De-coking continues

I hate to think what the book rate for this job would be – it’s taking me bloomin’ ages  Alright, I haven’t got all the whizzy tools or experience a garage setup would have, but you can’t escape the time it takes to systematically de-coke and clean the head, valves, pistons and block  Before running up…

Dirty head, shiny head

You’ll all be pleased to know that the head’s lighter when you take all the bits off it  All above suggestions duly noted, thanks. It’s wierd, but in three days of a Bank Holiday weekend spent not really doing anything, I’ve only managed a couple of hours out in the garage. Oh well, motivation must be…

Stripdown time

Finally got some time last night to take the head apart ready for cleaning, and as usual took my time – so compared to some it probably looks like I achieved about five minutes worth of actual work  Doesn’t bother me though, as it’s only when I’m taking stuff apart that I’m getting to see how…

What’s gone on inside my head then ?

 It’s finally off – Graham’s “softly, softly – catchy monkey” approach was the winner  No-one mentioned how bloomin’ heavy they were  Here’s a couple of photos for your collective amusement – as I’ve not really got much of a clue about what I’d be looking for. There’s no obvious signs of cracks, breaks or tears in…

Still won’t budge

Hmm  We’re gonna need a bigger boat… I’ve got progressively more assertive with it and it’s still not shifting. The length of 2×2 I was using to get a good swing onto with the mallet sheared before there was even a hint of movement from the head  Now stripping down the inlet side to see if…

And so we begin

OK, first up is my new workbench. For scale, the legs are 3×3’s and the top is (sacrificial) 18mm MDF rebated into the frame and resting on multiple 3″ wide cross-braces. Still to be done is flush-mounting the woodworking vice into the left-hand face, mounting the metal vice on the right and cutting & fitting…

Waiting to get my head sorted

Someone at work flat out didn’t believe a “crappy old car” like mine had actually made it to France – until I walked out to the car park and picked the return journey card from Eurotunnel off the back seat  Shut him right up, that did  Currently waiting on Burtons to get their act together and…

Hiss, fizzle,drip, drip

“Last night I dumped out the sludgy brown coolant that’s only been in there since June, flushed with water, ran some Holts Radflush through, flushed again, then refilled with fresh coolant. To be fair to the sludge, it’s basically been a 2,000 mile flush and de-crud, as the car’s only pootled about locally for years before I…

La vie sur la route

Apologies for the Holiday programme interrupting the restoration thread – just think of it as a road test report  We had a family gathering to get to on Sunday afternoon in Surrey, so looking at how far away it was, I said I’d book a hotel for the Saturday night. After aimlessly clicking away on…

We’re back!

 Wahey, we’re back  A 753 mile round trip that involved, amongst other things; James Bond levels of subterfuge, two tanks of petrol, five litres of water, a kindly Essex barmaid, a slightly eccentric French mechanic with a vast array of cutting equipment, a spectacularly humourless Gendarme and a snoozing trucker doing 65mph! Full story later,…

But in the cold light of day…

Aarrrghhhh  Either the filler shrunk, I sanded it wrong, or something else, but when I got the blue sprayed, all the edges where I’d sanded down were clearly visible as little ripples. Guess I’ll have to have another go, but for the minute … All washed and put back together ready for a secret weekend trip to…

Back brakes back to life

 Finally finished refurbishing those new rear brakes that I started a couple of weeks ago. Stripped, wire wheeled, worm poisoned, Hammerited and then rebuilt with new cylinders and shoe fitting kit… If anyone knows where I can get a pair of the rubber seals that go over the handbrake lever and onto the backing plate,…