fact the block, shorn of all its studs and ancillaries, is sitting in my van waiting to go to the local engine overhaulers to go in their hot wash. The crank has been removed and appears in generally good health, although I will only be sure of that once Guy Croft has pronounced on its status. When I measured the end float in situ it was 0.18mm (0.007") which is apparently right in the middle of acceptable tolerance (0.002" to 0.012"). This encouraged me...

I've sourced a 228mm VX flywheel from Millieman (thanks!) and that, along with the sump (sans OE baffle plates), clutch gearbox-mounted bracket, flywheel plates and other bits and bobs have been sent for blasting.

I stil haven't got round to stripping the cylinder head, and I may not do so for a while yet, as I'm very tempted to take the head 'as is' to the French garagiste that caused this whole sorry mess and confront him with it.

Now that all the bits are back in Sheffield I'll try and take some pics to illustrate progress.

Just a quick pic of the crank and the main bearing shells, bolts and caps bagged up. I was thinking of photographing all the bearing shells individually, but as none of them will be re-used I didn't really see the point. I can't feel any ridges or wear marks in the crank journals, so hopefully it's fit for re-use. There are signs of discolouration, but I'm hoping they will polish out.

Graham

Good Luck with the crank. It looks OK, but you will only know once GC has measured it.

Eric

Yes, planning to visit GC this coming Thursday with the crank. I'v just got all the parts back from the blasters and all looks good so I think we're ready. Presumably GC will need the crank, flywheel and clutch outer for balancing purposes? Guy did say he'd be able to check the important dimensions while I waited so I should know on the day whether it's viable or not.

I travelled over to Lincoln today and spent a very enjoyable and instructive morning with GC. The good news is that my crankshaft passed all of Guy's measuring routines with flying colours, has been given the GC seal of approval and is fit for purpose. That was a real relief, I must say. It was instructive to watch Guy testing the crank for runout with it mounted on a pair of V blocks and a dial gauge on the centre journal. As far as I could see there was zero runout, and the only time the dial fluctuated was when Guy had to apply pressure to turn the crank. What surprised me was the degree of deflection when Guy pressed with only mild force on the centre of the crank - it registered 10 thou deflection. So the crank is with Guy now to work his magic.

I mentioned to Guy that I was taking the block to an engine reconditioner in Sheffield to have it hot washed, and he suggested taking it to a place that he uses exclusively for such work (and a lot of other machining operations). As I was only using the Sheffield firm because they were local, and the firm Guy recommended (Stanwood Engineering) were on the way back to Sheffield (they're based in Bawtry, about 20 miles from Sheffield), I was happy to take him up on that. I was so glad I did - they have a tremendous operation, with some hugely impressive computer-controlled machinery and they also do a lot of motorbike stuff, so I can see a variety of ways in which I can use their services.

They will definitely be boring the block to suit my new Vick Auto-sourced 10:1 pistons; what was particularly impressive was the way that Phil was able to assure me that there would be sufficient meat for my 84.4mm pistons in the standard bores when overbored just by running his fingers around the bore tops. Apparently bore # 4 is the worst, but they should be able to accomodate any slight discrepancy. The're having an open day on August Bank Holiday Monday, and are expecting a lot of classic cars and bikes, so that sounds like a must-see.

Stanwood will be knocking out the core plugs, hot washing the block in a solution that is completely friendly to the auxiliary shaft bearings, then ultrasonically cleaning the block, and finally facing off the top deck to ensure it's completely flat. With that done, it should be ready for boring to suit my pistons.

So - it finally feels like real progress is being made, after all the false starts.

Heartened by the progress made yesterday, when I got home from work I decided to start the necessary modification of the auxiliary shaft, by cutting off and plugging the lobe used to drive the mechanical fuel pump. Photos shown below:

The unmolested shaft sitting on my vice:

The shaft wedged between two blocks of wood, ready to have its nose cut off:

Now in his books, Guy always uses a hacksaw to do the cutting. Personally, ever since I've discovered the delights of an angle grinder, I've always found it equally accurate, a lot quicker and a lot less hassle to use a cutting wheel in the grinder. Here's a pic of a cutting wheel for steel that I can heartily recommend; it's quite simply the best I've ever used. It's only 0.8mm in cross-section so cuts very quickly and cleanly and generates far less heat than thicker discs. And below is the end result. Actual cutting time was no more than than a minute or two, followed up with the results of a quick clean up with a flap disc:

With the lobe cut off, I measured the internal diameter of the oilway with a digital vernier. It came out at pretty much exactly 6.8mm. I was fairly sure that 6.8mm was the recommended tapping clearance for an M8 x 1.25 tap, but needed to check in my trusty Zeus handbook (shown).

Looking in the ISO metric coarse threads, I found the answer. I realise the flash has burned out the heading line, but if you follow the line for O.Dia. of 8.0, under the tapping drill column you will see 6.8mm, for a thread pitch of 1.25 (standard M8 coarse thread pitch). So the oilway hole is the perfect size for tapping for an M8 grub screw. I measured how much depth of oilway there was before encountering the cross drilling, and it worked out at at least half an inch (12.5mm), so tapping to a depth of 8 or 9mm and using an M8 x 10mm grub screw would be about right, leaving a millimetre or two of the grub screw sitting proud of the surface.

I checked on eBay and a pack of 5 M8 x 10mm high tensile (14.9) grub screws costs a miserly £1.10 including postage. That will do me fine. I just need to check that I have an M8 x 1.25 plug tap and then I'll be good to go.

Paid Stanwood Engineering in Bawtry another visit today, taking them a selection of camshafts, camboxes, cambox covers, cam buckets, and various seal housings and sundry items. I also took them my Vick Auto 10:1 84.4mm pistons as reference for when boring the block. If bore no 4 is outside limits they can resleeve that particular bore quite easily. The block itself has been through their hot wash and is virtually unrecognisable from the manky old thing it was previously. Even the core plugs have come up as new, and very much look as if they're stainless items. If so I probably won't bother replacing them.

Next step is the ultrasonic bath, which apparently removes the requirement to re-tap stud holes. The threads to clamp the head down will definitely have a tap run down them, but Jonathan reckoned for everything else it probably wouldn't be necessary. All the other bits will be getting the hot wash and ultrasonic treatment.

They've also said they are happy to do a 'short' engine build if required. If I go doen that route I'll do all the block preparation, dressing and deburring, following GC's detailed instructions in his books and will then hand the parts over for them to assemble crankshaft, rods, pistons, aux shaft etc. If nothing else, it saves me buying piston ring compressors. It all depends on price, of course.

Getting quite excited now...  ;D

Hi Graham

Great progress. I suggest you check every thread is clean and complete with a tap and be aware core plugs normally rust from the inside out and I have never seen a stainless set. I hope a flex hone will be used and you are right the head bolt threads MUST be cleaned out with a tap. I recommend the full bolt pack from GC for a neat job including the studs and nuts for the sump in place of bolts.

I have found sandblasting and silver spray painting the seals covers give a nice finish as long as you do not blast or paint the machined seal contact faces.

Eric 

Hi Eric,

Yes for the amount of time it takes, it seems silly not to run a tap down all the threads. The ultrasonic will have cleaned most of the crud out so it should be very simple to do. I think I'll get a fibre optic probe to have a look at the back of the core plugs. I have a complete set ready to go on, so it's no sweat to replace them. I'll check on the flex hone, but I doubt GC would trust his reboring to anyone that didn't do that finishing op. I've got to ring them tomorrow so will check.

I was thinking about painting the aluminium seal covers in the same shade I use for the block. Once they've come out of the ultrasonic bath they should be in a perfect state for paint. Bare aluminium always goes 'furry' over time if left untreated anyway. I'm currently thinking of painting the block silver, but that may change. I prefer a lighter shade, if only to quickly show up any possible oil leaks.

So you'd recommend using studs and nuts rather than bolts on the sump? I was planning on using A4 stainless bolts for the sump, but am open to suggestions.

Graham

I like the studs option on the sump because the nyloc nuts mean the sump stays fully attached in a way bolts never manage and it is easier to fit.

Eric

Eric,

Yes understand your point. I hadn't thought of using studs and Nylocs, and M6 nylocs in A4 stainless are readily available. I'll do same with mine. For added security you could Loctite the studs in place, as well. Nothing would work loose then.

Graham

Yesterday I got the call from Stanwood Engineering that my block and sundry engine parts had been through the hot wash and ultrasonic cleaning, and the block had been bored to suit my 84.4mm pistons, without the need of any special chicanery; there was enough meat on the standard bores to do a straight, clean rebore and flex-hone.

So in order, we have:

Various bits and pieces in boxes and trays as picked up from Stanwood:

A couple of views of the block; firstly from above, showing off the deck facing I'd asked them to do, and then from the side, with the flex-honing marks clearly visible. Given the state of the block when they received it, it's scrubbed up particularly well:

When I first arrived, Jonathan told me he had some good news (the block rebored without any issues) and some bad news. The bad news was that both sets of camshafts I'd taken in to them had reacted adversely, and in a way that they'd never seen before, to the ultrasonic cleaning process. The standard cams had shown the worst reaction;below is a photo of the base circle on one of the OE cams. The other OE cam was only marginally better.

It also emerged that the 'Kent cams' that I'd bought secondhand and thought were billets were in fact re-grinds. These weren't quite as badly as affected as the OE ones, but still showed a fair amount of marking. Had I inspected them closer I should have noticed 'FIAT' stamped into the shafts, but it's far easier to see now than when they were dark brown and with a film of oil on them. The surface markings aren't as bad as on the OE cams, but still don't augur well:

Jonathan was very apologetic about it and without any prompting offered me £50 +VAT off the overall price, which was welcome. I can't see how ultrasonic cleaning could have caused such a reaction unless there was some underlying prior issue with the cams. It's a process that is ubiquitous in the automotive industry.

After thinking about it a while, I gave Kent cams a ring and told them my story. They said that it may well be possible to do a very light grind on the lobe faces, taking off around 10 thou to clean up the faces. I'm going to send both sets down to them for their inspection and will probably be guided by their recommendations, unless anyone here has an opinion to the contrary.

Every other component, including the auxiliary shaft, came out just fine. It was just the camshafts that had the adverse reaction. Very odd. I'm not sure whether I should start looking for another set of cams or whether to wait until Kent have given their opinion.

Did the cams need the full clean? Even if not I, like you, wouldn't have expected such a severe reaction.

Probably not, but it seemed like a sensible move at the time to add them to the other parts that really did need the clean/ultrasonic bath. I was wondering what people's view of cam regrinds were. Are they as awful as GC makes out, or is he simply following his normal doctrine of perfection? I've no desire to build this engine with a substandard or flawed part, but if it's just a question of using thicker shims to compensate for the reduced base circle, I'm not sure what the problem is.

Hi Graham

Sadly I think your cams are scrap and a light skim would not give a good hardened surface. I would not want to risk it. For information (far too late) with cams scotch bright and brake cleaner is normally enough with sometimes 400 the 800 grade dressing where there is oil seal rub.

I have some Bayless cams that might do the job for you, but this might be the point to source another Beta 2000 standard exhaust cam and a GC 3A inlet cam along with GC Vernier cam wheels. If in doubt send GC your cam boxes with the exhaust cam and have him dial in the cam timing for you, unless you really understand this and have the dial gauge protractors and set up plates. Precision timing really can make your engine fly and the CG 3A standard exhaust is a good mix for around 170BHP with 150 FtLbs and revs low enough not to need forged pistons.
PS make sure TDC is perfect when you build the engine and very clearly and precisely marked i.e. not using the cam belt cover.

Good luck

Eric 

Yes Eric, I think they are probably scrap as well. Isn't the GC3A cam getting slightly overkill for my engine? I really want a good torquey, tractable motor that doesn't need to be red-lined to get maximum effect. It will be spending most of its life in the 2000-6000 rpm range with an occasional foray past 6k. I'm aiming for around 155-160 bhp with a broad spread of usable power. And what kind of spec are your Bayless cams? I'll be using the Vernier cam wheels I bought from you many moons ago - they're currently away having the purple anodising replaced with something less lurid.

I might have a strada 130 exhaust cam and also a standard IE inlet/exhaust, finding time to dig them out might be another question though 😂 let me know if you are
interested and I'll see what I can do

Hi rossocorsa, I'd definitely be interested in a pair of IE cams, as it was always my intention to use the standard cams as a fallback position if the Kent cams weren't up to snuff. Is the Strada 130 exhaust cam regarded as a performance booster? If so, I may well be up for that as well. I'm not in a tearing hurry as the bottom end probably won't be rebuilt until May/June at the earliest, but I would like to secure the parts I will need in the future.

I'm using the 130 inlet on my VX not using the exhaust cam as that would be a bit OTT with a blower. It is higher lift and slightly wilder than a standard cam. I'll try to have a look for them but in don't have much time at the moment so remind me if I don't get back to you within a couple of weeks.

OK, no problems. I'm in no rush, just trying to make sense of this setback, really. Thanks for the offer - much appreciated.

Hi Graham

The 3A inlet standard 2000 exhaust cam combination is a nice one for a broad spread of torque and keeping the revs well within the cast piston 7200 RPM rev limit. Not a peaky narrow power band and a common conversion for Monte engine re-builds on road cars using 10:1 or higher compression ratio and a gas flowed head.

If you fit a pair of 3As then you will potentially see more power i.e. up to 200BHP but that peak power will be somewhere like 7700 rpm with a rev limit at 8500. That would break cast pistons!

A Strada 130TC cam has 0.5mm more lift but less duration so not much different than a standard Beta or Monte 2000 exhaust cam for your needs.

Eric     

Hi Eric,

Thanks for that; I don't think I'll be going down the inlet/exhaust GC 3A route...! But a 3A inlet/2000 exhaust does sound interesting. Whatever happens I will want a pair of standard 2000 cams as a base setting, I think.

I meant to ask you further about comments you made in an earlier post:

If in doubt send GC your cam boxes with the exhaust cam and have him dial in the cam timing for you, unless you really understand this and have the dial gauge protractors and set up plates. Precision timing really can make your engine fly


So GC will only need my cam box(es) to set up the cam timing? I'd like to give GC the top end and get him to build it up complete, but I don't know if I can afford the bill. I think I need to read and re-read the sections in Guy's books regarding rebuilding the top end.

PS make sure TDC is perfect when you build the engine and very clearly and precisely marked i.e. not using the cam belt cover.


I've got a dial gauge with spark plug inserts to ascertain TDC. Will that be sufficient?

I had a chat with GC a few days ago and he mentioned that the limiting factor on whether I could run the 3A inlet/OE exhaust cam setup will be the depth of the valve reliefs on my Vick Auto 10:1 (allegedly) pistons, as the 3A cams have considerably more lift than OE. I foresee a lot of dry-building going on before even the bottom end is finally rebuilt. GC said that you need a minimum of 2mm piston crown to valve clearance and preferably more, so this is something I will need to be certain and get right.

In other news, I've received my sump pan back from blasting and had the BetaBoyz sump baffle kit welded in. After these photos were taken I decided to get another couple of tacks welded in, one in the middle of the 'short' near side and another on the long rear side of the sump. Everything looks and feels good and solid now.

The only thing that concerns me a little is the degree of corrosion and pitting on the front face (presumably where it's been peppered by stone chips). Does this look like the thickness of the steel has been adversely affected?

I'm toying with the idea of treating the spots of flash rust that have developed since blasting (in spite of being kept in a warm, dry environment) and then skimming the front face of the pan with some JB Weld or similar epoxy resin before priming and painting. Does this sound a good idea or am I over-thinking it all?

I presume you've done a trial fit on the sump? I found out a pain in the proverbial to fit in the vx a lot of fiddly adjustments to get it near right. I can't see a problem with filling the sump exterior is the only way to get a really nice finish.

No, the trial fit will come when I get the block back on my engine stand. I'm not expecting it to exactly fly back on... Before I do that I'll be looking for some stainless M6 studs to Loctite to the block, rather than using bolts. Then I can use nyloc nuts to fasten the sump to the block and be as sure as I can be that nothing will vibrate loose.

But I'm sure the bead blasting and welding will have distorted the sump to a degree that it will be a pain to fit.

Studs are definitely the way to go but of course they make fitting the sump in situ more awkward, easy whilst on a stand. The baffle kit might interfere with the oil pump and/or the return pipe, I'd recommend trial fitting before you go much further.

GC is currently refurbishing the oil pump and doing his thing with my crankshaft, so when all that comes back I'll give it a trial fit. I'm in no rush and want to make sure everything is correct. Probably best to do the trial fit before I start any cosmetic filling, as if the sump needs some (ahem) encouragement that could cause any filler to drop off.

Hi Graham

I agree on the trial fit before finishing paintwork filling the outer sump surface and painting is cosmetic, just be VERY careful to clean the sump internally before fitting finally. I found the sump easier to fit with studs.

Every Beta should have a sump like this the original is hopeless even for enjoying corners on the road.

Eric   

I've a number of threads referring to the (extremely slow) progress on my Beta Spider, but this has the most information so I'll carry on with this one.

The engine block has been painted and the bare bottom end (crank, rods, pistons) has been assembled by Stanwood Engineering and the short engine has been sat on an engine stand for best part of 6 months. My initial plan was to hand the short block, plus the modified head I bought from Eric ages ago, along with all the other bits and pieces (cams, camwheels etc, etc.) to Guy Croft for him to complete that part of the build.

When I rang Guy he politely but firmly informed me that he would not be pepared to assemble and dial in a cylinder head that had been fettled by another tuner (in this case the late Barry Waterhouse of Evo Engineering). This left me in something of a quandary, and the only way out seemed to be to repatriate the original cylinder head from the engine that suffered a major mishap in France and get Guy to use that, as I know that head is bog standard and as it left the factory.

I brought the head back with me from France last weekend and duly set about cleaning it up and removing the valves. Below are photos top and bottom of the manky thing as it arrived back from France. And once I'd removed the valves, the true extent of the damage wreaked by the French garagiste became painfully clear. Only one valve, possibly two, survived unscathed:

I then set about the head with a can of Jizer and a brush, followed up by lots of hot, soapy water. After that I removed as much of the remains of the old head gasket as I could. It certainly looks a lot less manky now, even if it's a long way from Guy's expected standards of cleanliness:

The next step is to take the head and the pieces of valve train that will be re-used (collets, top and bottom valve caps) to a local firm that specialises in vapour blasting. After that I'll run a tap through all the threads and de-burr where appropriate, by which time it should be in a fit state for Guy to work his magic.

Hi Graham,
Given that you appear to need new valves anyway, are you going to ask Guy to put in larger seats for the inlets?
Chris

Hi Chris,

I did think about that, but have decided to go with standard valve sizes, inlet and exhaust. Cost is definitely a consideration here. Last night I ordered a set of Vick Auto inlet & exhaust valves, along with valve guides and had them sent to a friend who lives in Idaho. He'll ship them to me as a 'gift', hopefully avoiding the steep import duty most items from the US attracts. The whole lot came to 92 dollars (plus 15 dollars shipping within US) and are available off the shelf, so quite a saving.

I'm not aiming for such a lofty target bhp-wise as you. I'll be very happy with 150-155 bhp as long I have good drivability and torque. I'll be using standard cams, Vick Auto 10:1 (allegedly) pistons and DCOE 45 Webers with 36mm chokes and GC offset manifold. I'll get Guy to gas-flow and do his stuff on the head to suit the pistons and also do the top end build and cam timing. The car has a 4-2-1 exhaust fitted already, but the other improvements should help realise its potential (hopefully). I've also acquired an MSD ignition box with matching coil, which I'm hoping will further improve drivability, starting and low speed running.

Just don't ask me when it will all be finished!  ;D

In an attempt to break the logjam and get this thing moving, I took the Barry Waterhouse/Evo head to stanwood Engineering along with my GC Beta manifold (for DCOE Webers) and the set of triple valve spring I bought from Guy a while back. They will match up the manifold to the Beta Inlet tracts and generally strip, inspect and tweak as necessary. The valve that are fitted look in OK shape, but a stripdown will confirm or deny this. I have a full spare set of standard size inlet and exhaust valves (and valve guides to suit) that I bought new from Vick Auto in the USA, so these are backup if needed.

Once I've got the bottom end of the engine ready (a lot of assumptions in that brief and flippant statement) I'll take that and the rest of the top end (cams, camboxes, vernier camwheels etc. etc.) and they have agreed to do the final build. This gets round the problem of Guy not being prepared to work with a head modified by someone else, basically by giving the job to someone else.

All the dealings I've had with Stanwood have been absolutely A1, and indeed Guy uses them for a lot of his work. The GC Beta manifold is machined by them, and Guy personally recommended them to me. Ironic that Guy's perfectionist approach has nudged me towards giving Stanwood the work that I had intended Guy to do. I wonder how much other work he has passed up as a result of that approach.

I'm not knocking Guy here, in fact I'm slightly concerned that he may be painting himself into a corner by his insistence on not trusting anyone else's work. I logged into his site recently, and it really is a bit of a ghost town these days. Guy was bemoaning how times are hard and work is scarce, but I think the answer is in his own hands.

Well, it's taken a while, but my engine is now entirely in the hands of Stanwood Engineering. They already had my cylinder head and inlet manifold, and on Friday of last week I took the short engine, flywheel, cams, camboxes and assorted valve train components, fasteners, gaskets (including the MLS head gasket sourced by Eric Weston) down to Bawtry and left it all with them. As everyone else has they have suffered major challenges due to Covid-19, including a complete shutdown for 2-3 months earlier in the year, but now they are back in harness and are absolutely deluged with work. Thankfully I have now progressed to an active slot in their scheduling, so I can only hope that 2020 will see my Spider engine completely reassembled; some 5 years after it suffered its terminal mishap at the hands of an incompetent French garagiste. No-one ever said this would be easy...

Hi Graham

Perhaps send them some ARP M10 Head studs from Delta Parts https://deltaparts1.wordpress.com/deltaparts-shop/engine-parts-modified-section-2/ They need thread sealant going into the block to stop water creep but are stronger than any bolt solution and a fine match for the gasket. ARP's website has fitting instructions and them come with the right installation grease.

I hope the is helps.

Eric
PS I use them on the Montecarlo and the Spider VX.

Hi Eric, I'll check those out. Guy has supplied me with a set of his M10 allen head bolts and heavy washers - will these not be good enough?

Hi Graham

The parts from Guy will do the job nicely. Studs are better but you do not need them if you have the GC bolts for your application.

Eric

Thanks Eric.

I received a phone call from Stanwood a few days ago advising me that my engine had been completed, so on Friday I drove down to Bawtry and collected it, spurred on by the fact that South Yorkshire would be heading into 'Tier 3' Covid status at midnight of the same day. Foolishly I didn't take a camera with me to photograph the engine, as I was more preoccupied with how I would unload the engine at the other end of the journey. But all worked out fine in the end and the engine, sat on its home brewed wooden 'dolly' is now ensconced in the corner of the breakfast room adjacent to a radiator in the house in Stafford. Pictures will follow as soon as I can get back there.

The next step is to dress the engine with all the ancillaries - water rails, brackets, cam belt cover, starter motor, alternator, distributor etc. etc. Which reminds me - before I can refit the distributor it needs to go for a full refurbish - something I should really have organised while the engine was away being re-built. Ho hum...

It's taken me this long to get back to where the Beta engine is being stored, what with lockdown etc. I had a brief chance today to take a few quick pics of the motor swathed in industrial grade clingfilm and mounted on my home-brewed trolley (for ease of movement). I particularly like the one of the gold powder-coated cam boxes seen through plastic. Reminds me vaguely of a Cocteau Twins album cover...

I'll leave it in the plastic wrap for now, but I need to start dressing the engine with all ancillaries, and will need to get the flywheel on soon as well. At some point it will need to leave the trolley and be returned to the engine stand which then means it takes up a lot more space. At present it's tucked away in the corner of the dining room, close to a radiator. Unfortunately this happy arrangement cannot last for long.

That is a very nice trolley and I like the engine as well!

Cheers

Eric

I've never liked the idea of an engine sitting on the floor on its sump pan. And it makes life much easier if the engine can be moved around the place easily. The castors are rated at 160kg each, so easily take the weight.

I'm currently working on a cunning plan to mount the engine to my engine stand using the 4 x M8 tappings arranged in a rectangle just above the sump on the back of the engine. GC used these mounting points for most of his engine builds, but it will need an adaptor plate made up before it will fit on my stand. So today I've been drilling a mixture of 8mm and 12mm holes in a piece of 12mm plate using my trusty Startrite Mercury pillar drill. Next thing is to make some stand offs from 25mm rod, but that can wait for another day.

The soft gold cam covers are very attractive , I might have to copy those Graham . ;)

Cheers, glad you agree :) I did think about a number of colours, but figured that gold would work with the blue of the engine bay and add a touch of class. It also works with the Hammerite silver of the block and the bare ali of the cylinder head.

I've at long last removed the shrink wrap from the engine that's come back from Stanwood and teried to re-acquaint myself with what are my next steps. The first thing I intended to do was to re-fit the piece that provides timing marks to the OE camwheels, connects to the top water rail and provides mounting points for the cam belt guard. As soon as I came to fit this I realised that it was an impossibility as the engine nw has adjustable camwheels fitted and these are far bulkier depth-wise. I did a trial fit and it was clear that to be able to fit the piece it would need a standoff of approx 10mm, which would of course push the cam belt guard out by the same amount. Does the fitment of adjustable camwheels of necessity mean that the timing mark indicator can no longer be fitted (or will require serious surgery)?

Hi Graham You might need to be the pointers straight before fitting it. Alternatively just cut them off so there is no touch on the cam wheels and use the raised casting on the cam carriers. I actually use a diamond file line on the cam inside the cam box with reference scores in the cam box under the cover.

NB this is more accurate and something I do building the engine up marking 100 110 and 120 reference positions using the GC approach for dialing cams in.

Eric

I was wondering how you went about lining everything up when changing belts using adjustable camwheels, so thanks for the pointers (no pun intended...) I think I'll try and acquire a secondhand item and butcher that, as the one off my original engine has been plated and I'd rather not hack that about. I think cutting the pointers off makes most sense - remove any possibility of obstruction.

Yesterday I was able to spend some time on the Beta engine but accomplished the square root of bugger all, although I have expanded my knowledge of bolt thread pitches and sizes. Peter had very kindly sent me a spare pressed steel bracket that contains the timing pointers to match up with the holes in the OE camwheels, and I had butchered that to my satisfaction such that pointy pieces of metal no longer interfered with the bolts on my adjustable camwheels. Verifying that fact was to be the sum total of my achievements for the day.

I was intending to fit the top and back water rails, camwheel bracket, engine stabiliser/water rail bracket, oil breather and make a stab at getting the distributor approximately timed up. I was thwarted in all these attempts, mainly due to the interconnected nature of most of the parts mentioned. To fit the top water rail I knew that I needed socket head allen bolts to fasten it to the head but had overlooked that fact that I needed a long ball head driver to get at the bolts that shelter under the rail. I could have tightened the bolts down with an allen key but really wanted to torque them up equally and accurately and for that I need the long ball head driver.

At the same time as trial fitting the top rail, I fitted the camwheel bracket as they bolt up together. The bottom fixing (bracket to cylinder head) has quite a shallow tapping in the head. I tried using an M6 x 16 allen bolt, but that bottomed out before clamping the bracket. I then tried the only other short bolt I had (M6 x 10) but that didn't have enough thread in play for my comfort. So, on to eBay to grumpily order some M6 x 14 stainless allen bolts.

I next turned my attention to the back rail, and started looking for the sheet of gasket paper that I know I have. After fruitless searching everywhere for half an hour I gave up, frustration levels rising.

I then decided to trial fit the engine stabiliser/water rail bracket and see how it all lined up with the water rails for a trial fit. I'd bought new stainless bolts for this, an M10 x 30 and an M12 x 35, both in coarse thread. The M10 screwed in nicely but the M12 bolt jammed after a couple of threads. I tried various M12 bolts I had in fine and coarse pitch and none would screw in further than a couple of threads. By now small amounts of steam were starting to escape from my ears. I later learned, after trying out various taps in my spare cylinder head, that the M12 bolt has a thread pitch of 1.25 (fine/extra fine), but the M10 bolt is a standard 1.5 coarse pitch thread. Good old Lancia... Hit eBay to order M12 x 1.25 x 35mm bolts.

Casting around desperately for something to achieve before I had to come home, I tried the oil breather, freshly returned from the vapour blaster and with a new right angle rubber hose. I'd even had the spring clips electroless nickel plated. Except that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the spring clips to fit around the tube. I can only assume that the 'new' tube has a thicker cross-section than the tired old one. After grovelling around on the floor for the sixth or seventh trying to find the escaped spring clip I gave up and (eBay again) ordered some double ear Oetiker clamps of the right size. Completely flattened by now, I didn't even attempt to time up the distributor...

Not one of my more successful days...

I can relate to days like that. You have solved multiple problems so when you revisit it is strangely easy. I have built up kits of bolts to have them to hand so now I just waste loads of time choosing bolts and maintaining the stock!

Plating is fantastic for creating good bolts from large buckets of old bolts. BUT you have to sort out all hose shiny bolts into some form of order and storage which makes watching paint dry seem exciting.

Eric   

Thanks Eric. I went through the exercise of sorting out my collection of hex head bolts/nuts and Allen bolts into M4/M5/M6/M8/M10/M12 classifications a while back. I think I now need subdivisions for fine and extra fine. I could probably cover a small wall with bins with the variations I have if I had the space.

Graham

Went back for another try today and experienced further setbacks, the main one being the rear water rail efusing to line up with the multi-functon bracket that bolts into the head by cylinder 4. It's not even as if it's close - the holes in the back rail bracket are 10-15mm distant from those on the main bracket and will not be persuaded to get any closer. I have two back rails and sent the least corroded one off for electroless nickel plating some while back. This is the one that refuses to fit. I'll dig out the other water rail and try that, but is anyone aware of any variation in these parts between models/years? The back water rail was fixed to the water pump housing but not tightened up fully, allowing the rail to move within reason.

In other news the universal oil filter block adaptor/take off point for an oil cooler arrived today from Torques UK, and it's bang on. Just what was needed. Very impressed with their knowledge and prompt service.

Here's the link to the bits I ordered:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Torques-Universal-Oil-Sandwich-Plate-Kit-In-Black-AN-10-JIC-10-3-4-UNF-M20x1-5/360783211905 (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Torques-Universal-Oil-Sandwich-Plate-Kit-In-Black-AN-10-JIC-10-3-4-UNF-M20x1-5/360783211905)

And as I won't be fitting an oil cooler until the engine is reunited with the body, I ordered a pair of blanking caps:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AN-10-AN10-AN-10-7-8-UNF-End-Cap-With-Viton-O-ring-Seal-In-Stealth-Black/173545902844 (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AN-10-AN10-AN-10-7-8-UNF-End-Cap-With-Viton-O-ring-Seal-In-Stealth-Black/173545902844)

The water rail thing happened with my previous 1300 Coupe when I changed the water pump. All done in situ but I removed the flywheel end bolt to make fitting to the pump easier. Once the new pump was fitted I was never able to refit that bolt, like yours it was a good 10mm out.

Yes, I've fitted a 'new' (NOS) water pump that has the deeper Monte/VX impeller so that could well be it. I'll be trying out my spare back water rail, and may well resort to removing the bracket and either welding it back on in a better location or making up a new bracket and welding that on. At least with the engine out of the car and not in use I have slightly more options.

Thanks for the confirmation. I thought I was going mad for a minute...

I’ve had the same problem. My guess is the bends in the pipe change with age, maybe constant heating and cooling.

Ian

Managed to track down some studs of the preferred sizes and fitted them to the head earlier today. I used green (strong) Loctite on the inlet studs and Loctite 272 (High temperature) on the exhaust studs. When I came to offer up the inlet manifold and gasket to the head a couple of things became apparent. Firstly, the gasket (which has each side labelled up by Stanwood for correct fitment) fouled the cambox base gasket in two places and the head gasket in two places. As neither cambox base or head gasket are amenable to modification, I got the Stanley knife and steel rule out and trimmed the inlet manifold gasket to suit.

Having overcome that little hurdle, I now encountered a more intractable one. The GC angled inlet manifold for twin DCOEs has machined areas around the stud holes, but on a couple of these places the machining does not extend far enough to allow a nut and washer to seat correctly. In one place there is no machining at all. Lastly on one of the top mounts there is simply no room to screw a nut onto the stud, so the wall of the relevant inlet tract will need relieving on the outside. Consequently I rang up Stanwood Engineering (who had originally done the machining work on the manifold for GC, back in the day) prior to returning the manifold for them to do the necessary fettling.

I'll wait and see how things transpire, but I'd be loath to pay for their time fixing these issues as they were the people entrusted by Guy to do the machining work in the first place. With Guy's unfortunate demise I guess lines of responsibility become blurred, but hopefully Stanwood will do the right thing anyway.

No-one ever said this was going to be easy...

Hi Graham

You will not like this but. Use cap head bolts to secure the GC inlet manifold with snor washers and plain washers. Make sure the inlet manifold gasket does not restrict the flow from manifold to port. If it does it will need to be relived with a Dremel sanding drum. Or you replace the gasket with top quality RTV sealant thin film. GC used the Wurth product.

I will listen for the scream.

Eric

Hi Eric,

Not so much of a scream, just the usual expletive... I left the inlet manifold with Stanwood, so will see what they can bring to the table. My intention was to use Aerotight nuts on both inlet and exhaust manifolds, as I recall that back in the day whem my Spider was a daily driver, the exhaust manifold nuts would loosen off with monotonous regularity. Is there a particular reason why you favour cap head bolts over studs and Aerotight nuts? Or do you regard cap head bolts and Schnorr (spelling?) washers as superior?

I must admit that the prospect of removing studs held in with green Loctite does not fill me with deep joy. They will need some serious heat applied to permit removal.

Stanwood have carefully matched the head to manifold, to the point of matching the inlet gasket and indicating which side of the gasket faces the head, and which side faces the manifold. Visual inspection confirms everything lines up just so.

Hi Graham

The reason for the cap heads is simply clearance to the casting. The Snor washers are just a better locking washer and they are compact.

Eric

It sounds like Stanwoods have done a neat job.
 

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the confirmation. I'll see how the manifold fits when I get it back from Stanwoods. If there are still clearance problems I'll use cap head bolts and snor washers on the offending fixing points and leave the rest as studs. Yes, I'm pleased with all the work Stanwood have done for me; it's of a uniformly high standard. I know that GC trusted them with a lot of his work, which tells you all you need to know.

Graham

Yesterday I verified that my spare (and rather ropey) back water rail had exactly the same problem as the 'best' one, so the good one will go back to Firma-Chrome to have the electroless nickel plating chemically stripped, then I'll remove the weld holding the bracket to the pipe (as gently as I can) and see if moving the bracket will allow it to fit. I'm not very happy leaving it bolted up at one end and flapping about at the other unless it's absolutely necessary.

I'm pretty sure now that it was fitment of the SKF branded water pump that caused the pipe not to line up. It was the Monte/VX style pump with deeper impeller, so maybe that had something to do with it?

Interestingly I had the same problem, I ordered a stainless steel bottom coolant pipe and it wouldn't fit! I would suggest you need a VX one. The supplier of the pipe made me a new one which JUST fits.

Do you have a supplier for a stainless VX back water rail? That would be the best of all worlds, I think...

Well kind of yes but then again no...... He is in Spain and a totally honest and good guy I think but it is rather cottage industry so I am slightly reluctant to recommend purely as it depends upon your expectations. He is also very slow but didn't expect payment until the goods were ready. It's all a long story. You are always welcome to call and have a look at mine and see what you think.

That's OK. I think that once I've relocated the fixing bracket/tab further along the pipe that it should be fine. But I'll bear your man in Spain in mind for future reference.

This does all rather the raise the question of subtle variations between types and models, the first pipe the Spanish guy sent wouldn't fit at all, I still don't really know if it was an error or if VX pipes are ever so slightly different. The VX does only have one outlet on the offside compared to most but otherwise looks similar but the first one I was sent wouldn't reach around the end of the block. The new one he has sent is much better but still very tight. I also wonder if the crankcase end covers vary in thickness as this is where it fouls?

Like you say, that is worrying. If it wouldn't even reach around the block that's a serious mismatch in the order of centimetres, not just a couple of mm. I'm reasonably confident that once the bracket has been removed from my pipe that it will bolt up square to the water pump flange and there will be clearance between pipe and block. I may have to fab a new bracket, but that's not the end of the world.

What does bother me is if we ever got round to doing a group buy on top and back water rails, how would we arrive at a specification that fits all permutations? At some point we may be forced into doing this, as the supply of sound water rails is getting scarce.

Hi Graham

I would think on the rear one that having it slightly too long is infinitely better than too short as a washer or two could be used to take up the gap.

Peter

It's actually a matter of mm not cm! It's deceptively precise to get that pipe right not much room for error. Where it sweeps around the block there is very little margin at all it only needs to be at slightly the wrong angle or turning a few mm too early and it will foul on the crankcase cover before it can fully go around the block.

Yes, definitely a few mm longer would be the best option, Peter. And I know what you mean - a couple of mm where the pipe sweeps round the block translates to a bigger difference by the time you get to the bracket. If I still have problems with the bracket removed I'll look at having a (very) short section of pipe welded in to give the required length.

This will sound like a bodge, but would it be feasible to introduce
a rubber hose coupling somewhere along its run to offer the flexibility needed?

I realise the exhaust is nearby, so positioning is a factor. maybe an additional heat shield?

Hi Nigel,

I had considered that, and I don't think it counts as a bodge. You would need to run a bead of weld round the ends of the pipe sections to be joined to assist with securing pipe clamps, and it would introduce a degree of flexibility in positioning that would be welcome. Certainly an option if Plan A doesn't work out.

Graham

Not sure that would help as you then only have one support for each pipe. The heat from the exhaust also adds to the complication.

Peter

I think it would get too hot to be reliable. The pipes do fit normally, last time I looked mark had a VX bottom pipe refurbished for sale that would be a solution.

The pipe would be supported at both ends, with only a short flexible mid section, but I agree it's definitely inferior to a full metal construction. Agree that exhaust heat adss an extra layer of concern. I'm hopeful that I won't need to consider that option, though. It's definitely the option of last resort.

Yes, it's probably marginal at best. I'll check out Mark's listing.

After looking at the problem from all angles, I decided that the only way the pipe would fit was if the bracket was removed and either relocated or a new bracket fabricated and welded to the pipe. So I apprehensively fired up the angle grinder with slitting disc attached and cut through the 5 welds holding the bracket to the pipe, thankfully without doing too much collateral damage to the pipe. Once free of the bracket, the pipe wrapped round the block without fouling anything and could be manoeuvred to a suitable position without any effort. There's enough slack in the flange mounting holes to give quite a range of adjustment, as it happens.

It quickly became apparent that the existing bracket would not be able to be re-purposed and that a new bracket would have to be fabricated and welded on. Time to break out the cardboard and make a CAD template. What was also rather alarming was the degree of corrosion that existed between the pipe and bracket. Being only tack-welded in place, and not sealed off, corrosion can (and does) form between the two skins. At least I'll be able to arrest that particular piece of rot while figuring out a way of making it fit to the multi-purpose bracket.

In other news, the A4 stainless M10 x 1.0 drain plugs arrived and one of them was fitted to the block, using generous amounts of Wurth CU800 anti-seize paste. It's a taper thread and screwed in leaving about 2 mm of the total 10 mm depth proud of the block. I'm cautiously hopeful that it should be a long term solution.

Progress has largely stalled on the engine front, as the inlet manifold is still away at Stanwood's being 'fettled' and I've only just got the lower water rail back from the platers. After removing the original thin steel bracket I gave it to the platers to chemically strip the electroless nickel plating in preparation for welding a different bracket on (fabricated by me). Unfortunately they misunderstood my intentions and re-plated it... The main man there assures me that it won't hurt the welding process, in fact he maintains that EN plating is sometimes done as prep for welding. We shall see...

With time on my hands I've been giving the adjustable camwheels some thought, and am seriously thinking of putting the OE one piece cast camwheels back on. If the engine was to be running uprated cams, big valves et. etc. then adjustable camwheels would certainly be required. I'm not. I will be running standard cams , slightly increased compression ratio and standard valve sizes. And DCOE 45 Webers (36mm choke), of course.

So why do I need adjustable camwheels? As far as I can see I won't need to deviate from standard cam timing and will actually be making life more difficult for myself when it comes to changing belts, as I can no longer use the camwheel marks and associated pointers. What are people's view on this? I can't see much in the way of upside, only downside.

Hi Graham

I guess it depends how accurate the original wheels are in terms of actual timing. Maybe someone else has measured it?

Peter

Hi Graham

Precision in cam Timing vs accurate TDC makes a difference and gives you the chance to mark the cam boxes for 100 degrees to 120 degrees and check for valve clash before building with a short belt (VX drive belt). It is not unknown to gain 10BHP on these engines by accurate cam positioning and small known changes.

No Vernier wheels no accuracy.

Eric
PS if TDC is not accurate and well marked you are in a world of trouble.   

OK, I was probably being rather impetuous. On thinking further about it, as long as all pulleys are marked up and reasonable care is taken, replacing a cam belt with vernier camwheels should be no less troublesome than with OE camwheels. I would probably feel happier if all the pulleys could be locked in some way, but that is clearly not an option.

And having spent good money with Stanwoods to build up the top end with vernier camwheels, it would be a waste of time and money (and downright foolish) to revert to OE camwheels. As Eric says, it would probably also throw away valuable bhp before the engine had even run.

I managed to make a small but pleasing amount of progress on the back/bottom water rail saga. I've cut off the original mounting bracket that should bolt up to the multi-purpose bracket by cylinder 4 (but was at least 10mm out with the new water pump fitted), and have been nervously fabricating an alternative bracket to cater for the altered pipe location/trajectory. With the rudimentary shaping tools I have (and the lack of skill) it's not going to be factory perfect but as long as it provides a good degree of support then I'll be happy.

Today I bolted the rail securely to the water pump at one end, fixed my new bracket to its intended location and then clamped the two together as best I could while drilling holes through both to allow me to rivet the two parts together prior to taking the assembly to my tame welders for permanent fixing. Once they've secured the bracket to the rail I think I'll drill the rivets out and get them to finish the job with a couple of spot welds to seal the holes. Then it will be back to the platers and perhaps then I can finally fix the back/bottom rail permanently to the engine.

I was also able to convince myself that there is working clearance between the adjustable camwheels and the yellow plastic cam guard. I'd got it into my head that the camwheels would foul the guard, which is one of the reasons I was thinking of reverting to OE camwheels. They don't foul the guard and they are staying.

Hi Graham

Not too shabby a job, I would definitely get the rivets out and have it welded up as they will undoubtably leak eventually as they are.

Peter

Yes, that was my thinkig as well. If it can go wrong, it will. I took the pipe to my local welders and they did a very nice job of putting a seam around most of the 3 edges of the bracket. The back of the bracket will be left open as to try and weld that would cause a lot of heat distortion and would throw the mounting points out. I've now drilled the rivets out so will head back to the welders on Monday morning to get those holes spot welded. After that time for a final trial fitment before getting the unit re-plated (for the third time...)

A small point, I'd say filling the rivet holes would be "plug" welding. Spot welding joins sheet metal without any holes. It's a lovely neat job though  so no need to apologise for your fabrication skills.

Hi Graham

As a belt and braces you could pressure test for any leaks before fitting?

Peter

You're right. My welding terminology was a bit off there. Spot welding is normally robotised, as far as I know and is commonly used in car assembly lines. Now it's been welded it certainly feels nice and solid.

If I could think of a way of doing that, I would. But with all the various take-offs along the rail it wouldn't be easy. I'll probably just settle for filling that section of the pipe with water and ensuring no leaks.

Spot welding doesn't have to be robotised. Before production lines were automated cars were spot welded with hand held units. You are supposed to be able to build a spot welder out of an old microwave oven, something that has fascinated me for some time.

The whole process of welding fascinates me, and has done since I was a teenager (a long time ago!). I've got a cheap SMAW (stick) welding set that I practice with, but anything that requires a good finish or requires strength I hand over to the professionals. Which is basically everything... I'm told that stick welding is the best to start on, as if you can master that then other forms of welding will come easier. But I haven't progressed beyond making ugly blobs on test metal yet...

I haven't done stick welding but suspect that is most difficult. I did gas welding in a metalwork evening class and loved it. I found being able to watch the colour of the heated metal gave very fine control as did feeding welding rod in to the weld pool by hand. The down side is having to invest in and store the kit. Likewise traditional MIG welding which requires keeping a hulking great gas bottle cluttering up the garage. I recently got a little gasless MIG which is much more convenient. The downside is that being cheap it doesn't have fine control down to gentle settings for thin metal which made it useless for trying to weld up a hole in a top water rail. The current is set with two rocker switches allowing four pre-set amperages whereas the old traditional MIG has a high / low range switch then a rotating knob allowing fine control and very low power when needed.

Being a reasonably competent stick welder, I also bought a gasless MIG
thinking it would be easy to learn, and struggled. I don't know if
it's me or the machine.
I wish I knew someone with the equipment to have a go at proper MIG and TIG.

I've made friends with a couple of brothers who run a family welding business (their father started it), and it amazes me the way they just know exacrtly what settings to use for what type and thickness of material. They weld everything from tiny stainless pieces used in surgery to ship's propellers that take up half the unit. Most of the stuff they do is TIG, but there is also a fair biit of MIG work. But they are using welding sets that cost upwards of £2000, so that also plays a part.

I did buy myself a MIG set a while back (a middle of the range Clarke gas set), but haven't got round to getting the Argon mix gas bottle for it (hobby bottles are a waste of time in my opinion). Now that lockdown is easing I must get that sorted and start practising with it.

Proper gas welding with filler rods requires use of oxy-acetylene kit, which is a bit like inviting an unexploded bomb into your shed/garage. I'd love to have a go, but no way would I consider storing the bottles in any domestic premises.

Getting a good weld needs practice and plenty of it. Before doing a job I get up to speed on some scrap steel of the same thickness I am going to work on. With MIG I think paying for good equipment makes a lot of difference.

I am very Please with my recent R Tech 180 inverter MIG. It needs less skill from me. Also have an argon gas mix is far better than just CO2.

Eric

I used CO2 Argon mix. Finding a supplier where you don't have to rent the bottles makes it more cost effective if you only weld occasionally.

This thread has energised me to restart converting my Clarke 160TM to a Euro torch. I removed the old (and rather rubbish) Clarke OE torch so I can start doing the work to fit the new torch. I agree that it's the gas bottle rental that kills you when doing hobby welding. It's only infrequent use and the rental costs mount up very quickly. Thankfully there is a supplier near me that doesn't charge the normal monthly or yearly rental, just a five year usage along with the fill price to start with, then just a refill price after that. CO2/Argon mix works out at £50 per 5 year usage, then £21 for a refill of a 10 litre bottle. For a 24 litre bottle it's £75 and £40 respectively. Bigger bottles are available.

I've heard very good things about the R-Tech range, but at present I think I just need to learn how to stick metal together. Once I'm proficient I could well be in the market for something like that.

After years of hauling the welder and gas bottle about I finally got my kit onto a welding trolley allowing a mid size gas bottle and a lot less hassle when you want to use it. I found replacing the hopeless gas bottle chains with webbing straps and using more straps to secure the welder to the trolley worked nicely. This was after years of using a much overhauled secondhand Clarke 150TE MIG. The R Tech Inverter MIG is lighter and genuinely superior without the crazy cost of Pro gear.

I also bought a Nomad portable welding bench and clamps. Sort of a Workmate for welding. The metal table means less struggling to fit the earth return to the work piece. Add TIG gloves in place of the standard thick items and fine control is easier.

Credit to Stuart for the idea on the R Tech MIG.

Eric

Definitely agree on the TIG welding gloves, Eric. They are a major improvement over, well, anything.  I'll take your advice on securing gas bottles once I finally sign up for some CO2/Argon mix. What bottle size are you using? I'm not exactly sure how big (size wise) 10 litre and 24 litre gas bottles will be. Shape is also a consideration. Short and dumpy would be greatly preferrred to tall and thin.

I'll also check out the Nomad portable welding bench. Doies anyone use either air fed welding masks or other PPE to avoid breathing in welding fumes?

There are plenty of places now that do rent free gas bottles. You pay a deposit for the bottle and keep it as long as you like. Theoretically you get your deposit back if you give up welding but since going gasless my son has kidnapped my gas bottle. I'm not sure I'll see it again.

I too have moved to TIG gloves and now wouldn't use anything else.

The GC angled  manifold for use with block-mounted distributor was collected from Stanwood Engineering after they 'fettled' it and after enlarging some of the stud holes it was bolted up to the head, albeit begrudgingly. It's a nightmare trying to get all the nuts bolted up and some of the nuts require the manifold to be 10-15mm away from the head in order to get the threads started; all due to the angled intake tracts. But it's on now, and as consistently tight as I can manage, given that it's impossible to get a torque wrench (or even a socket) on 5 out of the 6 nuts. It's pretty much open-ended spanners all the way. Are slim or specially angled spanners (or both) available for such an application?

Photos will be provided in due course.

The next part of the 3D jigsaw puzzle that is my 2 liitre engine is the dipstick and how it's mounted. I suspect that the dipstick holding bracket from this engine has been snaffled for use on the i.e. 2 litre engine that I exchanged for the original carbed motor. Certainly the dipstick bracket I have stands no chance of fitting as it stands. I presume that dipstick mounting/positioning changed between the S2FL model and the later S3 injected models. Can anyone corroborate or deny this?

I can feel another 'parts wanted' ad coming on...

Would a wrench and extension bar with crowfoot spanner fittings work on your manifold? It didn't on my exhaust downpipe TBH.

The kind of thing that plumbers use to fit taps in awkward locations you mean? That's certainly worth looking into. Thanks.

Hi Graham

I used cap heads on the GC Manifold because you can get ball head allen keys beating the access challenge. I can remember bending the dip stick outer tube to get it past the manifold when using the GC twin 45 manifold. The Beta uses a rubber top hat seal that must be keep pressed into the block whilst the Monte uses an olive style locking collar.

Eric   

Yes, I did consider using cap heads but (unwisely) thought that studs would be a better solution. I've Loctited the studs in, as well so I suspect I will ave to live with my decision. They are done up acceptably tight and I've used stainless Aerotight nuts and wave washers, so hopefully they should stay fastened. I may try a crowfoot socket to try and nip them up a tad further.

I'm not sure whether the dip stick outer tube I have is the correct one for a carbed model. It doesn't seem to fit whichever way I angle it.  Can you tell from the photo if I have the correct one? I suspect the one that would be a better fit is in France, attached to the i.e. block. I guess I need to unpack the Weber carb(s) and fit them to the manifold to see what actual leeway I have in positioning.

Graham,
My dipstick tube looks the same as yours but I have a spacer between the bracket and the bolt.
Spacer looks to be just over an inch long.

Nigel

Thanks Nigel,  I was wondering whether a spacer would need to be involved. I was also wondering whether the dipstick tube could be rerouted into the void in the manifold between cylinders 1 and 2 as that is effectively dead space.

Graham

After some more fitting and removing parts, it has become apparent that:

1) The GC manifold will require further 'easing' at key points on the top of the carb flanges to allow my (Spanish made) Weber DCOE 45s to fit. The lowered middle section between chokes needs cutting back by 5-10mm each side. I'll be charitable and suggest that the manfold was designed around the Original Italian Webers...

2) Clearance on the Webers to fit bolts to attach the carb to the manifold is extremely limited - no more than 20mm. Given that both the Weber flange and manifold flange are around 11mm deep each, this could be problematic. I've ordered some low head cap screws in 20 and 25mm lengths (M8 x 1.25) and we will see what transpires. More 'fettling', I suspect.

3) Until I can get the above points resolved it's difficult to know what space I have to play with for the dipstick sleeve. I suspect it may come down to making a one-off in thin wall steel or aluminium tube. I hope the original can be persuaded to fit, but there has to be a Plan B.

4) Plan C would be to ditch the distributor altogether and free up valuable space in that area by following Gerard's example and going digital. I'll be investigating further in the next few days. <edit> I've just realised that the Aldon Amethyst still needs the distributor (with advance locked) as a trigger for the ignition unit, so does nothing for my space issues. Plan C has been discarded for the present...

Hi Graham

The carbs go on stubs fitted to the manifolds with Thackery spring washers or rubber cup washer and vibration O ring plates between carbs and manifold. This assembly is to stop vibration turning the fuel in the float chambers to froth which is better in a Cappuccino than carbs.
I remember relieving the manifold for the balance link on the excellent Weber Throttle Linkage and for the distributor.

Look in GCs books carefully and you will see the anti vibration plates with bonded O rings.

Eric

Thanks for that Eric. I do have the Misab flanges with bonded nitrile o-ring inserts, but I suspect the rest of the kit (studs, nyloc nuts, and rubber isolator washers) will be in the other carb box I didn't open. What sort of stand-off between manifold and carb body does this provide (if you can remember)? If I don't need to hack the manifold about I really would be happier not to. I suspect that even with the rubber stand-offs, some material will need to be removed. I've trawled through both of Guy's books, but all I can see are photos of the DCOE mounting kit.

The front cover of his first book has a pair of DCOEs fitted to one of his manifolds, but the extra offset provided by the Misab/rubber isolators only gives about 2-3mm overall.

Had a chance to do some more trial fitment of the carbs onto the manifold today. First thing that was immediately apparent was that the supplied studs are imperial size - a mixture of coarse and fine threads on the same stud. GC's Beta manifold is resolutely metric - M8 x 1.25. So new studs will be required. I've emailed Anthony at Fast Road Cars (suppliers of my Webers) asking if I can swap the imperial studs for M8 ones, and also asking if he would swap the supplied 155 air corrector jets for 170s (GC's recommendation for an engine in my state of tune). All the other mounting parts (rubbers, cup washers, T-piece etc. ) are all present and correct.

I'm also pretty certain that my chosen method of resolving the dipstick tube clash with the manifold will be to fabricate a new one, angled such that it protrudes between the manifold inlet tracts of cylinders 1 and 2. It requires less of a bend than the OE one and frees up a tiny bit of space in the congested manifold/distributor area. All I have to do now is to acquire some tubing of the correct size(s) and an 8mm bending spring. And the correct size washer to act as a depth stop. And make up a mounting bracket. And get it all welded up. And then plated.

I'm opening a book on how long all this will take...

Calling on your expertise and experience again, Eric. I've looked on both Fast Road Cars and Eurocarb web sites and they list a bewildering range of linkages for DCOE Webers. I know I want a top-mounting kit, but which one? What are the pros and cons of the various options? Do I go for single or double cable (my preference would be for single, if only for simplicity's sake)? I could ask the web site owners, but would prefer an unbiased and 'been there and done it' point of view...

Graham

Hi Graham

The best I have used is the Weber made linkage complete with the balance link arms that are essential. NEVER mix levers from another kit if you want smooth precise control. A single cable is fine. If you buy the dual cable linkage you get a spare.
You will need to adapt the top of the throttle pedal to take the cable pull and secure block. In an ideal world this would pivot like the original but actually securing it with the block and grub screw works because it bends in a small arc in use.

Eric

Never fit a linkage to or springs to the extreme ends of the carb spindles. The twist caused will be enough to ruin your chances of balancing the carbs.
If you want more springs add the them to the pedal.
Make sure you get full throttle and have a pedal stop at the right height to not strain and break the cable.   

Hi Eric,

Many thanks for that, much appreciated. There are no less than 3 genuine top-mounted Weber linkages, one with a single cable, two with twin cables; LP1000, LP2000 and LP2500 respectively. As far as I can make out the LP1000 and LP2000 cables enter from the LH side of the car when viewed from the front, and the LP2500 cables enter from the RH side of the car (which may be better suited to a LHD car). Having said that, the quality of the castings and machining on the LP2500 linkage is superb. Here are equivalent photos for the LP1000, LP2000 and LP2500. Which one did you use, Eric? (Assuming it was actually one of these).

Graham

More small steps today. I hunted down some manifold studs of the required size from WDS Components (https://www.wdscomponents.com/en-gb/metric-steel-studs-wds-405/c-424/p-394/v-4754 (https://www.wdscomponents.com/en-gb/metric-steel-studs-wds-405/c-424/p-394/v-4754), in M8 x 1.25 and an overall length of 50mm. I fitted these earlier and effectively made them a permanent fixture with green (strong) Loctite. Prior to that I'd established that there was sufficient clearance when the carbs were mounted using the Misab plates between the end of the stud and the carb body. There was - about 2 mm. It was a real juggling act in terms of getting the studs long enough to allow fitment of the two cup washers, rubber sleeve and nyloc nut and not so long that the end of the stud fouled the carb body.

Prior to that I'd done the final fit of the GC manifold to the head using wave washers and Aerotight nuts, and tightening the nuts up as much and as evenly as I could manage. Final tightening will be at the next visit, as I need to dig out my stubby ring/OE spanners and also grind a sacrificial ring spanner sufficiently to allow me to get the spanner head over the nut (clearance to manifold is VERY tight). My collection of 'special tools' is expanding...

Hi Graham

The second one with one cable, but I should have used the first one with an adapted cable.

Eric 

Thanks Eric, I'd pretty much decided on the first one. Two operating cables is just another opportunity for something to go out of balance. The only way I've seen it used successfully is on many bike throttle cables where there is a 'push me pull you' opening and closing cable.

Thanks for the confirmation.

The LP1000 linkage has been purchased and delivered, but is still currently sitting in its box. My focus has currently turned to the dipstick tube, as that is in the area I'm working on, and needs resolution before I go much further. I was hopeful that the OE dipstick tube could be made to fit between the inlet manifold ports for cylinders 1 and 2, but after removing the locating bracket it appears that it still doesn't, and a new dipstick tube will need to be fabricated. Bugger.

So some 10mm mild steel tube has been ordered and my Rothenberger tube bending tool has been retrieved from the depths of my plumbing tool kit. This is all going to be a case of bend the tube - trial fit - bend the tube some more - trial fit - get it something like - fabricate a bracket - trial fit - attach bracket to tube temporarily - trial fit etc. etc

It's taken me this long to get the replacement dipstick tube bent to shape (several iterations were required before I was happy), fabricated the top section where the rubber part  of the dipstick sits, got all the bits welded up and got the part electroless nickel plated. It just squeezes into the tube in the block as it passes inside the inlet manifold, and the top section is only a fraction of a millimetre away from the manifold. I'll probably wrap that section in rubber or foam, Ithink. But it fits and it moves the dipstick holder away from the no-mans-land near the distributor and frees up a tiny bit of space in front of the dizzy. I've yet to figure out how to clamp it in place, but I'm working on ideas.

Here are the obligatory pictures. First is a comparison between new and old dipstick holders. The OE part has had its mounting bracket removed. Then there is a front on view of the part in place, then views from three-quarter and looking straight down.

At last, some more major progress to report. The 'enabler' has been the creation of a Mk 2 engine dolly that has allowed me to fit the flywheel (the Mk 1 didn't) and subsequently the clutch. It also provides full access to the oil filter housing so I can fit the Torques oil cooler take-off. Lastly, it will allow the gearbox to be fitted , once I've made up the necessary supports on the extended deck. I'll need to measure up carefully to get heights and dimensions right, but it should aid fitment and will also give support to the gearbox once fitted.

So the flywheel has been fitted as per GC's instructions (and TDC 1 & 4 green pen mark) and torqued up to 100 lb/ft. It's certainly proper tight... Then I was able to use the clutch centring tool I had made up, which made centring the drive plate a breeze. Next the outer housing was fitted. I'm glad I don't have to fit a new clutch lying on the floor, as locating the dowels in the housing has to be absolutely precise. Get all three dowels 'just' located in their respective holes, then fit the six M8 bolts finger tight, slowly and gradually tightening them up in sequence. Prior to that I'd cleaned all the clutch and flywheel surfaces with brake cleaner - lots of it. The green pen that Guy used to marke TDC on the flywheel was completely untouched by all the cleaning, I noticed. The flywheel is a VX unit, lightened, balanced and skimmed by GC and the clutch is a 16v Thema Turbo unit.

So the next step will be to drag the gearbox out of its storage place, fit the clutch release bearing, operating arms and top hat collar and work out how best to mate it with the engine.

But that will have to wait for a while - I'm off to France on Monday to visit the moneypit (and Spider) and hope that nothing untoward has happened to either in the intervening 12 months. Fingers crossed.

Pictures of the engine on its new stand follow...

Hi Graham

And very nice looking too.

Keep on chipping away, you will get to the end of the road.

Hope your trip to France is a success, we are off in a weeks time and see the testing requirements ha e been eased somewhat which is a welcome move.

Peter

Hi Graham

Nice work and suitably shinny. I still love your engine dolly idea. As you know I copied it to be able to move my engine closer to the engine bay. I never considered fitting the gearbox with it in the Dolly and might play with some empty casings I use for mock ups.

Eric
PS I prefer stronger Cap head bolts with Snor serrated washers for securing the clutch. But I am giving the whole assembly a lot of load so no need to switch over. I also use the Helix VX Steel flywheel simply because it is stronger.     

Thanks chaps...

Peter,

Yes, I'm a bit apprehensive about it all, but it's either now or wait until next year. I'v downloaded the necessary self-certification doc and got my fully vaccinated ststus confirmed by an NHS doc, so I've done as much as I can.

And yes, keep chipping away and one day it will be done...

Eric,

The bolts you see there will not be the ones used- they were just used to pull the housing up to the FW. They're only nipped up. I'll be doing as you've done, using 10.9 cap head bolts and snorr washers. It's not coming off without my say-so...
That dolly was definitely one of my better ideas, if I say so myself. The Mk 2 has 6 castors, each with a load capacity of 150 kg, so it's suitably over-engineered.

Well, here we are again - one step forward, two steps back.

Yesterday I completed a task I hadn't been looking forward to - manhandling the component parts of a 2 ton engine hoist up from the cellar, reassembling them and using said hoist to lift the engine out of the Mk. II dolly. I needed to do this so I could rout a 30mm x 12mm wide groove in one wall of the frame so that it would clear the non-OE sump plug I'm using. This dispenses with the internal taper thread OE plug and uses a 'standard' external hex head sump plug with copper washer. I've always found the OE Lancia sump plug a painful piece of work, with the internal hex head prone to rounding off.

So a while back I converted the taper thread to parallel by use of the  appropriate tap, but had omitted to make allowance for the extra projection when designing the Mk II dolly. I rectified this oversight using my DeWalt palm router, reassembled that part of the dolly, dropped the engine back into the dolly, then dismantled the engine hoist and returned it to its resting place in the cellar.

Nest step was to remove the placeholding bolts on the clutch to flywheel fixing and replace them with 12.9 cap head screws and Schnorr washers, torqued up to 24 Nm, and with a dab of blue Loctite applied for good measure. So far so good.

Then I turned my attention to the back water rail, which was similarly just held in place rather than finally tightened up. I'd planned a belt and braces approach on the water pump to back rail interface, using a combination of a fibre gasket I'd made up, Wurth assembly paste and an o-ring of a suitable size. Everything was lined up, partially tightened and then finally tightened to 24 Nm. All except the top water pump stud/nut, which wasn't coming up to torque, and was starting to feel 'wrong'. That was the point at which I should have stopped and taken stock. Except I didn't and wound up with a sheared stud.

So now the water pump has to come off and have the stud drilled out, an exercise that always fills me with deep joy... And before I can get the pump off, I have to remove the pulley which (from past experience) I know will need an impact gun. And the impact gun is in Sheffield and the engine is in Stafford.

Bugger.

Pulley removal - If my memory is right is 3*10mm bolts? I am going back over 30 years now but bear with me.

You need two 10mm flat ring end spanners  Fit one spanner to the first bolt head and the second spanner to the second bolt head. Use one to  tighten the bolt and the other spanner to undo it's bolt. Once you've loosened it repeat for the third bolt which leaves you with one to undo. Leaving the two slack bolts in place put the ring end on one head and the shaft of the spanner against the exposed threads of the second loose bolt. This can be used to stop the pulley rotating and give enough leverage to allow you to remove the third bolt.

Refitting is a little trickier as you end up with two bolts fully tightened with no exposed shaft to provide leverage. I've succeeded with an offset ring spanner and a socket set using the same principles but an extra pair of hands helps!

Guy

Yes, I was scratching my head on that one. I'm pretty sure that the water pump pulley is held on by 3 x M8 bolts, in my case they're cap head screws. And Loctited, if I remember correctly...

So I'm going to try and fix this 'in situ', if I can. There is about 8-10mm of thread protruding from the pump flange, so I intend to thread a half-nut on leaving a mm gap between nut and flange, and then fill the depression in the nut with weld, and then (hopefully) remove the remains of the stud and nut attached with a 13mm spanner/socket. I'll be covering all the surrounding area with welding blanket to minimise spark damage, and with any luck I won't need to go through pulley removal hell. If it works I can either replace the stud with a new one or just use a bolt.

Plan B will be very similar to what you've outlined...  :)

A flat screwdriver end can be wedged between the end of the water pump shaft and one of the nuts and is usually good enough to hold the pulley if all else fails.

I've finally managed to get back to where the engine is and try out my cunning plan for the broken stud removal. I came armed with my cheapo Aldi arc/stick welder, a welding blanket, a couple of stainless M8 penny washers and The Plan. First step was to put one of the M8 penny washers over the sheared stud and flange. Next step was to drape the welding blanket over the engine and stand, then cut a small hole through which would poke the remains of the stud. Another M8 penny washer was then placed over the stud and blanket, and lastly a BZP M8 nut was screwed onto the stud to a suitable depth. Both washers were stainless, to minimise the chances of weld sticking to them.

Then I cranked the current up to 70A (I wanted really good penetration on this) and with huge trepidation, fired up the arc. It caught pretty much instantly and was sufficiently fierce to blow one flat of the nut away. Thankfully there was good weld depth in the middle, and once everything had cooled down I tentatively tried the nut with a 13mm spanner.

Joy of joys, it started to unscrew (very tight at first) then increasingly easily. The weld held and soon I had the offending stud removed and an M8 hole was where the stud had been. The thread was undamaged and, thanks to my precautions, so was the water pump flange, engine and stand. I'm very glad I used the welding blanket, as it took all the brunt of the heat and weld spatter.

So for once I have nothing but good news to report. Long may it continue...

Hi Graham

Good result!

Just curious if a stud extractor may have been a simpler option given the amount of stud exposed?

Peter

Loosened by heat from the welder..

That was an option, but I've found that stud ectractors normally need more stud to bite on. There was less than 10mm proud of the flange. Also, on inspection of the stud after it was removed, it had what looked to be green Loctite on it, which needs serious heat soak to get it to release its grip. The welding process did that (the nut and stud were glowing orange-red), so that was a very useful by-product of the welding process.

I can't tell you how relieved I was when the stud started moving...

Hi Graham

Good point about the loctite, I am just to do battle with the rear calliper carrier bolts on the Saab which are loctited in and not looking forward to it after the fun and games with the fronts.

Peter

Hi Peter,

If it's the same stuff they used on the fronts(and it almost certainly will be), I'd be looking at a plumbers torch and MAPP gas to heat them up. I'd also invest in some plumber's heat mats to cover any hoses, brake lines etc. in the vicinity.

Good luck...

Graham

Hi Graham

Will see how they go.

Thanks

Peter

Some further progress today, followed by the inevitable shuddering halt. The studs I ordered from WDS components arrived a while back and one was duly fitted to the water pump flange as a replacement for the one that sheared. It's had a liberal coating of green Loctite and I'll leave it overnight before re-fixing the back water rail.

The gearbox that Day & White refurbished just before Covid hit in January 2020 had been moved from my (dry) shed and now lives in the same room as the engine. When dragging the box containig the gearbox across the floor it dawned on me that I might be able to lift it single-handedly onto the deck of the engine dolly, without having to call for assistance. And so it proved. I'm not saying it was easy but I managed it without putting my back (or anything else) out.

Next step was to fit the clutch release bearing, actuator arm and top hat sleeve. Load bearing bits were lubed and then I tried fitting it all together. It did all go together (sort of), but the pegs on the clutch release bearing are half in/half out of the actuating arms (see pic). Surely this can't be right? (And don't call me Shirley...) Do I need to wiggle and waggle things some more so that it seats properly? Have I missed a trick here?

I compared the new clutch release bearing with the manky old one that dropped out of my old bellhousing, and they are dimensionally identical in all details. Suggestions on a postcard...

Here come the obligatory pictures.

Release bearing is on the wrong way round Shirley.... Take it out, put the face that's on the gearbox side currently and refit it with that face on the clutch side.
Guy

I guess you mean something like this, then? (D'uh - I feel so stupid...)

That's better Shirley! Beats bolting it back together and installing it all only to find that there's no drive (or horrible noises off).

I note a broken casting on the upper pivot point though. Not sure how this will affect operation long term but I'm guessing Lancia put it there for a reason?

Guy

I must admit I hadn't noticed that . I'll compare with the box that's currently sitting on my cellar floor. I'm surprised that Day & White didn't pick up on that.

I trust you noticed that I've taken your advice regarding de-headed bolts to aid gearbox fitting...?

Yup. It's a tip I got from someone on the Stratos forum for the Alfa 164 boxes (a little heavier) but it really does help with aligning everything. If the main shaft doesn't slide in easily it make turning it simpler to get it in line (in gear and hold one output flange whilst rotating the other and pushing the box on with your third hand....

And if you feel like deleting the incriminating posts I'll delete the replies. Maybe. ;D ;D ;D

Nah - it was a learning experience and someone else may benefit from it. In my defence, I'e assembled dozens of wet (and dry) multiplate motorcycle clutches, but never a car one before. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it... :D

Looking more closely at the 'broken' casting, the edges are very square and with no crystalline bits as you'd expect from a break. From what I can make out of the other box I have, that is the same.

Hi Graham,
That casting is broken.
However, the bush is still supported by the outside hole, so I'd continue
with the assembly. 
I'm very surprised it wasn't noted/repaired by the rebuilders, but maybe they
considered it OK.

When I fitted a new bush during the summer, I found the new part supplied was too big and
had to file it down to fit. That casting is easily broken by trying to fit an oversized bush.
That must have happened sometime.

Rgds, Nigel

Thanks Nigel, that was basically my conclusion as well.  The lower part of the casting with the section missing still covers an arc greater than 180 degrees (probably 210-220 degrees) so there is still some support. I'm fitting a brand new top hat bush, which is a nice snug fit in the outer casing and also has the important locating tab to stop it rotating. It would be better if the bush was fully supported, but I don't regard it as a reason to panic and stop the build.

Graham

Hi Graham

An easy mistake with no reference pictures or manual. I would swap the spline grease for a small amount of copper slip or similar very high melt point grease. Clean off with brake cleaner and tooth brush.
This is because you do not want low melting point grease spraying onto your nice new clutch facings!

Enjoy

Eric

Thanks Eric. That makes good sense. It's not there to lubricate as such, just as an anti-seize precaution. I'll dig out the trusty Wurth CU800 copper paste and do as you suggest.

Graham

Success! The gearbox and engine are now clamped up together, with 60 lb/ft of torque holding them together (see picture #1). It would have been impossible without Guy's excellent little trick, and even then it took 2 of us and a fair bit of huffing and puffing to get it all together.

Having assembled the two components I then had to partially dissassemble the two and separate them by about 10mm as I realised that the two top allen bolts in picture #2 would not allow the gearbox to be fully tightened to the engine. When Stanwood assembled the block they had used a plain washer and a spring washer to fix the end plate to the block. The extra thickness of a plain washer was enough to keep the mating faces of bell housing and motor apart. Picture #2 shows the very small amount of clearance left after the plain washer was removed and the gearbox fully bolted up. You can just slide a 0.4mm feeler gauge between the allen bolt and bell housing, it's that tight. Very glad I spotted that - it could have had unpleasant repercussions if I hadn't.

Next thing I tried was offering the Auto Ricambi starter motor up for a trial fit, and again things weren't entirely straightforward. The middle mounting point has a dowel fitted in the bell housing, and no corresponding recess in the starter motor mounting flange. I tentatively tried to remove the dowel, but it's fastened good and proper. So the starter motor flange will need a recess machining to cater for the dowel. It should be possible with the flange fitted to the starter, but if the flange can be removed without too much difficulty, that would probably be the preferred option. Pictures 3 and 4 illustrate the problem.

Despite the annoyance of the starter motor fitting, I'm still well pleased with the day's work. Some genuine progress, I think.

Well done Graham

Those water jacket plate bolts should have been hex head to give the clearance which is why you had the gotcha. I am fairly sure the WOSP starters come with the dowel recess machined. I will have a look. You can probably do it yourself with the plate removed your pillar drill and care.

Eric 

Hi,
My WOSP unit indeed had the dowel recess in the centre hole which on mine was untapped.
That bolt normally has a nut on the starter side.

Nigel

Thanks Eric, Nigel. There are some differences between the Auto Ricambi and WOSP starter motors then. The AR item has the centre mounting point threaded and the body of the starter partially covers the end of the thread hole, so it wouldn't be possible to use a nut to secure. I'll post a picture in a while.

I'm reasonably confident of machining the dowel recess on the flange using my pillar drill. I can centre a drill bit on the threaded hole before switching to a 12mm end mill. And I can also set the depth stop to avoid removing too much material. I might even go as far as removing the offending piece of the casting partially blocking the thread hole if I'm feeling really brave.

Hi Graham

Before fitting the starter check the throw of the pinion will see it fully engaged with the ring gear. A steel rule will do. Some adapters are too thick. Also if it goes too far it will foul the bell housing.

Eric   

Cheers Eric, food for thought. Is it possible to manually pull the pinion out to measure its throw? Or do I need to test energise the starter motor on the bench to measure the throw of the pinion?

I remember Guy Croft testing one of these starter motors and giving it a 5 star triple-A rating, and vowing he'd never use anything else again, but when he tested it, it was on a Fiat engine/gearbox. However the unit was specifically listed as suitable for Lancia Beta 2 litre engines from 1978-1983, so I think it should be OK.

Graham

Hi Eric,

Just answered my own question - the pinion can be pulled out manually without difficulty, so I'll start taking measurements.

Graham

I've been in email contact with Auto Ricambi and spoke to Ramzi, one of the guys running AR. He was unaware (or had forgotten) the presence of the dowel, as their main business is with Fiats and the cars of that era were predominantly RWD and longitudinal engine/gearbox. By the sound of it that dowel is not present on Fiat DOHC boxes. His view was that it would be preferable to remove the dowel. I agree with that, but I wish it was as simple as that.

My initial foray in removing the dowel indicated it was in good and tight. I am not prepared to split the engine and gearbox again so any removal work will need to take place externally. My current plan involves trying to find a drift that just fits inside the fastener tunnel, but is wide enough to drive the dowel out (the dowel has a fractionally smaller i.d. than the casting hole). Assuming I can find something of this size, then I'll heat the casting in that area to get the aluminium to expand and (hopefully) release its grip on the dowel, then drive it out.

It sounds easy expressed like that, but I doubt the reality will be. As a last resort I'll remove the flange from the starter but it is bolted on fearsomely tightly and I'm wary of the damage I might do disassembling it. It's only held on by 2 x M5 cap head bolts, but my God are they torqued up tight. Loctite may also be involved, of course.

Hi Graham

A sharp triangular file use on the inside of the dowel will cut enough for you to crush it in with water pump pliers. With a little grip and twist it will be gone.

Eric

Thanks Eric. I have a set of small files which includes a triangular one, so if the dowel doesn't come out with Plan A, I'll use your Plan B. I guess the idea is to creat a fault line that will give way under pressure from the pliers?

Graham

A file? I'd try putting a junior hacksaw blade through it, attach the saw frame and off you go. It'll be quicker..

Whatever cuts a line most easily. I find a sharp file better in a confined space but might actually use a carbide burr in my die grinder which I assume Graham does not own.

Hi Eric,

I do own a die grinder and I have to say it's the tool that scares me the most in use, far more so than (for example) a 9" angle grinder. The Metabo one I have has so much torque it's positively frightening if used in a confined space. I also have a cheapie Aldi die grinder and that gets used far more often, as it's appreciably less powerful/vicious. But for this particular job I will be sticking to hand tools I think.

Graham

I find a mains dremel is a good compromise for confined spaces. It's slower but it doesn't have the torque to rip the tool out of your hands.

That certainly sounds like the sensible option...  ;D

Or just get an angle grinder and take off the exposed head of the hollow dowel... I'd almost put money on the rest of it just falling out once heated to that extent!
Guy

Hi Guy,

I think you've just provided me with Plan C...   ;D

Graham

After all the agonising about how to approach it, Plan A worked like a charm. I gave the bell housing a quick blast of heat from my Rothenberger MAPP torch, found the internal lip with the drift, gave it a few taps and out popped the dowel. Very undramatic. I also foloowed Erics advice and checked the throw of the pinion and found that it meshes in the centre of the ring gear at full extension. I also confirmed that the pinion cannot make contact with the bell housing, so all is good. Starter motor is now mounted to the bell housing and another job can be ticked off the list.

Pic below shows the fitted starter motor and the removed dowel .

Lovely satisfying work. Have you so far resisted taking the plugs out and trying the starter? Note there should be lube on the cams and in the bores before playing with this.

Enjoy

Eric 

Hi Eric,

The thought has certainly occurred to me... When they were building the motor Stanwood used assembly lube, so it should be OK, but I think I will wait until I have filled the engine with running-in oil. Before I can do that I need to finish off work in the oil filter housing area, such as fitting the various oil pressure/temperature senders and torquing up the oil filter extension and oil cooler takeoffs to their final values (they're just hand tight at present). I presume that torque values for these parts are actually quite low, as everything appears to rely on o-rings for sealing, and over-tightening o-rings is a Bad Idea as far as I'm aware?

Graham

Hi Graham

Yes over tightening is bad if it squeezes and deforms the O Ring. If they will fit the situation I prefer to use Dowty washers. I have no handy torque values just hard won nervous experience.

Bits of oil circuit falling off tend to do engine damage whilst making one hell of a mess. Try to avoid mixing steel and alloy fittings and mixing fixing from different suppliers.

The bits from Torques have held together well. I still have nightmares from the Mocal remote Oil filter housing with a porous casting .

Eric 

Thanks Eric. That confirms my suspicions. I might give Torques UK a ring for guidance, as they supplied the part.

I contacted Torques UK and this was their reply:

They are normally just tightened by feel. They seal on the flaring face so they don't need much torque.

So not much more than a light nip up, I think. I'll be coating the o-rings with silicone grease before assembly.

Some solid (if not particularly earth-shattering) progress has been made. The back water rail has now been pemanently fixed in place - previously one of the water pump flange studs sheared when torquing up. This has now been replaced and no such dramas were encountered this time round. I also got round to making a permanent clamp for the home-brewed dipstick tube. A rubber P clip and some stainless builder's band came to the rescue here.

The Torques oil sandwich plate was fastened in place, and the oil cooler take-offs and blanking plugs were tightened up gently to what I felt comfortable with. The Mahle oil filter was then fitted, as were the three senders/switches that attach to the oil filter housing. So I am now in a position where I can fill the motor with (running in) oil. This feels like a mini-landmark...

The next task will be to re-fit the drive shaft and housing to the back of the engine and gearbox. Before that it will get a deep clean as it's proper manky. Which gives rise to the question - should I renew the bearing in the housing? This one will have done 60,000 miles, so I suspect I know the answer to that one. Are they still available? Is it a simple or a difficult job?

No pictures this time - I forgot my camera. Next time I go back I'll provide some.

<Edit> Mark W has the bearings in stock, so it seemed foolish not to order one and swap it while I can easily. So I appear to have answered my own question... <\Edit>

Having made a start on cleaning the drive shaft and housing up, my thoughts are turning to stripping the unit (which will need a castellated nut removal tool) and subsequent refitting. Can the driveshaft and housing be reattached to the engine/gearbox without disturbing the gearbox, or do I have to go through gearbox removal/reattachment anxiety again?

From my old memories the driveshaft can be removed without disturbing the gearbox. It's just 6 bolts securing the inner CV joint to the drive flanges on the gearbox or intermediate shaft. Obviously one big nut to secure the outer CV in the hub carrier (which I usually resorted to drilling off). The castellated nut only needs to be removed if you plan on replacing bearings or the hub itself. I don't know how many times I serviced the driveshafts in situ on Betas but there's a method I still use on the Stratos rep every 7 o 8 years (it uses the 1978 shafts from my donor car and 3 of the 4 CV joints to this day). I start by undoing the inner CV, drop it out of the flange, remove the circlip on the end and slide the inner joint off, undo the clips on the outer and slide the boot down the shaft. Clean out as much old grease as possible and repack with new and reassemble with new boots.
Guy

Hello Guy,

Thanks for the reply - I really would like to avoid disturbing the gearbox again if possible. The bearing in the housing shown does have noticeable play and it spins very freely indeed, rather too freely for my liking. I wouldn't feel comfortable re-using it, especially after so much else in the build is new or completely refurbished. So I guess that ring nut has got to come off. I've been trying to take some measurements to figure out if the tool I need might somehow be commercially available; yeah, I'm an optimist...  ;D

Graham

Aplogies - I didn't realise you were talking about the intermediate shaft! I don't think I've even replaced the bearing on that before!

I thought we were a bit at cross purposes...  ;D  I guess it will be suck it and see whether I have to disturb the gearbox to re-fit the intermediate shaft. There can't be much slack in the splines or they wouldn't do their job. But the bearing has too much play to ignore it and continue with it.

It'll be a learning experience... :)

Hi Graham,
The gearbox can stay in place, you won't need to move it.

In my experience, the castle nut won't be very tight to remove ,once the tabs are
knocked back. Try a pin punch on it.

I made this tool from a piece of stainless steel pipe and an old Whitworth socket
for when I did my diff bearings.
It measures 40mm outside dia, and 35mm inside dia. I've no idea if the nuts are all
the same size, but you're welcome to borrow it.

Hi Nigel,

Prescient words! I was preparing for a proper fight when I saw the ring nut, and (as usual) the staking was a pain to remove. In the end I drilled them both out. But when I was cleaning up the nut so it didn't damage the shaft, bugger me if it didn't move... So I got the old pin punches out and sure enough it tip-tapped off without too much persuasion. Better still, the shaft also came out of the centre bearing race with scarcely a whimper. A few taps on the end of the shaft with a block of wood interposed, and out it dropped. So I've just got the bearing to remove from the housing, but that can wait until tomorrow.

Smells of chicken livers cooking are wafting up from the kitchen...  ;D

Graham

p.s. thanks for the comforting words about the gearbox. That cheers me up no end.

Success! Glad to see it apart.

Out of interest, what does the bearing feel like?
Any roughness?

I've not seen this replaced ever, so I'm quite curious....

edit: if you don't happen to have a new castellated nut, rub down the mating face on
a very flat surface with some wet/dry paper, this will move the locking tab
location to a new position.

Hi Nigel,

It doesn't feel rough as such, but there is definite play within the bearing. It spins very freely, but wear has clearly taken place. The looseness I can feel is definitely out of spec. I'll compare it with the new one from Mark W when it arrives and let you know. While it's all apart I'll get the housing vapour blasted and probably get the shaft and CV flange black phosphated and the triangular plate and bearing collar yellow zinc passivated.

I only intend to do this once...

Graham

<edit> The bearing also left its housing with only gentle use of a 46mm socket and hammer. Didn't even need to apply any heat. All very civilised. Bearing code is 62206-2RS and it was an SKF. Spinning it in my hand you can feel and hear some very slight roughness, which is purely down to wear I think. It's definitely worth replacing.

Good call on the the castellated nut. I don't have a replacement so will use your method to move the staking spot. Thanks.

The intermediate shaft bearing housing has been sent off for vapour blasting, the rotating parts will get black phosphated and the other bits will get yellow/gold passivated. Finally got round to taking some more progress pics and they are shown below. In no particular order we have the oil filter housing and its various attachments, the dipstick holder from above, proof that both water rails are at last mounted on the engine, and my use of stainless builder's band and a P-clip to act as a dipstick holder mounting.

If you look closely you'll notice that some rubber inner tube has been interposed between inlet manifold and dipstick holder in an attempt to dampen any vibes. Once the intermediate drive shaft is back on the car, I think my next challenge will be to statically time the ignition. This should be fun...

Wow those gold covers look great.
What was the colour gold you used?
Thanks
C

Hi Clifford,

It wasn't gold paint - I had them powder coated, so not really sure what it was called. Most powder coaters have a good range of colours to choose from, but that one really appealed to me. I had it done by a guy in Shropshire near Tern Hill. I can find out the name or code of the powder if you want.

Graham

Did the inside or gasket surfaces get coated? There is a risk of it coming off and blocking oil pathways.

Guy

Given how pretty that engine looks, I am doubting you actually want to fire it up and spoil the looks……

Peter

Hello Guy,

No, it was only the outer surfaces that were powder coated. The interior surfaces are bare aluminium, albeit vapour blasted. And all screw holes and orifices were cleaned out with a combination of compressed air, a tap or a dentists's probe. It actually took me quite a while to remove small amounts of over-coating so that the gasket mating surfaces were completely clean.

Hi Peter,

Yes, that had occurred to me as well. But It's not just pretty, the metal underneath is better protected so hopefully I can keep it looking reasonably smart even while in use. It will look as good as it can when the engine goes back in the car, but after that it will get used.

Graham

Thank you Graham. Looks really nice
C

Hi Graham

I think you are fooling yourself!!!!

Thread started in 2016 and you will soon look at the rest of the car and think, maybe I should tidy up the car to match the engine?

Another 5 years go by……..

Only joking, hope you get it in the car this year and start enjoying it.

Peter

It doesn't help that the car is in France and I (and the engine) am in the UK. In 2015 I was intending to bring the car back to the UK to start refurbishment. I'd booked the ferry crossings and we were about 3 days away from coming back when the water pump started squealing its head off. Instead of replacing it myself I panicked and put it into the local garage in our village. Bad mistake.

Long story short, he completely f***ed the engine, bending 7 out of 8 valves when he decided to replace a cam belt which had only been replaced less than 1000 miles previously (see photo below). Fortunately my neighbour in France was able to retrieve the car and put it in my garage while we were back in the UK. Then I had to do an engine swap, bring the original engine back to the UK and start refurbishing it. Since then the car has only run intermittently on its donor engine, so I still haven't been able to repatriate the car.

And then of course Covid happened, further complicating matters. And so I'm now in something of a dilemma. The engine/gearbox is very close to being ready to go back into the car. But I would much prefer to install the engine in the car in the UK where I Have a far better support network. I also want to get the carburation/timing etc. set up on a rolling road before the engine has many miles on it, and that also would best be done in the UK. So taking the refurbished engine to France and doing an engine swap there is not the best option.

But I don't have a garage in the UK. I've made tentative enquiries near me but have so far drawn a blank. I also need to be sure that the car is sufficiently reliable on its donor engine to make the 800-odd miles back to Sheffield without breaking down.

And you're right - there are a fair number of things I need/want to do to the car while the engine is out, which also needs a garage. So for the moment I'm just getting my head down and trying to ensure the engine/gearbox are as good as they can be and await an opportunity to bring the car back to the UK and get stuck in to all that needs doing.

I've been waiting on some parts being fabricated and other parts coming back from the platers, so things have slowed down a bit. But at least the intermediate/centre section of the drive shaft is now back together, with a new bearing and the bearing retainer and sleeve yellow zinc passivated. I also had the mounting bracket vapour blasted and that has come up beautifully. Bit of a shame that it will never be seen in use, but I didn't really want to put it back on in its previous (decidedly manky) state. I decided against getting the shaft black phosphated, as it's in pretty good shape once all the grease and dirt had been removed.

I didn't want to buy another castle nut (even if I had been able to find one), so had to find a way to re-use the existing one once the staking and thread had been cleaned up. Nigel got me thinking with his earlier comment about rubbing down with wet and dry to move the staking point to a different position, but I took the opposite direction and ordered some 25mm x 0.1mm shim washers to have a similar effect. I used 2 x 0.1mm shims and it moved the staking point back a suitable amount (as shown in the photo below), while leaving plenty of unmolested area should I ever need to repeat the process. I really hope I don't have to, but better plan for the worst.

I bought the shims from https://www.modelfixings.co.uk/shim_washers.htm (https://www.modelfixings.co.uk/shim_washers.htm) and they have a comprehensive range of sizes available. Highly recommended.

Hi Graham

Nice work. I assume you have the rubber boot for the coupler? As the splines are greased (moly grease) the rubber boot keeps road grit from sticking and becoming grinding paste.

Enjoy

Eric

Hi Eric,

Yes I do have the rubber boot. It was something of a surprise to find a rubbery thing underneath all the road dirt and grime, but it's cleaned up and ready to go on. Good point about moly grease - I'm a bit confused with the range that's available. Ideally I'd like something I can use for this application and also for packing CV joints when I come to it. Any recommendations?

<Edit> after doing some Googling, it seems to me that this should do the job:

https://www.commaoil.com/productsguide/view/6/212 (https://www.commaoil.com/productsguide/view/6/212)

That seems to tick all the boxes, would you agree? <\Edit>

Many thanks,

Graham

Hi Graham

Looks like it does tick all the boxes.

Peter

Yes that will do fine

Thanks chaps.

As well as confusing myself further with crank pulley marks, I was also able to trial fit various modifications I've made to the alternator mountings. I'm happy to say it all seemed to work out well. Starting from the top, the fitting that attaches to the stamped metal top mount that in turn mounts to the cambox has always been a bit iffy and so I resolved to get a solid and reliable fitting made up. Rubber mounts age, crack and eventually fall apart, so for the material I chose Acetal, an engineering plastic. I've had bits made from it for other (motorbike-related) applications, and I've seen how well it puts up with general abuse.

So I got my tame engineering firm in Sheffield to turn me up a pair of inserts from a piece of Acetal rod I have. The inserts are stepped with the smaller diameter being a snug push fit into the mounting bar. What you can't see is the piece of 10mm o.d./8mm i.d. stainless tube that sits inside the inserts and the washer next to the nut. The piece of rod is sized to be fractionally shorter than the overall width of inserts, adjusting/mounting bar and washer, so that the whole assembly can be nipped up tight without applying too much force to te inserts.

Next down is the top mount on the alternator, which bolts up to the bottom of the mounting bar and provides belt adjustment. All I really needed to do here was to find an M10 bolt of te correct length and with the correct head size to locate in the alternator housing. And a nyloc nut and washer to suit of course.

The bottom mount had me scratching my head initially. The threaded insert/distance piece that screws into the oil filter block had an 8mm hole running through its length whereas the alternator casting was sized for a 12mm bolt. Rather than faffing about with inserts I decided to get the part that screws into the oil filter bock opened out to 12mm so I could use an M12 x 120mm bolt to secure the bottom mounting. This bolt has to do the heavy lifting, as it will bear most of the  weight of the alternator. I'm not sure an M8 bolt is really up to the job. So hopefully I now have a solid and reliable method of fixing the alternator in place. I've not bolted everything up finally as I will be messing about with the distributor setting the timing and it's easier to get at it without the alternator in the way.

But at least it's another little job ticked off the list.

Hi

You really really will not want to use this. I suggest a plinth and buy a n other for the car….!!!

Very nice, mine will not be anywhere as pretty as this.

Peter

Thanks for the nice words, Peter. I'm putting a lot of time and effort to get things right (and pretty!) on this engine as once it's installed in the car, I never want it to come out again - not in my lifetime, anyway. And plating all the manky old bits should (hopefully) keep them looking decent for longer. The other thing with taking my time is that I know every single part of this engine in detail, and if (when?) things do go wrong in the future I'll know how they're fitted and how to fix the problem. Not rushing to get it fitted into the car also gives me time to fix mistakes made earlier (and there have been a few)...

It's been over 6 months since I last updated this thread, mainly because there has been nothing to report. The refurbished engine and gearbox are still sat on the dolly, waiting patiently to be put into service.

And that event now seems marginally more possible than previously...

I'm currently in France, and will be for a few days yet. As detailed in another thread I've been trying to get the car running again, and concentrating on the carburettor as the main culprit. Well, the car now runs, but it's as rough as a badger's backside. I initially thought that I'd failed to tighten all the exhaust manifold nuts/bolts up properly, as it sounded like there was a bad exhaust blow.

After getting under the car and checking everything and tightening up any slightly loose fasteners, there was no perceptible improvement. I drove the car a short distance round the village and when I got back to my house I noticed a trail of coolant on the ground. When checking closer, it appeared to be coolant mixed with oil...

So it appears that my donor engine of unknown provenance is a duffer, and probably has a blown head gasket. This possibility did not fill me with deep joy, it has to be said. But it has concentrated the mind on the best course of action. Rather than chasing my tail trying to fix the myriad faults on the donor engine, I need to get the car back to the UK where I can really get to work on it. I retired in July 2020, so it's not like I have work commitments to take up my time.

While I was considering how to deal with the latest curve ball, I rang up a friend in the next village and told him the story. He promptly informed me that he has a towing dolly that has already been used to tow a car back to the UK, and offered me the use of it. My ex-AA VW Transporter should make light work of that job - before I acquired it, it would have towed countless broken-down vehicles.

So that is the New Plan. The only slight flaw in my cunning plan is that I do not have a garage in the UK in which to do all the necessary work. So as soon as I get back to the UK I will be trying to track down a garage for rent in the vicinity of Sheffield.

Wish me luck.

Good Luck Graham

I worked under a Rock Awnings Gazebo on the drive for 2 years in case that helps. A de-humidifier is a must if you are mad enough to do this!

Thankfully I now have a decently sized double garage.

Enjoy

Eric

How had the oil/water mix got out? Take it you have checked that the oil in the engine is similarly contaminated?

Good luck with the trip.

Hi Neil,

I'm afraid I haven't even had the heart to find out. It's quite possibly a coolant hose that wasn't fully tightened up when the engine was installed, but I'm now of the view that it gets taken back to the UK, the 'problem' engine removed and then we start afresh with the refurbished engine I have waiting. I'm not prepared to spend any more time than I absolutely have to on the current engine.

Hi Eric,

Yes, desperate times and all that... I don't even have the luxury of off-street parking in the UK, but am hopeful that I can track down a garage to work in somewhere reasonably close to home. I'm meeting my friend with the towing kit tonight, so hopefully can start making plans soon-ish.

Graham

It's been more than six months since I updated this thread, and unfortunately no real progress has been made in that intervening period. I've been trying (sporadically) to find a garage for rent in my vicinity and drawn a blank, and have been sounding out prices for low-loader hire - expensive! I've been quoted £220 per day for hire alone, and that doesn't factor in ferry/chunnel crossings and fuel.

So I've been thinking of an option that I'd previously dismissed out of hand - fixing the blown head gasket on the car in France. How difficult is it to replace a cylinder head gasket with the engine 'in situ'? My current plan is to bring down a spare, refurbished, complete, fully populated cylinder head and just swap them over. I'd also be bringing a spare new water pump, head gasket, head bolts and cam belt. If it's possible (and I don't see why not) I will also be removing the auxiliary pulley and cutting off the fuel pump lobe and plugging the hole, just to make sure I can't mis-align it.

I've never replaced a Beta cylinder head gasket 'in situ' so would appreciate any pointers or gotchas I might encounter. And hello again, after a period of absence... !

One last thing - I'm presuming that I won't need to drain the oil prior to swapping cyl heads or removing the aux shaft? I will obviously drain the coolant before starting...

Hi Graham

I have not changed a head yet, just stripped a few engines down, and you know how to put them together….., so suggest changing head should be a walk in the park, and in situ. As to the idler shaft, just leave it, no point making work and easy enough to check and test the setting.

Time to get it done as this has been going on forever and you must be sick of it!

Peter

Hi Graham,
Yes, as Peter says, head change is straight forward, and I agree, leave the idler shaft
untouched.
Depending on timing and logistics, I'm available as a 2nd pair of hands.

Nigel

Nigel, You fancy a trip to the South of France to swap a cylinder head? :D

I am sure he could be tempted, free wine, food etc…..

Peter

Yes, it's really wearisome and I am getting sick of it all. I think I will probably do the strip down while I'm here this time so I'm aware of any gotchas, then bring the head and valve train back in the van with me. That way I can pick the best out of what I have and get it ready to take back down later in the year. This is in between going in for another hernia op, by the way. I had one last year but it appears they missed the others...

Sorry to hear about the repeat op, not the best time to be needing it.

Peter

Yes, it's the period when I'm out of action that frustrates me the most. But it is what it is and I have to deal with it. As regards to the car, when I discovered the head gasket failure on the donor engine, for some reason I complately dismissed the idea of fixing the engine in situ; I don't know why. With the benefit of a bit of detachment from the problem it now seems the obvious way forward. Strange how the brain (well, my brain anyway) reacts to problems.

Yup, that's my perfect holiday Graham!

Even I have changed a Beta head gasket in situ, though many years ago. Worst bit back then was undoing the exhaust down pipe with very corroded nuts, then the schoolboy error on re-assembly of getting the cambelt 1 tooth out which I got away with......

The one aspect of swapping the cyl head over that I'm not looking forward to is the inevitable fight with the exhaust manifold. I replaced the OE cast manifold with a CSC part back in the late 80s and after discovering just how impossible it was to refit the CSC without a pit or 2/4 post lift I had it converted into a 2-piece item and then ceramic coated. This is what it looked like before fitting for the first time:

http://www.betaboyz.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3207.msg22373#msg22373 (http://www.betaboyz.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3207.msg22373#msg22373)

I think I'll need to get under the car when the time comes and undo the bolts holding the two halves of the flange together and lift the head off with the top part of the manifold attached. Whichever way I do it I know it will be messy and much bad language will be involved. I don't have a pit or a post lift (if only) in France so it's going to be car crawler and a face full of dirt and muck. What joy.

Nigel: If you're serious I will be in touch a bit nearer the time... :D

Graham

Don't forget to take a bucketload of tappet shims and the tool with you.... It's a job I've done a couple of times in the past and will have to do again soon. Unfortunately I donated/gave away all my spare shims and the bucket tool when I sold my Fiat 124 Spider many years ago. Something else to start an eBay search for now....

Guy

Have a pair of old head bolts with the tops cut off and screw driver slots cut to use as guides for lowering the head into place. You use the screw driver slots to undo them once the head is down. Also take a Tap to clean out the block threads or your torque figures will be a disaster. Have a torque wrench and the setting sequence. GCs books tell you how to lube bolts and washer for fitting.   
Have new bolts, new belt & tensioner and a new head gasket with the correct dowels for the gasket. You can re-use the washers. Just be sure to fit them the right way up! Keep scrapped head gasket out of the oil feed and return drillings to avoid a blow up on the journey (take a collection of bungs you have tested on an old block). 

Take you time and you will do this fine.

Eric
PS mark the AUX DS position at TDC carefully to a fixed reference point.   

Hi Guy

Pretty sure the tool is easily sourced and Graham having built his engine should have one anyway?

As to shims, they should also be easily purchased in France as same as Fiat/Alfa from memory, so only a couple of days wait to get them. Main thing is the ability to know what size you need, so thin ones are a benefit here so you can get a gauge in the gap….

Peter

I've got 'the tool' in France - in fact I have two. One is (I believe) an exact copy of the original Fiat/Lancia tool, the other is a poor copy. Most of the dimensions differ between the two. I also have spare head bolts I can butcher to make up Eric's guides (very reminiscent of Guy's gearbox mounting guides), a torque wrench, paper copies of both of Guy's books and an electronic copy of his first book. The engine had a new tensioner bearing less than 50 miles ago and I'll be bringing down a spare, new water pump (the very pump that the French garagiste fitted a few minutes before wrecking my original engine). Only had a couple of minutes use at most...

I'm sure there are plenty of other things, but that's for starters. Thanks for all the replies and help, chaps.

Is there any overriding reason why I shouldn't do the Aux drive shaft lobe removal while I'm in there? I could bring it back with me when I retrurn in a few week's time and have it circumcised and ready to re-fit when I return. It also means one less thing to worry about when re-fitting the cam belt.

Hi Graham

You could do the Aux DS if you have prepared the part in advance being VERY careful to get all the swarf out of it from cutting it down and plugging it.

Eric

That would be the plan. I'd remove it from the car and bring it back (along with the head etc.) with me in the van and do the work in the UK before returning to France with prepped head and Aux DS. And possibly even Nigel... :D

Graham

Just noticed this - what kind of bungs would you use and where would you source them from? Fully understand the logic of it - the last thing you want are pieces of old head gasket blocking oil and water ways...

Graham

I have an assortment of plastic caps that used to seal new hoses. You can buy plug kits from Burton Power or Demon Thieves. Maybe Rally Design.

So today I started the stripdown of my poorly Beta. Front wheels off, front of car on axle stands, radiator drained  but still waiting for neighbourly assistance to remove the bonnet to a safe place. In spite of having the bonnet in place I was able to remove a fair amount of ancillaries. There's a view from the nearside of the car looking across the engine bay, one from the offside looking down on the engine and the last is of a 100ml syringe with cobbled together hoses that enabled me to pretty much empty the cylinder head of coolant via the top water rail opening. I removed over 300ml of coolant using this little device alone.

Tomorrow I'll be focussing on the cam belt cover and pulleys. Thankfully I had the foresight to bring my mains impact gun and a set of impact bits down with me, as I know they'll be needed.

Hi Graham,
I've never found a need to remove the bonnet to do anything.
Is there a specific reason that you found?

Nigel

Hi Graham

Although not the most likely culprit, suggest you check the block face for out of true. I would expect either blown gasket or warped head would however be your issue given the cast block. Just want to make sure you do not waste a load of time all to be back at the start….

Peter

Just ease of access, really, particularly when removing/fitting the head. But not essential, I agree.

Yes, I've been caught enough times like this to make sure I check everything. At least if this head is warped I do have a known good spare sitting at home. If the block face is out of true all bets are off...

Graham

So I've just encountered the first road block; I'd omitted to bring my 38mm impact socket with me. I'd brought my trusty mains windy gun with me, but not the socket to use on it. Ho hum. Everything is much more difficult if I can't get the crank pulley off. So it's off to the quincaillerie for me, and hope they have one in stock.

One other thing - how on earth do you get the water pump pulley bolts off with the engine in situ? I don't have my engine hoist with me so can't raise/lower the engine without extreme difficulty. I'm sure there's a knack, but I just can't see it right now. As soon as you touch the bolts the pulley rotates...

Water pump pulley - two 10mm spanners - use them on two of the bolts, tighten one and loosen the other. Then repeat on the two remaining bolts and then use a screwdriver underneath the heads of the two loosened ones and the spanner on the third bolt. Job done.
guy

Nice one, Guy! Elegantly simple...

Glad I could help. Have you remembered to take an adaptor plug for the windy gun?

No, it's staying down here so has been fitted with a French plug. I bought a mains Aldi/Lidl windy gun for Sheffield and I'm very impressed with it. More power and lighter than the Clarke, and cost about £40 from memory.

The 38mm impact socket arrived Friday afternoon and yesterday I set about removing the crank and water pump pulleys. After giving the crank nut some serious heat for 3 or 4 minutes it came off in a couple of seconds with the mains windy gun, so an early result. The water pump pulley bolts put up rather stiffer resistance...

Getting two of the three bolts loose was comparatively simple, it was the third one that proved troublesome. Eventually I managed to wedge a screwdriver against the two free bolts to give enough purchase to loosen off the third bolt. Even then the only way I could get the pulley out was to remove the square nylon plug that was blocking access. There really is no spare clearance (Clarence) at all in that part of the engine bay.

Thinking ahead to re-fitting, has anyone made up a tool to hold two bolts in place while tightening/undoing the third? I was thinking of a piece of flat bar with two 15mm holes at the correct spacing to locate over two 13mm head bolts. Alternatively I was toying with using a hole cutter of the appropriate size on the arc of the bolt heads to allow use of a long impact socket on the bolts. The hole could be plugged with a grommet in normal use.

Has anyone done either?

Tightening the bolts on the water pump pulley...

Fit the three bolts as tight as you can by holding the rim of the pulley using a 10mm socket.
Put the bolt pattern at 10/2/6 o'clock and with a ring spanner on the 10 o'clock position move it so it's just to the left of 6 o'clock. Put the socket drive on the 6 o'clock bolt, brace the shaft of the ring spanner against the socket and tighten it. This should give you enough leverage to stop the rotation of the pulley. Once it's done, turn the pulley clockwise and repeat and repeat again.

Guy

The cam boxes and head have now been removed from the block and are sitting on pieces of cardboard on the garage floor, however I'm not quite as pleased with myself as I might otherwise be. Why? Because I can see no evidence of head gasket failure and I'm now left scratching my head in puzzlement. One thing I can confirm however is that the cam belt comes off really easily once the auxiliary drive shaft pulley has been removed...

Anyway - photos of the block/head interface follow. As far as I can see only one dowel was present. but the other one may have detached itself and sought shelter in the engine bay.

I would have posted this yesterday but took the precaution of tipping fruit juice into my original keyboard and have only just found a replacement...

Hi Graham

Cyl 1 looks decidedly different to the others in terms of carbon build up? So something is going on.

Peter

This engine has only run for a maximum of about 30 minutes in my ownership, all previous running was in the donor 2000 i.e. Coupe. One thing was obvious - the previous owner(s) were pretty cavalier about oil changes; all the aluminium interior surfaces are black. The photos can be misleading - on the photo of the block cylinder #1 is on the RH side. On the head photo cylinder #1 is on the LH side of the photo.

I now need to find some suitable material to plug up all the oil and coolant galleries before I start cleaning the block face. All work on the top end will be done at HQ in Sheffield. One thing I did notice was the difference in friction when undoing the cylinder head bolts. Some could almost be unscrewed by hand once initial tension was released, a couple made me reach for the rattle gun to fully undo them. So I can see plenty of thread tapping action in my future.

One other thing I noticed on cylinders # 2 & 3 was a distinct line all round the bore about 15-20 mm below the block deck. Would this be as a result of blow-by past the top rings, or is this normal on an old and well-used (and abused) motor?

Hi Nigel

I would expect a slight wear ridge you can feel. The carbon goes with the age/abuse but is most likely from the valve stem seals mostly. There are no hard score lines which would be broken rings. You probably had valves no longer sealing properly with a side dose of piston rings with plenty of wear. With your re-furb head it should work to get you home, but a full bottom end re-build will be the only way to long term performance/ reliability. That would need new oversize pistons and a re-bore.

Eric
I assume you did not do a leak down test before stripping it?   

Hi Eric,

I (in)conveniently left my leak down test kit back in the UK (along with the 38mm impact socket), so I have no real data on how leaky or not the top end is. The complete top end (plus aux shaft) will be repatriated and once this head has been cleaned and vapour blasted I will compare it with the other spare head I have and use whichever is in better shape. I'm not going for perfection, just sufficient to get the car home with minimal risk of failure. I have a good set of valves, springs and head bolts to use (I acquired them from you along with the BW head about 10 years ago) so it's really a case of which head is in generally better shape (valve guides etc.) This refurb will just be a stop gap to get the car back to the UK. The engine I will be using longer term is the one sitting on the dolly back in the UK.

Is it worth cleaning up the bores to remove the carbon ridge or just leave well alone?

Graham

The complete top end, along with aux shaft is now back on UK soil and it's time to find out what horrors lurk. The first thing I noticed was how black all the internal castings are. Clearly this motor has been run for extended periods without oil changes. I've stripped both camboxes today and to my relief the cams look in perfectly OK condition, as do the journals. There's no obvious wear between buckets and casting so that looks OK as well. However it did take more than a small amount of persuasion to get the cams to leave the housings - it was only once they were out that I discovered why. Where the cams run directly in the head at the camwheel end there were definite ridges of compacted old oil sludge on both cam and housing that was preventing the cams from sliding out as they would normally do.

I've marked up each of the shim buckets so they can go back in the same hole they were removed from - not sure if that is good practice or unnecessary? The shims have just been wiped off and put in a bag. Around half of the shims had either no size markings or were illegible.

Next step will be to strip the head, but that will probably have to wait a couple of days as Mrs Mango is flying off to the Philippines tomorrow and my time is spoken for...

Graham,
It all sounds like good news.
Your approach to cam bucket position is good but probably not
required.
Sloppy mechanics put the shims in upside down. Size markings
should always be underneath so that they remain.
In any case you can measure the shims with a digital caliper or
micrometer.
The factory shims come in all sorts of weird sizes but most new ones are
supplied in 0.05mm increments.

Nigel

Thanks Nigel. I'll be measuring up the shims in due course, but the ones that did have markings on seemed to cover a fairly wide range. Is it still possible to acquire a shim set for sensible money? And will a set of digital vernier calipers provide an accurate enough reading? I do have a metric micrometer but have a nasty feeling it's still in France...

I won't be trusting a set of digital vernier callipers unless they're modified to take a point reading in the centre of the shim, if you've got parallel jaws you'll read a high point at the edge. I doubt it'd take much to superglue a couple of pads onto a cheapie set from Aldi?
Guy

Hi Graham

I would forget vernier calipers and buy a decent cheap second hand micrometer off Ebay. Imperial are usually little money and you can get quality ones with calibration parts as a set.

On the shims as Nigel says they are available and listed for various manuf eg Fiat. Cost about £4 each from memory.

Peter

Hi Guy, Peter,

When I was removing the shims from the buckets it appeared to me that the bearing surface on the underside of the shim was the outer circle that bears onto the bucket, and that it is the shim thickness at this point that should be measured. The centre portion of the underside of the shim is never in contact with anything and as such is irrelevant. The only way to measure the true (working) thickness of the shim is by taking a reading from the bearing surfaces, surely?

I'm pretty sure I do have a set of imperial (non-digital) micrometers, but that leads me down the imperial/metric conversion rabbit hole. I think it's time to start scanning ebay for metric digital micrometers...

Graham

Hi Graham

Interesting point, maybe measure across to see variance?

On the imperial to metric conversion, Google is your friend. I simply measured all my shims, made a list and converted, though all I have are still legible. I had no issues. The only issue I did have was that new shims do come in .05mm increments which can mean at the limit of tolerance which is what I had on one of mine. Yes you can get them ground down, but not a DIY job.

Peter

Today I took a trip to Clay Cross to the (new) premises where Stanwood Engineering have relocated to. Jon has had something of a Eureka moment in the last couple of years and realised that he'd much prefer to be a one-man band rather than an employer/part time engineer and has downsized his operation. All of his previous employees have found suitable work elsewhere and Jon can now concentrate on what he does best - working on race/sports engines. He also now works less than 5 minutes away from home, compared to over an hour each way. Definitely a quality of life improvement.

I took a box of engine parts down to him for his inspection and he confirmed within a couple of seconds of looking at the suspect cylinder head and gasket that there had indeed been failure of the gasket in at least 2 places. This was a welcome relief to me as it confirmed that I wasn't going (completely) mad and my diagnosis was correct. I had expected to see chunks of gasket missing, but Jon pointed out at least two areas of carbon build up on the fire rings that should by rights have been clean and shiny. It does help when you know what you're looking for.

So Jon will clean and pressure test this head and the spare one I have and will clean up and lap the valves in and generally prep the head ready for me to take down to France and re-fit to the block. I'll need to drop off the remaining pieces of valve gear and required seals and gaskets next week and then Jon can crack on.

As an aside, I was intending to give Jon the bare head, but I only managed to dismantle the four inlet valves using a brand new (and quite expensive) Laser valve spring compressor before the tool became completely unuseable. The T-bar that you screw in to compress the valve springs galled to the extent that it was impossible to move it forward or back. I've tried contacting Laser after-sales service and have been much less than impressed by the response. The response has either been silence (when using their online contact form) or 'I'll get the service department to call you back'. I've had no call-back, unsurprisingly.

These are the areas on the head gasket that Jon reckoned had failed. With the benefit of hindsight it's fairly clear where gases had been escaping past the fire rings.

Jon rang me up this morning (I was impressed - working on a Sunday) with some not-so-good news. He was at a loss to explain how he hadn't seen this before, and to be honest I should have spotted this as well; an almost complete break in one of the cam journals on the inlet cambox/cam housing just where the cover stud screws in. I can only assume that the fault was present but only showed itself after the cleaning operations Jon undertook.

 I do wonder whether my efforts in drifting out the inlet camshaft caused the fracture; I remember it needing a fair amount of (controlled) violence to drift the cam out of the housing. This was down to the very considerable burnt oil and gum deposits that were effectively glueing the cam in place; a legacy of non-existent oil changes by the previous owner(s).

So what to do? I'm not at all sure that this fracture can be repaired by alloy welding. I do know a pair of very, very good welders, but welding cast aluminium is always a lottery especilally when it's been in continuous contact with oil. There would also be potential distortion issues. So I guess I need a replacement inlet cam box/cam housing. Does anyone have such an item they'd be willing to part with? I'll put an entry in the 'Parts wanted' section as well.

Oh well - I should have known it was never going to be as simple as it looked. There is also a degree of time pressure as I'll be heading back to France in the first week of September and I need all the various parts ready by then. In an ideal world I'd receive it in time to let Jon build the complete head/camboxes assembly up prior to travelling, but the first step is to actually acquire a replacement.

Pm sent

Peter

The refurbished cylinder head came back from Stanwood in the last week of August and was duly packed into the van with a load of other kit; Jon had cleaned up a lot of very manky parts, lapped the valves in, reassembled all the valve train, shimmed up the valves and basically presented me with a top end nearly ready to fit back onto the block (after it's been properly cleaned up). I drove down earlier this week (in the middle of the heatwave with no air-con) and all the Beta stuff has been off-loaded. So all I'm waiting for now is for Nigel to arrive in Montpellier tomorrow morning whereupon I'll drive him back to Pouzolles and we can formulate A Plan.

And probably drink some wine in our spare time...   ;D

Anyway, here's the head on the bench.

I assume you have fiber washers for the cam box lid bolt screw things and assorted gaskets ready? Enjoy sunny France!

Cheers

Eric
From Heatwave UK!

Hi Graham

You did well to get Jon to do all that!

Hope all goes well in France, is the plan to drive the car back this time or leave over there?

Peter

Eriic,

Yes I've brought the cointents of more than one gasket set with me which includes the fibre washers, plus some sheet gasket material. In fact if there's an outside possibility I might need it, I've brought it with me...

Graham

Peter,

I came down in the van so will return the same way. Once the Spider is mobile again it will need a Controle Technique (the old one has expired) and I want to build up confidence in the car before travelling back to the UK in it, so hopefully I can repatriate the car in Spring 2024.

Graham

Nigel and I are officially feeling deflated, and that's the most polite term I could come up with...

As part of the block prep and cleaning I ran an M10 x 1.25 tap down the threads in the block to clean out any crud and make them ready to accept the head bolts. Nine of the threads cleaned up very nicely, but one gave serious cause for concern - the one between cyls 3 and 4 on the inlet side. When I ran the tap down it there was consistent resistance to the tap, nearly all the way down. This reminded me that when undoing the head bolts back in May one bolt had been particularly difficult to remove and had needed me to use quite serious force to unwind it. After tapping it I tried a head bolt in the thread and discovered a worrying amount of slop. It only started to straighten up and fly right towards the end of the thread.

We decided to carry on and torque the head up (as per GC's instructions) and all bolts passed muster at 20 lb/ft. When we upped the torque to 40 lb/ft Nigel (who was wielding the torque wrench) came to the iffy bolt, tightened it up until nearly at torque, at which point it just went floppier than a floppy thing. Many imprecations and bad language followed, as you can imagine.

So now we need to try and track down a supplier of an M10 x 1.25 helicoil kit in a part of France where engineering suppliers are few and far between. I've enlisted the services of a Brit ex-pat I know who runs a number of old cars and he wiil try and track down a source for a Helicoil kit.

So not the best of news to report. Both of us want to get this thing buttoned up and finished before Nigel flies home on Thursday, so tomorrow will be crucial if we are to achieve this.

No-one ever said it would be easy...

Hi Graham

Bad luck, would the ex pat guy you are thinking of be Simon Ingman who has a number of old Lancias?

If not then maybe send him a message, you can find his contact email on the LMC forum under simonandjuliet or you can contact them via their wine website, https://domainelatasque.com/contact-us

Best of luck…..

Peter

Hi Nigel,

Horrible! Also look for threadsert and mail order is your friend. The swarf will go into the water jacket for the most part BUT tank tape over every hole in the block before you start you want zero swarf in the engine.

Good luck/ Bon Chance 

Eric 

Hi Peter,

Thanks for that - I've used the 'Contact Us' form on the website to leave a message for Simon.

Eric,

Yes there are mail order suppliers that can provide me with a Helicoil kit  within the week, but by that time Nigel will have returned to the UK so the immediate focus is on trawling any engineering suppliers I can find. I did look at threadsert but concluded that it wouldn't withstand 60 lb/ft of tightening torque - I may be wrong on this of course. Will definitely mask off every part of the block except for the offending thread.

Thanks for your comments and help - much appreciated.

Graham (and Nigel)

Hi Graham/Nigel

Any joy?

Peter

Hi Peter,

I've tried all the quincailleries (hardware/ironmonger stores) in Pezenas and Beziers for a helicoil kit and drawn a blank. Also my friend who lives down here has asked at various places and they can all order one in, but by the time it arrives Nigel will be back in the UK. I ordered a helicoil kit off a French eBay seller and it should arrive late this week/early next week, but again it will arrive after Nigel has left.

Tomorrow I think we'll concentrate on making up a rudimentary jig so that any drilling/tapping/inserting operations into the block will be at as close to 90 degrees as we can possibly make it.

At least the 'Arrogant Frog' red wine we had with our evening meal was very enjoyable...  ;D

Graham

Hi Graham

That is a shame. Hope the rest goes ok when you get the kit.

Peter

Wouldn't you know it? Helicoil kit arrived 10:30 French time this morning. Nigel's plane left Montpellier at 10:00.

I won't be rushing into getting the Helicoil done; I'll take my time over it.

'Perfect' timing hey Graham! French post at its best.

Front door at around 1400 after a 3/4 hour delayed t/off, and hold for 20 mins over GTW.
Hope you get that pillar drill operational soon.

Something I thought of while airborne: I suggest that you find a suitable lump of cast iron, or maybe aluminium,
and do a test drilling, tapping and fitting of a coil. It'll help to rest-easy when doing the real thing?

Cheers for now,
Nigel

Hi Nigel,

So the return journey took a bit longer than expected, then? I managed to get hold of Kevin (Irish electrician working in South of France) and he popped round at lunch time. He finally got power to the drill, but still no joy. Looks like one of the motor windings is kaput, and to add to the fun the 'start' button is faulty. So that drill won't be turning this year. I'll give Andy a ring and see if he knows anyone who has a pillar drill. Don't think I have any lumps of cast iron or ali knocking about, unfortunately.

Will keep you posted on developments (or lack of).

Graham

Hi Graham

Sorry to hear about the trials, I normally find French deliveries to take 2-3 days due to the distances unlike in the U.K. when you expect next day for a lot of the country.

With your current run of luck, can I suggest you maybe duck out of buying a lottery ticket this week?

Peter

Hi Peter,

Yes I'm being very circumspect in anything even very slightly risky at the moment...

But there is better news to report. I rang up Andy (an ex-pat who has been living in France for around 20 years to ask if anyone he knows has a pillar drill. He replied to my delight that he had a small pedestal drill but wasn't sure it would be man enough for the job. I assured him that it would be, as I was only drilling into timber and simply wanted to make a rudimentary jig that would give me a more accurate 90 degree/perpendicularity than I could manage by hand.

So long story short, I now have a jig that I can bolt to the block and which will give me as close to 90 degrees as possible, and more importantly will allow the drill to self centre. Initially I was going to run multiple strips of masking tape over the block face to stop any swarf going where I didn't want it to, but eventually decided to use a sheet of cardboard with holes cut in for the two locating studs, the thread I was drilling and tapping, and the dowel that sits very close to one of the locating studs. I wasn't keen on leaving any residue on the block face, and masking tape isn't the strongest of stuff. Hopefully the picture below explains better than I can.

I'm now just trying to find my big Billy boy bravery boots before I start...

Nigel,

I bet you never imagined that your breakfast cereal box would be re-purposed in this fashion...  ;D

Hi Graham

Brilliant stuff, here’s hoping all goes according to plan, fingers crossed!

Peter

No-one ever said it would go without incident and it certainly didn't, but I think I have enough thread of sufficient holding power in the block to at least get the car back to the UK (after some reliability testing in France). The jig worked really well and I cannot begin to imagine how I could have done the job witthout it (or something similar). The drilling out process was nervy - no matter what combination of drill speed and pressure I used the drill bit would find ways to grab, but in the end the hole got drilled and it looked and felt perpendicular to the block. I also used the jig to guide the tap in (having drilled out the jig hole to accommodate the tap) and this made the all-important first few threads easy to cut. I was having to use a fair amount of force to cut the thread, but not so much that it threatened to snap the tap. Cast iron feels 'grainy' when tapping, not like mild steel.

Then we came to the business of inserting the Helicoil. The first one I tried, I can only assume I used too much initial pressure on the tool, as the insert went in at what looked like every other thread - i.e. a very coarse pitch thread when it should be a fine 1.25mm pitch. Once I realised this the only way out was to drill out the helicoil and start again. Thankfully I was able to do this (with the aid of the jig), leaving behind the thread to accept the helicoil, which I then ran the supplied tap down 2 or 3 times. The thread didn't seem any the worse for wear and so with much trepidation I put a second helicoil on to the tool and very carefully started the insert into the thread. Thankfully this time the internal thread was a genuine M10 x 1.25, which I verified by carefully running a head bolt down it.

I now had a bit of a dilemma. The inserts are only 10mm deep, which is a long way short of the 20-22mm of thread depth the standard head bolts occupy. So I decided to try and use 2 inserts, one above the other. The first one went in until there was 12-13mm of free thread above it, which I was happy with. So I broke off the tang, and put another insert on to the tool and threaded that in, until it bottomed out against the lower insert. The top of the insert was about 1-2mm below the block deck, so that was ideal. When I tried a head bolt down the newly Helicoiled thread the first part (on the top insert) felt very good - minimal pressure needed, but no slop or wobble. But then when I came to the lower insert it went very stiff, to the point that I wasn't prepared to continue.

I had assumed that the thread would continue without any real separation between the lower and upper inserts, but it appears that when threading the insert in, the coil of thread is actually stretched. albeit not by much. This means that the threads of the two inserts are out of step, as I found out. So I suspect I will need to take some careful measurements aind shorten one of the head bolts so it only tightens against the upper insert and doesn't impinge on the lower insert, as that would throw the torque figures right out. I am told that a Helicoil repair is actually stronger than the original thread, and it looks like I will have the chance to test this out...

So we have progress, but I don't feel that I'm out of the woods just yet. The head will have to be successfully torqued down on all bolts and the engine running properly before I can feel confident.

Having removed one inserted helical is it worth removing the upper one so that the head bold doesn't need cutting down? Or is that one risk too far?

Guy

I was bricking it when I had to remove the wrongly threaded helicoil. It knackered two drills in doing it, and I don't have any similarly sized drills, so I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie. I'll make some careful measurements tomorrow and decide on a plan of action then. Enough excitement for the day, I think...  ;D

Graham,
I certainly chuckled seeing the cereal box, glad to have obliged!

I'm surprised the 2 helicoils didn't line up as, as we had discussed, one thread with
two coils should not be an issue. Perhaps the act of allowing the second
to contact the first caused the binding? Not sure.

Idea: perhaps file off the lower part of the bolt thread a bit, but not completely, allowing the full length
to operate but with much less stiffness. maybe try this on one of the old bolts first. In other words
you're slightly reducing the outer width of the bolt thread for the lower coil.

Good luck, and glad to hear of rapid progress!

Nigel

Hi Graham

 Nice idea on the double helicoil and yes did for-see an issue with matched threads. I suggest you run your tap down the two inserts to clear them so you can use a standard bolt.

Peter

Yes, better idea than mine.

Nigel

Thanks for the comments. Now I've had time to distance myself and clear my head a bit I'm going to try Peter's suggestion of running my M10 x 1.25 tap down the thread. It should be fine on the top insert, but will meet stiff resistance on the lower insert, I think.

Another thing that is giving me pause for thought is wondering where all the spare bits of metal swarf have wound up. There are 3 x helicoil tangs down somewhere in the pit of the engine along with assorted bits of swarf from various drilling and tapping operations. I did follow Nigel's suggestion of loading the drills and tap up with grease so the swarf would stick to it, but I'm sure some must have fallen down into the pits of doom. Or am I worrying unnecessarily?

Hi Graham,
I agree the swarf is an issue.

The gauze in the oil pick-up should not let those bits get to the oil pump, and,
as they are 'heavy', compared to filings, should fall to the bottom.

A magnetic drain plug is available from AE Car Parts #2133680  which will help.
Several oil changes will also help.

Ultimately, removing and cleaning the sump is best, but as it's not an easy task given
your facilities, I'd go with the above.

Nigel

Hi Graham

First comment from Eric

“The swarf will go into the water jacket for the most part BUT tank tape over every hole in the block before you start you want zero swarf in the engine.”

So if he is correct any dropping downwards ends up in coolant area not oil. You need to obviously flush out as best. You have taken care to stop top exiting swarf so I would be confident you should be ok and as Nigel says the oil filter and mesh should take care of any going that way. As to dropping the sump, it can be done using axle stands you just need to loosen the belt end engine mount and raise the engine away from the subframe. Not trivial, but I did it on the Spider and removed the oil pump whilst at it.

All the best

Peter

I've just run my M10 x 1.25 tap down the offending thread and the first section, as would be expected, went fine. As soon as I encountered the second insert I felt immediate and stiff resistance. I tried a couple of turns but quickly realised it was a no-go. The tap came out OK, but on closer inspection one of the cutting threads has a small section missing. Those inserts are tough stuff - they've destroyed two drill bits and have now effectively destroyed a tap.

So I don't think that having less engaged threads than standard will be an issue, as the threads that are engaged are way stronger than the cast iron of the block. And as the head bolts are 12.9 high tensile I don't think it will be a problem.

The only problem I have is making sure the head bolt doesn't bottom out into the second (lower) insert. I don't want to cut off too much, and further reduce the number of threads engaged and I don't want to leave too much on and have the bolt contact the lower insert. Measure 9 or 10 times, cut once, I think...

Hi Peter,

That's something of a relief. I've been scrupulously careful to ensure that the block deck is covered up at all times, so I'm confident that no swarf has entered the oilways. I assume that the swarf/tangs, being steel/iron and heavy will find their way to the lowest part of the coolant galleries and sit there until the block is flushed out (if that ever happens). I really don't have the facilities to remove the sump so will have to trust to the design of the oil circulation system to keep any nasties away from where they shouldn't be. The motor will be getting fresh coolant (and fresh oil and filter once the initial start up is achieved), so that's as much as I can reasonably do I think.

I wonder what other surprises the car has in store for me? It's fighting me every inch of the way so far...

Graham

A further setback has occurred, in that my buddy in the same village has suffered a fall while working and has had to go to A&E to (as he puts it) 'get some staples in my head'. Apparently he's confined to home for the next few days. So the assistance I need to remove the bonnet and fit the cylinder head will need to be provided by my long-suffering wife when she arrives at the end of September. Most inconsiderate of Andy...  ;D

I'll pop round tomorrow and make sure he has sufficient supplies of the essentials (beer, wine and food)...

Progress on the Beta up till now has been completely lacking, as Andy has been hors de combat since his fall, but today Jackie arrived at Beziers airport. Within a few hours of her arrival we'd removed the bonnet, transported it to a safe place and (glory be) fitted the head and inlet manifold to the block! We even managed to wangle the exhaust manifold onto the head studs (with the gasket in place) and secure the manifold to the head with a couple of nuts, ready for later full tightening.

I was tempted to call that a day and leave the main event (tightening down the head bolts) to another time. But as that would only be postponing the day of reckoning I decided on the Macbeth approach - 'if it were done, then t'were well it were done quickly'...

So out with the torque wrench and find GC's instructions for torquing the head down. The first pass at 20 lbs/ft was uneventful - even the suspect No. 4 bolt felt the same as all the others. Next was 40 lbs/ft and trepidation definitely creeping in, but No. 4 bolt passed without incident. Then for the big one - 60 lbs/ft... I have to confess I was absolutely bricking it on pretty much all of the bolts (especially No. 4), but they all torqued up fine and nobody died. So while it was belated, it was definitely a moment of success. Here's the head, suitably clamped in place:

Great news - a brave man leaving an inlet tract unstuffed ready for all sorts of loose stuff to drop in! Must remember that bit of advice for when I start my rebuild....

Good point, but it will be quickly covered with a carb tomorrow. I will plug it with something in the mean time though...

One day I'll show you a carburettor nut I dropped down an inlet tract and didn't notice.....

I can't imagine it would be a pretty sight...  :o

I don’t have a Guy Croft book but I was under the impression that late head bolts (ribe head) are torqued 15 ft/lb, 30 ft/lb and then 90 degrees + 90 degrees.

Did GC do them differently? Or is there another way to use late bolts?

GC used to issue little bulletins, one of which was about head gaskets and tightening thereof. This is the relevant bit about torque values:

Tighten to the following regime cold:
20lbf ft + 40 lbf ft - loosen bolts 1/8 turn max - tighten to 40 lbf ft - tighten to 60 lbf ft. Final pull-down each bolt in turn with long T-bar by hand 1/16- 1/8th turn to equalise preload.

I must confess that after tightening the bolts down to 60 lb/ft and expecting to strip a thread at every turn I couldn't find the will to do the final 'equalise preload' bit.

If anyone wants I'll post up the whole document.

Excellent news Graham. Chuffed for you. Jackie to the rescue!

I guess now it's all just fitting everything else and getting it running.

Looking forward to hearing the end result.

Cheers,
Nigel

Hope you don’t get nightmares….

Yes, time to figure out the correct sequence of tasks - I think getting the valve timing correct and cambelt fitted is the first task. In response to Guy's photo, the inlet manifold is now completely plugged...

We're now in our last week before heading back, so multiple jobs will be competing for time - it's always like this...

Will post up at least one progress report before we go back.

Graham

I am keeping my fingers crossed you get it fired up before leaving! You deserve that milestone.

Peter

Well done Graham!

Thanks for the good wishes, much appreciated. So far the cam belt is on and the engine turns over freely, and earlier on today I re-fitted the exhaust manifold with its fancy new copper gasket on the flange/joint at the back of the engine. It really is an absolute swine to get to, as I can only raise the front of the car just high enough for me to get under it on a car creeper. There are 10 x M6 bolts & nuts that need to be fastened up and there is hardly room to swing a 1/4" ratchet with 10mm socket on.  What's doubly galling is that I splashed out on a QuickJack a couple of months ago, but haven't had time to assemble it. The extra working clearance would have made the job much easier, but hey ho.

At least most of the rest of the jobs can be done leaning over into the engine bay.

Graham,
I do hope you'll get it running, even without the cooling system, before you
have to depart.
That would be a huge leaving present!

Nigel

Hi Nigel,

Yes it would be a landmark. Unfortunately it's about this time in the holiday when time compresses and all the jobs that need to be done extend...

But at least the hot water cylinder sensor registered 56 deg C today, heated entirely by the sun...  ;D

Graham

The one time that I replaced a Beta head I fitted the exhaust manifold first. Isn’t that the easy way?

Probably so with the standard exhaust manifold, but mine is an Ansa/CSC that has been cut and shut. This is what it looks like. The manifold to head aren't the problem; it's bolting up the two flanges where the pipes have been cut (ironically to make fitting easier) with very little space around it and lying with your nose brushing the sump...

Realised that this must be the case just after my post. Good work getting that fitted in with no car lift for sure…..

Well I did try, but in the end I ran out of time. When you're getting ready to exit a holiday home for best part of 5-6 months there are so many little tasks that need doing; I'm sure Peter will bear me out on that. Anyway, everything that now needs to be done in the build up to (hopefully) getting the car running again is now a one person job. The bonnet is back on and most of the jobs at the front of the engine are completed, and I reckon there are 2-3 hours of work needed to get it running, but I just don't have that 2 or 3 hours spare. The engine has new oil, but not coolant yet. Here's a photo of the engine bay as it will stay until spring 2024:

Hi Graham

I can agree, last few days can be busy.

Getting house ready for long layoff in winter does take some work. Not sure of your setup, we are quite fortunate with ours now. All building/restoration work was finished pre Covid, also our house is just the house with a small lean to at the side. Main jobs are cutting back the shrubs, last grass cut (we have very little this year as has been so dry), then spend one of the last days on final clean and pack. Morning of leaving is early up to get any chilled stuff packed, put away last items such as Karen’s buggy and the. Final drain down of water. Again fortunate as we only have wood fires so no heating system to bother with.

All in all it is quite relaxed for us now having done it for many years, initially was quite a stressful leaving day. One thing which has reduced that is Eurotunnel’s flexibility in terms of which train you actually catch. Away from peak times they just put you on the next train going regardless of your ticket number. A very sensible and flexible system which allows for late or early arrivals.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Yes, as the trips roll by you do get into a routine. I have an exit checklist that I tick off, which helps a lot. Having a cat that tries to hide in a still fairly disorganised old house when it senses we're moving adds to the hassle. Back home now, and while the journey throughout the whole of France was under cloudless blue skies, we've returned to grey and damp.

Plus ca change...   :D

Graham

Hi Graham

Last off topic post, promise, but one of the first things wife did was checklist for leaving, she is the organised one, not me!

Weather here has been unreal for October, another day of no clouds and up to 30 degrees, due to change over the weekend thankfully a bit cooler. Have been here for nearly 4 weeks and one day of rain in an area that normally has plenty this time of year.

Peter

It's been best part of a year since I updated this thread, mainly because not very much (if at all) has been happening with the Spider. When I arrived in April of this year I was intending to make progress, but as usual the need to make progress with the house took precedence and I left in May without having done anything of consequence to the car. There was also a certain amount of anxiety as to whether the car's repaired engine would actually start and work correctly, which translated into me not attempting to get it going...

Anyway, I've been back in France for a couple of weeks and today I decided that I would man up and attempt to start the car. Before that I had to clear away all the detritus that had accumulated around the car, wash all the windows so I could see out, and pump up the tyres (they were all between 15 and 20 psi). So the battery (on charge for the last couple of days) was bolted back into its tray, the live clamp attached to the battery terminal and then the earth clamp connected to its terminal.

Except it never got that far...

As soon as the earth clamp touched the battery earth terminal there were big sparks, pops and bangs and smoke. And the earth lead flew out of the clamp like it had been fired from a pistol. This un-nerved me quite a lot... The earth lead is the OE item and was soldered into the clamp (or rather it was). Can anybody explain this? I know there is normally a spark as the second of the two clamps contacts the battery terminal, but I've known anything as violent as this.

Anyway after thinking about this a bit (and retiring for a cup of tea) I decided to ring Vehicle Wiring Products in the UK and see if they ship to France. Thankfully they do and the extremely helpful chap there sorted me out with the right size earth lead with the correct terminations (I already have a spare earth clamp) and a pack of 10 ring crimp terminals. The whole lot (including pricey postage to France) came out at a measly £18. Bargain. Thank heavens for people like VWP.

So once my VWP parcel arrives, I'll gird my loins to do battle again. This is turning into a real saga...

Hi Graham. That sounds exciting! Are you sure you had the ignition off before connecting the negative to the battery? It sounds a lot like you were connecting to a live circuit. The other possibility is reversing the battery connections which gets exciting. You would not be the first or the last to do this.

Good luck on the start. Remember spin it plugs out ignition amp disconnected first to get some oil pressure and confirm no scary mechanical noises.

Cheers

Eric   

The car keys were definitely in my pocket, but during the course of refitting the head and getting access to the exhaust flanges on my two-part system I did remove the fuse box to give me extra wriggle room. Is there a possibility something could have been mis-connected on reassembly?

Battery connections were correct (I specifically checked that). In fairness the earth clamp was well past its best and there wasn't a great deal of evidence of solder on the cable strands that had been ejected from the clamp. I suspect it was ripe for failure.

It was definitely exciting, although I don't really need that kind of excitement...


Yes, removal of the plugs was part of the plan but good idea on disconnecting the ignition amp. Will do both.

Hi

If it was that violent then wonder if you have it trying to fire the starter solenoid, maybe disconnect it before trying. Most other connections would not be too much of an issue unless you have a dead short which should be obvious with a meter.

Just my thoughts….

Peter

Electrics aren't really my strong point, so grateful of any suggestions. The earth lead from the battery on my car goes down to a chassis earthing point (one of the battery tray supports, then (I think) down to an earthing point on the gearbox (might be the engine), so I don't think there's too much amiss there. I'll double-check though. I'lll also check the solenoid connections, although if I remember correctly they're a real pain to get at.

Hi Graham,
You are correct on the routing of the earth negative cable.

The positive cable goes direct to the starter solenoid, and that is where I'd
be looking first. Once you've checked there's no conflict with earth metal around
the solenoid, the next checks are the several smaller wires on the positive battery
post. There's at least 2,maybe 3. One of them goes to the fuse box and is coloured black,
possibly with a white tracer, another goes to the alternator, also check there.

As you've had the fuse box out, it's a likely problem area, although a mis-connection would be difficult to
achieve.

A good checking protocol would be to remove the smaller wires from the positive batt terminal, and then
connect them one by one.

Good luck,
Nigel

Hi Graham

I was thinking that if you have some sort of short/mis connection on the wiring associated with the firing of the solenoid that could cause the solenoid to fire and hence engage the starter. As Nigel says attach one at a time and check for any obvious shorts with a meter

Peter

I'm pretty certain that I'm guilty of a self-inflicted problem. Following the advice given above I first of all checked the positive battery leads and found that the main supply to the starter solenoid was solid and not in contact with any metallic elements other than the solenoid terminal. Next I checked the black/white lead to the aternator  and I think that is where I made my big mistake when bolting everything back together following the last round of works. In the picture below there are three chunky black/white cables all bolted to the same (upper) terminal post on the alternator. I believe that the heavier of the three (on the left of the picture) is in fact an earth strap and should be connected to a lower binding post which has a nut fitted to it, but has no cables attached.

Certainly it appears that I've created a major short by bolting an earth and live cable to the same terminal post. See what you think, but that's what it looks like to me. I really don't know what I was thinking when I did this - my only excuse is that a) all the cables are the same colour and b) I was left completely unsupervised...

Graham,
I was wrong in my previous post. The alternator positive
on my car is fed directly from the starter solenoid positive, obviously a much shorter route.

Nigel

Hi Graham,

I think you have found your problem! I made new cable for mine in red positive black negative. I always thought the Lancia colour choice was strange and dangerous.

Simple fix and game on.

Eric

Yes I think so... I still feel a bit of a dunce for not clocking that an earth strap going to a live connection is a bad idea, but Lancia wiring colours don't help. The live and earth battery cables are both coloured green (!) and having the same (black with white trace) colours for both live and earth to the alternator is a bit silly. The new earth cable will be conventional black and the live battery cable will be changed to a heavier duty red sheathed item early doors. Once the car is repatriated those alternator cables will be changed in similar fashion.

We live and learn...

Well, no-one ever said it was going to be easy or simple.

And it isn't/wasn't...

I fitted the plumptious new earth battery cable (arrived this morning) to the new -ve terminal post and everything went together nicely. Battery positive connection went on first and it was with some trepidation that I then fitted the earth cable. But this time there was no drama, no sparks, no smoke and no burning smell, so all good. I'd removed the plugs and disconnected the electronic ignition box from the loom and then spun it over on the starter to ensure no nasty mechanical noises were apparent (they weren't, which was a relief). So then it was a case of pop the plugs back in, reconnect the ignition pack and fire up the fuel pump.

And that was where it all went a bit south...

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a slight movement down by the front crossmember on the RH side. On looking closer there was movement, fuel was dripping from the outlet port of the Huco electric fuel pump. At first I thought it was the fuel hose leaking from the spigot, but that wasn't the case. It was leaking from the body of the pump. Huco fuel pumps have a clever and simple method of allowing you to set the inlet and outlet spigots at any angle you like, to cater for all installation types, and it was from this junction on the outlet side that the leak was coming.

Back on the bench all became clear when I stripped the inlet port down, to discover an o-ring in two pieces. The o-ring provides the seal and mine had cried enough and bifurcated itself. They're a 60p part and I didn't have a spare. So I guess progress has been made, but (as usual) not as much as I'd like.

In the dim distant recesses of my mind I think I might have a spare pump of the same type, so time to start creating havoc and searching through cardboard boxes. If not, it's more time wasted getting inexpensive parts sent out from the UK. What joy.

One step forward, two steps back...

I managed to track down my spare Huco pump and it had a viable o-ring, so that was retrieved and fitted to the in-car pump. When energised it ticked way until the carb was full, then stopped and no petrol escaped from any union. So far so good.

With a pretty much fully charged battery (only used to turn the engine over with plugs removed), the engine spun, but I was shortly greeted with a couple of bangs in the exhaust. There might have been some flame from the exhaust as well...

So I guess I've mis-timed the ignition and it's firing on the wrong stroke...?

And just to add to the sense of jollity I noticed that the washer bottle was leaking, probably from the rubber seal where the pump goes into the bottle.

Not one of my better days.

Hi Graham

You doorgesluisd it came out in solidarity with the fuel pump……

Keep on working at it, you will get there.

Peter

The pump is actually leaking from the body, not the seal. Anyway, pump and bottle are coming back to the UK with me for further examination. Didn't know you spoke Dutch?

But the elephant in the room is the mis-timed ignition. I need to take my bravery pills and get stuck in to it...

OK, so I've taken the first steps, lined up some marks, checked the exhauist cam position on No. 1 cylinder and taken some photos. And perused (for the umpteenth time) the write up by Ian (75coupe) on static ignition timing. This one: http://www.betaboyz.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2099.0 (http://www.betaboyz.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2099.0)

The photos (hopefully) show that #1 exhaust cam is on the closing stroke, a tippexed line on the crank pulley lines up with one of the marks on the cam belt cover and the distributor with the cap off. The HT lead for no 4 cylinder plugs into the distributor cap pretty much 180 degrees opposite where the rotor arm is pointing to. I assume this is significant.

All advice gratefully received and happy to take further photos if you tell me what to point the camera at.

Well, do I start with the good news or the bad news? Good news first, I guess.

Following a telephone conversation with Nigel yesterday evening I resolved to swallow my fears and get stuck into lining the distributor up correctly. I loosened off the 13mm bolt holding the forked clamp in place, and lifted and wiggled the distributor body and rotor arm until I had it where I wanted (rotor arm making initial contact with the HT lead for cylinder #4). After numerous clicks, the starter motor eventually caught and within a couple of revolutions the engine started and was off and running. Woo and hoo...!

But that was as good as it got, unfortunately. The engine sounded rougher by the second, there was a distinct exhaust blow noise (and this was after I'd had custom copper gaskets fabricated) and when I peered underneath the engine there was a steady drip drip of oil falling off the diff housing.

I honestly feel like I'm getting to the end of my tether. It's just one roadblock after another. I'll regroup and try and do some more investigation tomorrow, but right now I've really just about had enough. It's not helped by the van having a suspected faulty head gasket (or warped/cracked head) and we've got an 800 mile drive back on Friday. Plus it's getting harder to select 5th/reverse gears on the van as well.

Hi Graham,

We all have these moments, but they are moments that pass. Get the timing light on it and check. The exhaust gaskets get an exhaust paste treat and re assemble. First find the oil leak then decide on the level of swearing/ re-work, but you might as well get the engine running well before fixing it unless it is epic.

Chin up Gin in!

Eric

Hi Eric.

Thanks for the 'chin up!' message of encouragement. Unfortunately (as usual) time accelerates as you're coming to the end of a stay abroad and loading the van and trying to tidy up last minute 'must do' jobs took precedence. On the plus side the van made it home in one piece and can now go into a local VW specialist to get properly checked out.

The Spider will be a problem for future Graham to solve...  ;D

G