We have bananas !!!

   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…

When in doubt – go shopping

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…

Bollocks!

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…

Just this last bit to do…

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…

Putting it back together? Already?

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…

And still we’re de-coking

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…

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…