Project Rusty Triumphs in Scotland - To gas or not to gas(less MIG) - 09/11/24

[Yoss]

I thought the 1850 had the same drive train as the 1500 but Dollies aren't really my thing (as a FWD owner they are on the peripheries of my thing as their is a certain crossover but not much). I know the Sprint has a bigger gearbox and diff but thought the 1850 was standard. Though thinking about it the subframe would probably need swapping so probably not really worth the effort. 

[captain_70s]

Subframe is different for the OHC, diff ratio is also different for every car in the range. Not sure on the gearbox/prop.

Besides I need the 1850 intact as it's the next project...

[Yoss]

Fair point. Carry on. 

[captain_70s]

The concept of engine swapping the 1300 for an OHC has been floated around ever since the 1850 came off the road.

To be honest I'm too attached to the car's wheezy giffer transport character to change it for something too sporty!

The 1300 OHV is plenty usable in most situations anyway, the only real negative is the fact it gets a bit busy at 60+ mph. I'd like an O/D gearbox, but so does every Spitty owner, and they are priced accordingly...

[SiC]

Is the old engine seized solid? If not, just wondering if you'd get away with getting underneath and swapping the shells over. Or did you run it till it was very and utterly dead?

[captain_70s]

The later. It went from knocking under load, to knocking constantly, then the oil light came on and top speed gradually reduced until at around 15mph at which point the knocking became many out of sequence bangs. I knocked the car in to neutral and the engine hasn't turned since.

It might not be locked solid but the crank will be toast at best and it needed a rebore and head refurb to begin with.

[captain_70s]

So. I had a reason for spending on a new exhaust even thought the prior example technically worked for the most part. Girlfriend_70s and I had been asked if we'd be able to house sit and look after some pets for my parents while they went on holiday to Argyll for a week. I figured that as we wouldn't be able to afford a holiday abroad this year, because of my financial incompetence, we could do a roadtrip of the Highlands during the week before the house sitting. I'd previously done this trip solo over 3 day while sleeping in the Civic back in 2016, but given I had company and a smaller car this time it was decided we'd book some hotels...

 

I didn't fancy doing this with the very loud, very low, very rattly exhaust the car had, so the new one was purchased for the trip. It was fitted on Saturday afternoon, on Sunday I collected Girlfriend_70s from her parents house and re-torqued the downpipe on their driveway. Earlier in the week I'd also changed the oil/filter, so the car is now running 10w40  as per the handbook. I'd dumped 20w50 in it previously because I had loads sitting around intended for the Dolomite. I checked the tyre pressures and vital fluids, chucked my toolboxes and the some spare bits in the boot, added the luggage and we hit the road.

In total we covered 1,380 miles during the fortnight, including the main roadtrip and going around Aberdeenshire while at my parent's house. The Acclaim managed fine despite the ambient temperature being 30C on some days and having to contend with many 20% gradients. Keen eye'd folk may notice the rear seat back is pushed forwards, this was due to the immense size of Girlfriend_70s suitcase which must have weighed nearly as much as the car...

It even got to live the life of luxury as I stored it in my parent's garage, a proper concrete panel job which is slowly sliding down a hill and has an asbestos roof.

The only minor issue was when the exhaust fell off...

Where the rear and front sections meet the pipes just slide together, to them to mate up tightly I'd whacked them together with a hammer and all seemed well with an interference fit. Until it stopped being well after going down a rather rough dirt track after 1,100 miles of heat cycles. I pulled to the side of the road (on a blind crest, naturally) and used my wax jacket as a big glove to lift the exhaust back into position before hammering it on again. 5 miles up the road I stopped at Tescos car park and fitted the spare clamp which came with the exhaust which I had declared superfluous but kept in the boot "just in case".

Other than that all went well, the car needed a drop more oil after around 1,200 miles and used nothing else other than screenwash. The new exhaust is a revelation, it has to be half as noisy as the last effort and features no rattles. As a reminder here is how the new one sits at the back compared to the old one...

Now I just need to give it a good clean... And sort out the rough idle... And weld up the growing hole in the driver's side sill...

[hairnet]

Red herald convertible seen in n a village between innerleithen and forth about two hours ago

 

Seen no other sctsch tat

[captain_70s]

The phrase of today is "aaaaah, my back".

Three people, three flights of stairs, 130kg of cast iron. It was easier than getting the 1200 engine in the basement but I have pulled a muscle in my lower back, which is quite unpleasant. I'll get to stripping and cleaning the thing in due course.

In other news while passing the Doloshite t'other day I noticed this.

That's the £230 sill "repair" I had done 2 years ago ready to be done again then.... Think I'll do it myself this time...

[LightBulbFun]

please dont do that again!

as someone who has crippling back pains permanently, I really don't recommend it!

if there is a next time maybe see if you can rope some random stranger off the street to help you out?  

[captain_70s]

We had three people, which is about as many as you can get around the thing. The only way we managed to get it along the halls and through doors is because Victorian/Edwardian buildings tend to be generous in their widths.

We carried it on it's end, two people having an engine mount to hold and me grabbing the dizzy pedestal and rocker cover.

May try taking it back down in bits and resassembliing street side if possible.

[SiC]

It always surprises me just how heavy an engine is - even these smaller displacement jobs. That 1100 engine with the gearbox was a fair old lump of iron.

I guess on this one you could take the head off, which probably is around 25kilos or so?

What about Rapunzeling it out of the window?

[Yoss]

11 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

We had three people, which is about as many as you can get around the thing. The only way we managed to get it along the halls and through doors is because Victorian/Edwardian buildings tend to be generous in their widths.

We carried it on it's end, two people having an engine mount to hold and me grabbing the dizzy pedestal and rocker cover.

May try taking it back down in bits and resassembliing street side if possible.

Oh how I wish I'd been there to see that! Not to help at all, just watch and laugh. Sorry, don't really mean it but I've done my fair share of humping Triumph engines around and they do seem to put far more iron in them than seems necessary. Well done. 

[captain_70s]

I've lugged an 1850 engine around and if it is heavier than an OHV it can't be by much, the use of alloy must take it down a chunk.

If it hadn't been getting late and pissing down I may have entertained taking the head off. It'll certainly be headless for the return trip...

[SiC]

So when is the fitting of the engine happening?

Surely now is the time to get it fitted, while the weather is half reasonable. 

[Tickman]

19 minutes ago, SiC said:

while the weather is half reasonable

Where?

Biblical levels of rain up here.

[dozeydustman]

Liked for getting the engine. Not liked for (potentially) buggering your back up.

[SiC]

1 hour ago, Tickman said:

Where?

Biblical levels of rain up here.

Down a lot further south of course

[captain_70s]

Aye, the weather has been utter pish. Haven't even had a chance to wash the Acclaim since before my holidays.

Hopefully I'll get the thing stripped and cleaned in the next few days. Really want to get the car mobile asap.

[captain_70s]

Yes, I did spill oil on the rug. Yes, it did soak through to the carpet underneath. Yes, I did do this because I was rearranging the tarp to avoid mess...

[Andyrew]

Wd40s pretty good for getting oil out of carpet. 

[SiC]

Washing up liquid is too. I mean it's already designed and intended to remove dirt, oil and grease from dishes and pans. 

[M'coli]

Re: the Acclaim exhaust. Buy a can of zinc weld-through primer and paint the whole exhaust system with it, paying particular attention to the welds. It's much better than hi-temperature paint, IMHO.

[captain_70s]

14 hours ago, Andyrew said:

Wd40s pretty good for getting oil out of carpet. 

Fun fact. during the heatwave a couple of weeks ago a load of tar leaked out of the Acclaim's door bottoms. Likely sprayed in there at some point as a form of rust proofing.

This'd be fine aside from the fact it gets everywhere and is impossible to get out of fabric, at some point the passenger side seatbelt must have gotten snagged in the door frame, acquired a coating of said tar and then transferred that straight onto Girlfriend_70's best white blouse... No, she was not impressed.
I managed to scrub it out of the seatbelt with WD-40, nothing else would touch it...

 

I've now cleaned up the cylinder head as much as I can be arsed without removing the valves . Don't suppose anybody in the Dumbartonshire area has some valve spring compressors I could borrow?

No major corrosion to speak of, valves are slightly crusty but I reckon the Dolly's were in worse nick when I first dismantled it 5 years ago. The top end was actually oilier than the car's current engine back when it was in regular use...

I'll need to nick some studs from the Dolly's engine (some are missing, others bent) as well as the rocker assembly. Between the two heads I may well be able to finally have the right number of washers and nuts!

Next step is cleaning the main block...

The substantial mayo residue is due to the engine being transported on it's side...

[M'coli]

The 1300 FWD engine - IIRC these had the best cylinder heads of the whole lot of 9f them in terms of gas flow and tuning.  If the engine won't fit because of the crankshaft tail, surely someone in the classic racing world will pay decent money for one of these heads?

 

Love the photies o' the Heilans - where was the one taken that has the information board in the background?

[captain_70s]

Update!

Engine No.1 has been cleaned up a bit. Emphasis on "a bit", it's not easy to properly clean an engine by hand in one's bedroom...

They are "well used" and there is a wee bit of a lip at the top of each bore, most noticeably on no.2 but there is no major pitting or major damage. Considerably better than my old engine, which had noticeable piston slap and much worse lipping at the tops. The pistons appear to be stock, no evidence of a prior rebuild.

@Eddie Honda popped over yesterday with a set of valve spring compressors so I can strip the head next, get a good look at the back of the valves and clear out the airways. @davidfowler2000 also popped around for a tea and a chat, apologies for allowing you to slice your hand open on the engine in exactly the same way I did the day before...

I then took advantage of the nice weather to remove the cylinder head on engine no.0...

Removing the head was the only real pain. It was stuck fast to the block, mullering it with a rubber mallet had no effect, heaving on it while standing in the engine bay just lifted the whole car up... Eventually I got angry and found a paint scraper...

Destruction of the gasket coupled with standing in the engine bay and heaving finally got the head off. The observant amongst you will notice a missing valve spring, I accidentally caught it with the rubber mallet and sent it to the stratosphere...

Wee bit of carbon build up on the exhaust valves then, understandable given the obscene oil consumption...

The main issue however is this:

As much as I'd like to claim variable piston timing is the new VTEC I suspect the fact no.3 is out of sync with everything else and the associated clunking suggests a complete lack of big end bearing and a mullered crank. The engine still turns freely amusingly enough, everything is still connected, just not quite as tightly as you'd like...

 

Now I have to decide on a course of action. Ideally engine no.1 needs a proper rebuild before getting swapped into the car, handy to do while it's not actually in the car. However the reality is I have no money for that, there is also the fact the car has now been sitting for the best part of the year and I'm increasingly worried it's going to be towed as abandoned or neighbours are going to get angry as parking space is getting more and more limited. I really want to get it movable asap so I can do the urgent welding it needs. 

Currently I'm thinking of doing a quick and dirty hone of the bores and keeping the stock pistons and rings, re-lapping the valves and stripping the bottom end swapping out the big end and main bearings for new stock sized ones if required. The rocker assembly, missing/bent studs, dizzy, manifolds, carb, water pump etc can all be salvaged from engine no.0.

That'll get me what? 10-20k miles of half decent engine? For me that's going to be 3-5 years or motoring, by which time I'd like to think I'll have a better job, hopefully a driveway, perhaps even a garage in which to do a proper rebuild...

[SiC]

Given it turns over and the pistons are in relatively the right place, I'd drop the sump on engine 0 and check the bottom end state. If shells taken the punishment, lob a set of shells on (because cheap), maybe new oil pump and hope for the best. 

Those plugs look to be in much better colour than my BGT ones!

[captain_70s]

22 minutes ago, SiC said:

Given it turns over and the pistons are in relatively the right place, I'd drop the sump on engine 0 and check the bottom end state. If shells taken the punishment, lob a set of shells on (because cheap), maybe new oil pump and hope for the best. 

Those plugs look to be in much better colour than my BGT ones!

The last thing I did was sort the ignition timing and carb, prior to disintegration the car was running better than it ever had before in my ownership. I think, after 6 years, I'd finally managed to get it into a decent state of tune...

I reckon engine no.0 is rebuildable, but the amount of movement in the piston and the noise it made before the car died suggests that the shells for no.3 are entirely gone. Mind I drove it for 20-30 miles after the initial knock, until the car simply wouldn't run... I'm 99% sure the crank will need a regrind to be usable, there will also need to be a considerable re-bore, one piston moves laterally to a noticeable extent about halfway through it's stroke.

The Spitty motor is a much better bet for a quick refresh, especially as it is indoors and half stripped. The 1300fwd motor may be a better bet for a long term rebuild, dependent on the levels of difference twixt it and the rwd applications.

[captain_70s]

Head No.0

 

Head No.1

 

Initial thoughts:

The original head has damage around cylinder on.2, valves are sitting much deeper in the head than on the other one, valve springs are indented in the head by a considerable amount (normal?). Pretty sure it's never been machined before.

The new head has a coolant pipe coming out the top where the original doesn't (do Spitty's shift their coolant in a slightly altered manner?), valves sit higher in the head, coolant passages are unevenly shaped. Looks like it's been skimmed at least once, possibly the reason the coolant passages are weird if the nice edges have been skimmed off?

 

Progress is back to being glacial because I've been busy/ill in equal measure.

[big_al_granvia]

both need a good clean, de-carbon and the valves ground in... if either is unleaded then great, if not trip to bayron classic engineering for new guides and seats