Well, just like I said I would, I took the car out to college tonight – nearly didn’t make it though as I only just remembered it needed fuel as I was almost level with the garage I’ve got to deduct one dancing banana from the previous points haul, though, as when I got to college…
I took the rocker cover back off this evening, and the first thing I saw was nice fresh yummy-looking oil and no stray shards of engine Loosened each head bolt in turn, as per the Haynes, and torqued them up to their final 80 lb/ft. Rocker cover back on, static timing checked again, engine fired…
Well, after a day mostly spent moping around and feeling pretty pissed off, I decided that I could either continue sulking, or get the car sorted out. In my experience I’m pretty crap at the former for any proper length of time, so chose the latter I ordered a replacement head gasket set from the Gaskets for Classics…
Well – what an anti-climax With the assistance of my neigbour, I finally got the head back on and spent most of yesterday refitting all the bits and bobs that go with it. Ran out of time to get any fluids into it before dinner guests came round, though, so I had another day’s anticipation…
Well, this afternoon I finished putting all the valves back into the head, checked the endfloat, set the valve clearances, refitted the cam gear, and the belt tensioner and the thermostat housing. Put on the new exhaust studs whilst it was easy to get at them and then I then gave everything a damn good…
Due to a highly amusing incident involving a “Delete” button, the first half of tonight’s update is somewhat bereft of pictures Last remaining bit of clean-up work to do before starting to re-assemble was to grind (or lap) the valves into the valve seats. To be honest, I’ve no idea if my technique was right…
Only a short update as I couldn’t feel my toes anymore so had to come in… Before I went away, there was just the one piston crown left to clean decoke, so I got that done and out of the way. I then slowly worked my way around all the holes in the block and…