Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 17/06 - Trabant Engine Stripdown & Assessment...

[SiC]

Done a compression test now it's spinning?

I can't help but wonder if those aren't bits of a piston rings too. 

[Zelandeth]

3 minutes ago, SiC said:

Done a compression test now it's spinning?

I can't help but wonder if those aren't bits of a piston rings too. 

It's on the to do list.  I'd just about killed myself by the point I got to this stage today, so that's a job for Future Me to look into.

Just seems like too much meat to it for a ring, though with how it's folded and rolled up it's really hard to say.  

[RayMK]

Rings on two strokes have to survive without cylinder support as they whack over the ports thousands  of times per minute.  Ring failure is therefore quite common.  However, they tend to shatter rather than get chewed into interesting shapes  and their relative hardness would usually result in significant scoring of the bore by the fragments in addition to the  piston's running surface.   Does the Trabant engine have end float shims on the crankshaft?  They can be deformed when they collapse from wear, and being a 2 stroke, the bits could be dragged up the transfer ports to have further hammering on top of a piston.  The only other thing I could think of was maybe a bit of head gasket if it has a metallic reinforcement ring.  All somewhat academic if it does not have such features 😁.   

If compression is ok, similar on both cylinders and it runs ok, I'd probably not investigate any further.

I hope your energy reserves recover soon. 

[kevins]

Rings, Circlips and bearings ard generally all hard, I suspect it's something which has been lodged somewhere in the intake system for ages an on a long hot run finally broke loose, I've seen far worse  marks the pistons and heads on engines which have obviously run for a long time like it, I'd put it back together, perhaps check and clean all the inlet pipework and drive it.

[GlenAnderson]

Personally, I’d consider that a win. I would have taken a file or something to smooth out the piston crown and combustion chamber while it was apart, but I wouldn’t bother taking it off again to do it now it’s back together again. It looks to me like the remains of a split pin, particularly if it’s soft. It’s certainly not going to have been a bit of piston ring.  Maybe it’s been sat in the inlet pipework for a while waiting to rattle through. I can’t think of anything inside the engine that could have come loose and ended up looking like that that wouldn’t be either aluminium or hardened steel. 
 

 

 

[Zelandeth]

55 minutes ago, GlenAnderson said:

Personally, I’d consider that a win. I would have taken a file or something to smooth out the piston crown and combustion chamber while it was apart, but I wouldn’t bother taking it off again to do it now it’s back together again. It looks to me like the remains of a split pin, particularly if it’s soft. It’s certainly not going to have been a bit of piston ring.  Maybe it’s been sat in the inlet pipework for a while waiting to rattle through. I can’t think of anything inside the engine that could have come loose and ended up looking like that that wouldn’t be either aluminium or hardened steel.

 

The other obvious possibility which sprang to mind was the cap of a spark plug.  We've got a mix of leads here which means one needs the cover removed from the threaded connector, one doesn't.  Seems like a little bit too much material for that though, albeit kind of hard to say when it's been that well pummelled!  Though no need to remove the air cleaner to change the plugs...but equally who knows what other work might have been done at the same time, and it's the first thing that has to go if the cowl needs to come off.

Definitely one reason to ensure that either the intake tube stays on or a rag gets stuffed into the carb throat when working on the engine in this though.  With the carb being so far down it would be way to easy to drop something small in there and not notice it.  Especially something small like that which you may just assume when you looked under the car for it that you couldn't find.

[Zelandeth]

Still very short on stamina, but I did manage an hour's usefulness this afternoon.

Between my knackered one, half a donated one and a service kit I had enough bits to re-re-rebuild a mechanical fuel pump for the Rover.

Still a right faff trying to get the rearmost bolt back in.  Really doesn't look like it should be anywhere near as awkward to get to as it is.

Fuel filter is staying where it is for now as it does seem that there's quite a bit of sediment being pulled through from the tank, and it's far easier to monitor that when the filter is horizontal. 

The engine was run fully up to temperature and it seems so far to be behaving.  I've now left everything to cool again at which point I will re-check for any leaks.  How far do I trust it not to leak?  About this far.

Given my history with this fuel system, the answer is "Not at all."  Fully expecting this to start misbehaving in some way pretty much immediately.

This has allowed me to retrieve this pump though which I can now return to TPA.

Which I'll hopefully get done in the next few days, then can actually look at getting her out of the garage for the first time this year.  Precisely how it's already June I've no bloody idea.

[Zelandeth]

Some considerable number of months ago I pulled the cylinder heads off a certain Rover P6.  This resulted in my garage ending up looking like even more of a disaster area once I was done than usual, and had basically buried TPA.  Owning to the garage being so narrow it's just annoying enough to squeeze in past a car parked in there that instead putting things away properly to just pile items up on and around the rear end of the car that's parked there.  Especially as the paint is in such a state that scratching it really isn't high on the worry list as you'd never notice anyway.  The intention is always for this to be a transitionary state of things and that you'll go back later to tidy up properly...However that keeps not happening.

I wouldn't say that today I tidied up properly, but I did mostly unbury the car which allowed for this to happen.

Which made it far less of an uncomfortable job to reinstate the fuel pump as I wasn't trying to do the job all but laying on the roof.

I really do need to pull that top fuel tank strap and put the actual foam I bought to fill out the bit of a gap at the top in there, that "I'll get back to that next week" bit of cardboard has been in there for something like four years now I think.  I mean, it's doing the job just fine, but it don't half look sketchy and bugs me every time I open the cover.  Unfortunately every time I then close said cover I then forget about it again after about 60 seconds until the next time I go to put fuel in or do a fluids check!

Really do want to have a proper crawl over the car before she actually goes on the road this year anyway, so my plan is to get that done as part of the service which will be done as part of that.

As she was rolled back mostly out of the garage though, it would have been rude not to at least confirm whether the battery needed to be charged and if the carb was going to protest at being ignored for the last nine months.

Of course she only started first time and idled as though she was parked yesterday.

Hopefully actually get her out on the road again this week.

The Rover - somewhat to my surprise - hasn't yet dumped large amounts of fuel all over my driveway.  Not sure if I dare let it know I've noticed...

For I think the first time, the pump looks to be completely dry after sitting overnight.  Kind of at the point where I need to actually start test driving it to see if it's going to continue cooperating now.  Which fills me with a certain amount of dread given its record so far for appearing to work perfectly right up till the point where I start relaxing and thinking the fuel system is behaving before deciding to NOT work then.  It's not going to get any more reliable just sitting on the driveway though.  Sorting the oil leak from the filter housing needs to happen before any real distance is covered though.  That's not a difficult job...Six bolts, remove, clean up, prime oil pump, reassemble. 

However access looks absolutely bloody awful so I've been putting that off as I know it's going to be one of those jobs which ends up testing my patience.

Also needs a damned good clean.

A task which I'm sure is going to do a great job of reminding me how much of a small car that a P6 is not.

Oh, and I need to finish my investigations into what was going on with the Trabant before turning this pile of bits back into an engine.

Well I can't claim I'm not spoiled for choice on what to work on this week!  The Partner is due an oil & filter change too.

[Zelandeth]

Mmm...40 year old grime.

Just what you want on an air cooled engine.

Quite a few fins were plugged solid.

This was deployed after drowning the whole area in degreaser. 

Well...Something which claimed to be degreaser.  Not actually sure it made the slightest difference to be honest.  It's doing jobs like this where I really miss the ability of the pressure washer we used to have at the garage to deliver hot water as well as cold.  Trying to clean up something like this is where that heat really did make the world of difference.

To call it clean would be vastly over selling it, but it's a lot cleanER.

I've visually confirmed that all of the fins are now clear, and hopefully the removal of the vast majority of the slimy residue will help stop dust and general grime from sticking there in the future.  Pulling the shrouds and cleaning everything under them really probably should be an annual service item given how clogged things could get without any way to tell.

I think you can see why I wanted to at least get rid of as much of the grime as I could before I went unbolting anything further.

[Zelandeth]

Actually had a spare hour for tinkering this afternoon - so of course 15 minutes into that time it started raining. 

Great.  Wonderful.  Perfect.

The Rover successfully made a run a couple of miles to and from a destination without any issues or anything falling off.  Well, completely falling off anyway.  This badge is clearly attempting to make a bid for freedom.

One of the pins has broken off the back of it, so that's going to be a self adhesive pad job until a replacement badge turns up.

Similarly I noticed that pretty much all of the mounting points for the radiator grill look like this.

So I think getting some reinforcement around there is something I'll need to look into.  There's really not much left to reinforce, so I think attaching an L shaped metal or plastic strip wrapping around underneath the back of the grill and re-drilling the mounting hole in that will be the way to go there.  I should be able to spread the load out over a larger area doing that, as I'm sure going on 50 year old plastic simply having gone brittle is one of the main factors at play here.

I'm declaring this officially off the road again now though until I've had the time and patience on hand to cure the oil leak.  It has predictably got worse and is now a solid one or two drips a second at idle.  Can't say I'm that surprised, leaks like that don't usually fix themselves.

What this test did allow me to do though was to let the engine idle for a long while, then shut it down for ~10 minutes before restarting.  I do really have some worries that this car may have hot start issues in the future due to vapour lock.  While on this occasion it started on what was still in the float bowls, it was a good 20 seconds or so before we had any appreciable amount of fuel actually being delivered through the filter.  We'll just need to keep an eye on that and see if it does turn out to be an issue in the real world once we're driving it.  Also reckon I might need to dial the timing back a touch as she always starts with a couple of proper diesel knocks when hot, and it sounds like the engine is fighting against the starter sometimes when it starts spinning.  That's an easy one to experiment with though.  Overall though aside from the oil leak, the car seems to be actually running the best it has since it arrived here now.  I'm sure it will punish me for making that assumption soon enough though!

Moving onto the Trabant.  While I had things mostly apart anyway I wanted to do a little testing to make sure that the bearings in the fan and alternator were in decent shape.  The fan belt wasn't looking particularly happy either so it seemed a good opportunity to fit a new one.

It was quite badly glazed as well from being loose for quite a while.

Getting the belt off is one of the tasks which is actually a bit on the long winded side on this car.  The main reason for this is that as you might have spotted, that the belt actually drives the fan from the back - so the belt runs from the crank pulley, to the alternator then vanishes into the cooling shroud.  So to get to it you need to pull the main cooling shroud off.

This only takes ten minutes and requires nothing more sophisticated than a 10mm spanner, but I'm sure could cause a fair amount of cursing if you found yourself having to swap a belt at the side of the road.

The other oddity is that to remove the belt you need to disconnect the coil to points wiring.  This is because the points (or in this case electronic module which has replaced them) is attached to the end of the crankshaft rather than being on a separate distributor.

This wire according to the previous owner had required repair when it had managed to get itself into the fan belt at some point in the past.  No doubt the reason for this bit of tape.

Which turned out to contain a large amount of water and three bullet connectors. 

Did the job, and will likely continue to for some time with a bit of grease to keep the water out.  However I've got some proper waterproof latching four way connectors somewhere so will snip these out and install one of those as it will be far more secure and should eliminate the potential for corrosion related dodgy connections in future.  For now I've left it sans tape as that seemed to be mainly be doing a good job of capturing water in the connection and not letting it dry out.

Actually looking inside the points compartment revealed some other historic repairs.

Guessing the green wire had got itself into the pickup at some point.  I decided that I could go one better than some paper wrapped in clear tape and got some heatshrink involved.  Also added some where the wiring goes into the compartment as there was some evidence of the wire chafing there.  Sorry, I didn't have any black in stock in a large enough diameter, so you'll just have to deal with there being a tiny bit of red heatshrink tubing visible.

The wiring was then routed in such a way to ensure that it was encouraged to stay well clear of the fan belt.

I'll probably cable tie it to the fuel line which follows a similar route for the sake of ensuring it stays put once I've replaced the connector (ensuring that one end is still removable to allow for belt changes).

The bearings in the fan seem to be in really good shape.  It's quiet and spins freely enough that it was quite happily windmilling in the slight breeze today.  If spin by hand it would take a good 20-30 seconds to stop again.  The alternator isn't what I'd call noisy but the bearings there definitely aren't in their first flush of youth.  Nothing which is contributing to the overall mechanical noise though - confirmed by running the engine briefly with the belt removed.

Putting the fan back in place and fitting the new belt is precisely as far as I got today as I was in the middle of doing that when the rain properly arrived so that's where we downed tools and retreated back inside.

[Zelandeth]

The erratic weather and being generally bloody busy this weekend when the weather was actually decent have both conspired to keep tinkering time to basically zero this weekend.  Nevertheless I was determined to tick at least one thing off even if it was tiny.

Previously we identified this connection between the vehicle and engine sides of the ignition system.

Which clearly wasn't going to be great in a relatively exposed location long term.  Especially when two wires pulled out of the crimp terminals pulling the supposedly removable parts apart.  

Before and after showing me in the process of switching this out for a more suitable connector for use buried down in the bottom of the engine bay.

Should be a fit and forget solution, but also still allows the wiring to be disconnected without having to open up the points compartment to disconnect things to allow the fan belt to be changed.

The wiring has also been secured to keep it well clear of the fan belt.

Speaking of the points compartment - you all knew I wasn't going to be able to leave it with that bit of red heat shrink sticking out of it didn't you?

Added a bit of additional black tubing to both provide a bit of additional protection to the wiring and to make it look a bit tidier.

Hardly ground breaking work, but I'm glad I was able to at least tick something off the to do list.

[Zelandeth]

Well things escalated a bit this afternoon.

Main mission for the day was to get a look at the rings to confirm they were all present and correct, and generally to look for any further signs of damage.  My intention was also to pull the jug of number 2 (I'm numbering the cylinders 1 at the crank pulley end, and 2 at the flywheel end for clarity), to see if I could see any further bits of metal floating around in the case.

Step 1 was simple but awkward.  Removing this lot.

Awkward because I had to remove it as one assembly because there's no way to get a wrench on the inboard bolt without first removing the starter motor...and just pulling it off in one piece seemed like less hassle.  That heat exchanger is surprisingly heavy, but it came off without too much hassle.

I was quite surprised looking inside the big metal assembly which is labelled as a silencer for the heater air supply to find that rather than just being a big box, it is actually constructed as a proper silencer.

I hadn't expected that level of detail for something like that.

Having the manifold out of the way revealed instantly where a good deal of the oily gunge in the engine bay had come from.  Cylinder number 1 had completely blown its exhaust manifold gasket at the top, and number 2 had been fitted with completely the wrong gasket at some point which didn't even come close to actually sealing.

The rings on number 2 were indeed present and what I could see though the exhaust port looked in decent shape.  However you can see from this angle what an absolute beating the piston crown took from that bit of metal.

You can clearly see how it's caused the edge of the piston to be domed outwards - I'm pretty sure that this would have caused me issues if I'd left it - while it ran with the engine cold, once it warmed up and things expanded a bit that might be a different story.

Looking at number 1 things started to ring far more alarm bells.  For a start the piston skirt looked like this.

That's Not Good (tm).  That's not just oily dirt - the surface is as deeply ridged there as a ploughed field.

Even worse, when the piston was lowered there was also clear evidence of it having also ingested foreign matter, albeit less obviously so than number 2.

This is particularly bad news as it pretty much confirms that there was more than one bit of metal flying around in the engine.

This was confirmed by pulling the head for inspection.  Number 2 at the top, 1 at the bottom.

While it's nowhere near as extensive as the damage on number 2, there clearly has been foreign matter bouncing around in there. 

None of that damage to the head or piston crown was present when I had that head off back in February.

Now knowing there was definitely more than one bit of metal involved and having seen damage to the piston skirt on number 1 I wanted to investigate further, it was definitely time to get the jugs off.  I'm definitely not the first person to be in here given that we have some mismatched hardware and 2 of the 8 studs were missing washers below the nuts.

I started with number 2...For reasons I don't really know. 

There's no really *horrible* damage (save for what we already knew about), though there is definite signs of a lot of blow by.

Front:

Rear:

Cylinder as we saw when we looked in there the other day does indeed have a few scratches on it.

The pitting nearer to BDC I find quite interesting as that's the sort of damage I usually associate with rust pitting.  Though I know nothing of the history of this engine, and the car did spend some period of time off the road so it may have wound up with a bunch of moisture in the cylinder(s) at some point.

Piston number 1 is far more gruesome.

Front:

Rear:

Ouch.  It's hard to see in the photos, but there are honest *chunks* of piston material missing, particularly from in between the rings.  That piston is absolutely definitely scrap.

Given the state of the piston, I'm honestly surprised the cylinder isn't worse.  It's actually better than number 2 aside from the one scratch at around 8 o'clock which is just deep enough to feel.

The rest I think the camera does a good job of making look worse, but I think would clean up with a hone.

What I don't know about either of these however is if they're still circular - though given they're both damaged that's kind of academic, I'm just curious.  We're definitely looking at the very least by this point at a pair of new jugs and pistons.

Then I spotted something poking out of the oily pool by where the base of number 2 cylinder sits.

What was fished out of that pool very clearly didn't belong there.

More worryingly, unlike the previous bit of metal we found this one very clearly is absolutely definitely hardened steel.  Even with a pair of pliers on both ends I can't bend it.  So there's every possibility that this does indeed originate from somewhere within the engine.  Assuming of course that it's not something still in there from a pervious failure - as we've seen clear evidence that somebody has been in here before.

The wrist pins were the next items to come out - albeit requiring a little persuasion.  Thankfully I managed to avoid pinging any of the retaining clips off to bounce off the ISS, nor did I drop them into the crankcase.  Again we're doing number 2 first before moving on to 1.  Plenty of pitting visible.  While *most* of it is actually where the race sits, there are a few bits which do extend into the bearing running surface.

I couldn't see any damage to the bearings themselves - but I was working in bright sunlight and with no magnification on hand so I don't think that means much.

As was the case with the piston itself, the wrist pin from number 1 was in worse condition, with more and deeper pitting visible.

Despite the pitting on the wrist pins, both of these bearings felt fine with everything able to move smoothly and no play in the load direction that I could detect by hand.

With the pistons out of the way and looking down into the crank case, there are definitely a few small "bits" in there, but no big chunks of metal that I can see.

That "blob" you can see roughly centre frame in the first image below just appears to be some oily gunk when I poked it with a screwdriver.

One thing which seemed obviously "wrong" to me based on a purely visual inspection up to this point was that there's a lot of visible scoring present on the surface of the crankcase on the surface adjacent to the inlet ports where the disc valves run.

Number 2.

Number 1.

Those surfaces are both "brake disc that's been run with knackered pads for a while" levels of rough, which doesn't seem right to me.  Though not surprising if there's been metallic crap floating around in the crank case - it will get trapped in there and ground between the surfaces as the disc valve rotates.  I don't know how critical the condition of that surface might be in terms of rebuilding this engine though.

The last thing I could check without any further strip down and/or equipment I don't have on hand was to look for play in the big end bearings.  Um...Yeah.  Not great.  There's what I would say is about 0.5mm of "vertical" play at the bottom of both con rods, and enough play that you can visibly "tilt" both rods left to right by a good distance which doesn't seem right.  The bottom end also sounds quite grumbly if you spin the engine over by hand.

Apologies for the vertical video, I didn't think about that when I recorded this.

I am open to feedback from people who know these engines there - but the fact that I can twist/tilt the rods just seems off to me.  I'd expect a needle bearing to allow straight side-to-side movement, but not for the lateral relationship to the crank to be changed - at least not that extremely.

So what next?

Given the damage we've found to both pistons, the scored/pitted cylinders, hardened metal debris and what to me seems like excessive play in the bottom end, just throwing this back together and crossing my fingers feels like I'm just asking for further trouble.  Whether that be 5, 50 or 500 miles down the road, something is going to let go and it's most likely going to do it at the worst possible moment.  I count myself very lucky that when the breakdown that kicked this all off happened that I was able to coast without any drama into a safe stopping location well clear of the road at the entrance to someone's driveway.  If this had happened during probably 85% of my normal driving it would have been far more of a nuisance, given the plethora of 70mph dual carriageways with absolutely zero provision on them for safe stopping in Milton Keynes, odds are that's where it would have happened.

My hunch is that the 35K kilometres shown on the odometer in this car most likely is 135K.  Which if the bottom end of this engine hasn't already been apart at some point is pretty damned good going for a little air cooled two stroke I'd think.  Especially given that the general evidence in this car suggest that it's never really lived a pampered life either before or since its arrival in the UK.

This leaves me with three options I reckon.

[] Find a secondhand replacement engine.

[] Buy a rebuild kit.

[] Buy a reconditioned engine.

The first option is obviously most likely to be the least painful to my bank balance.  If I can find someone in the UK who has one they're willing to part with at a sensible price of course - and assuming that engine itself doesn't also need major work, otherwise we just end up straight back where we are now.

Trabantwelt do sell a "rebuild in a box" kit which most likely would contain everything we needed to get up and going again.  Albeit not exactly cheap.

Actually a little more than that - as I'd need to factor in return shipping for the old core parts, though that's likely to be a drop in the ocean compared to the overall price tag in all honesty.

By far the biggest single cost in there is the crankshaft assembly.

Though if we're already looking at a four digit price tag for this as it stands, do we just say sod it and order a whole engine off the shelf? 

Don't honestly know how much I'd need to add on to that for shipping the core back to Germany, but I'm guessing most likely somewhere in the region of £100.  Don't imagine postage for the new part here is exactly going to be cheap either.

Time to do some digging to see if I can find a serviceable spare in the same country first I think as that would definitely be the easy option, also time to get the one currently in there pulled out - as whether it's getting rebuilt or replaced it needs to come out of the car to be worked on.

Getting the engine stripped down that far took maybe an hour or so - and that included probably 20 or 30 minutes wrestling with the exhaust before it occurred to me to just remove the manifold and heat exchanger together as one assembly.  Total tools involved: 10 (is just to remove the cowling), 13, 16 & 17mm sockets (x2 for the exhaust manifold-heat exchanger bolts as they're not captive), a ratchet flat blade screwdriver, needle nose pliers, a few rags and a couple of ziplock bags to put each cylinder's small components in.  Can't really complain at that to basically have an engine half way stripped down.

[grogee]

I would have thought rebuild kit is favourite option? Shirley there aren't loads of recon engines sitting on a shelf somewhere, although I know these lawnmowers cars have quite a following. 

The lottery of 'good used' engine isn't worth bothering with I reckon. These things work hard and you have to wonder why someone would be selling a 'perfectly good' engine. 

[LightBulbFun]

Man maths surely dictates that if your spending that much, you may as well spend a bit* extra, and get get the fancy 700cc one?

and then to save costs on shipping the old engine back, take TPA on an epic road trip to Germany, max her out on the Autobahn to finally get us those Model 70 top speed numbers?  then you can also pickup the new engine in person  

im sure the old blown engine will fit snuggly in the footwell or where the wheelchair normally goes  

[Zelandeth]

19 minutes ago, grogee said:

I would have thought rebuild kit is favourite option? Shirley there aren't loads of recon engines sitting on a shelf somewhere, although I know these lawnmowers cars have quite a following. 

The lottery of 'good used' engine isn't worth bothering with I reckon. These things work hard and you have to wonder why someone would be selling a 'perfectly good' engine. 

Depends on the price really!  If it's cheap enough it's probably worth a punt.  Not as though fitting/removing it is a massive ask.

Plus there may well be some out there.  Firstly because these cars do like to rust, so I'm pretty sure there are a few projects which have been abandoned when people have realised that there's actually no car left under the apparently spotless bodywork.

Plus I know quite a few owners have been known to stockpile spares so it's always worth asking.

There are quite a few recon engines on the shelf, not least because two companies over in Germany have made quite a nice little niche for themselves catering for them.  Just a matter of whether you're willing to pay for it!

27 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Man maths surely dictates that if your spending that much, you may as well spend a bit* extra, and get get the fancy 700cc one?

and then to save costs on shipping the old engine back, take TPA on an epic road trip to Germany, max her out on the Autobahn to finally get us those Model 70 top speed numbers?  then you can also pickup the new engine in person  

im sure the old blown engine will fit snuggly in the footwell or where the wheelchair normally goes  

Sadly I rather suspect that they'd be wanting like-for-like in terms of core engines.  So I'd likely need to factor in forefiet of the €400 core charge if I went down that road.  Plus to really get the extra go out of the 700cc engine you do really want to have a Mikuni carb in the picture - and they're not exactly cheap.

As for driving there: No.  

700 plus change miles each way, plus train/ferry...no.  Irrespective of which car I'm driving.  That's somewhere in the region of £250 fuel alone even in the Partner.  By the time you've added the additional transit costs, plus accomodation...Yeah, just dealing with the postage costs make more sense I think.

Plus I'm afraid I just don't have the stamina to consider epic trips like that any more - it's pushing my abilities in terms of being able to mentally process my navigation for more than a few hours going anywhere I don't already know reasonably well in the UK these days.  If I was doing anything like that sort of run I'd need a second driver with me I could trade off with on a regular basis.  Just a fact of life these days with how much more of an issue my ME is since I had COVID the first time round.

[LightBulbFun]

23 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Depends on the price really!  If it's cheap enough it's probably worth a punt.  Not as though fitting/removing it is a massive ask.

Plus there may well be some out there.  Firstly because these cars do like to rust, so I'm pretty sure there are a few projects which have been abandoned when people have realised that there's actually no car left under the apparently spotless bodywork.

Plus I know quite a few owners have been known to stockpile spares so it's always worth asking.

There are quite a few recon engines on the shelf, not least because two companies over in Germany have made quite a nice little niche for themselves catering for them.  Just a matter of whether you're willing to pay for it!

Sadly I rather suspect that they'd be wanting like-for-like in terms of core engines.  So I'd likely need to factor in forefiet of the €400 core charge if I went down that road.  Plus to really get the extra go out of the 700cc engine you do really want to have a Mikuni carb in the picture - and they're not exactly cheap.

As for driving there: No.  

700 plus change miles each way, plus train/ferry...no.  Irrespective of which car I'm driving.  That's somewhere in the region of £250 fuel alone even in the Partner.  By the time you've added the additional transit costs, plus accomodation...Yeah, just dealing with the postage costs make more sense I think.

Plus I'm afraid I just don't have the stamina to consider epic trips like that any more - it's pushing my abilities in terms of being able to mentally process my navigation for more than a few hours going anywhere I don't already know reasonably well in the UK these days.  If I was doing anything like that sort of run I'd need a second driver with me I could trade off with on a regular basis.  Just a fact of life these days with how much more of an issue my ME is since I had COVID the first time round.

thats no problems at all, just a silly suggestion on my part  in that case I would just because im lazy and you would know its all good, be tempted to go for the fully rebuilt stock engine option they offer, that way you know everything is good and you can just plonk it in and go

then maybe you could separately rebuild your existing engine over time as a side project or something, and have that ready to go on the shelf, or build it into some contraption for the FoD  make a 2-stroke-petrol-electric milk-float hybrid?  

or a Trabant powered 2ft gauge locomotive?  

[Christine]

Titchy ports  eh  !  Looks like it's been oil starved ..or partially seized at some point , then left,  eventually rusting  internally with condensation  .  i'd run it on modern synthetic oil in  future  . Running down from high speed , or down hill ,  with a closed throttle,  starves them of lube.  . Caster or veg based oil   goes claggy after a few days  blocking jets . Great for racing engines  if it's flushed out  after a race  .  Discs are bolloxed too , light scuffing is ok , but that' s shot . Dan's a  long term 2T  man ,what's his thoughts?  

 

[SiC]

@plasticvandan

[TrabbieRonnie]

Ouch, I feel for you here Zel, bit* unlucky that...

My thoughts these days would be to go for the whole engine swap from TW, although that's not as cheap as it once was I see.  Also, I don't know how much you're into the car already, I paid £400 in 2009, meaning it's been dirt cheap to run overall.  Although, the Trabant price rises also mean the car should be worth the cost if/when you come to sell?

You do seem to have gelled with it though, and 'get' it... It's still a relatively cheap classic as they go, and with a new engine you'll be thrumming around the place without a care in the world!

(I assume you've asked around on TrabantForums/the FB club page btw, to see if anyone's got any other advice?).

 

[plasticvandan]

That one piston has definitely seized at some point. I think from looking at the shrapnel,and assuming is uses a similar construction to my MZs,that could be a piece of oil deflection disc,used to guide oil to the main bearings usually behind the crank seals:

The knobbled edges of the piston crown aren't actually that unusual and a bit of that isn't that much of an issue. Side to side play in the Conrods is perfectly normal,it's up and down play which is when there's a problem.a bit of perceptible play is fine.side to side will waggle all over. Bores look pretty good. Ports need smoothing,looks like it uses the same design pistons where the rings can move a bit either side of it's locating peg,this is meant to help prevent carbon build up, it's very important (though you won't be keeping them) to clean out carbon from in the ring grooves so that the rings are free and don't get caught on the ports,likewise a reason for keeping port edges smoothed off.

If it was mine? It's an hour to take engine out,and can be worked on a kitchen table.most jobs can prob be done just using heat,my mz.engine I rebuilt using just a hotplate (it's in the manual!) strip components and case screws/bolts, sit crankcase on hotplate,once at 100deg cases come off the crank and the bearings fall out,no hammering needed! Tho of course trabi engine may be different,prob some good vids on YouTube. Hardest thing would be finding someone to change the bearings and balance the crank,failing that get a recon crank assy and build it yourself.i don't see a replacement engine being the most cost effective and pattern bits aren't great. Pretty sure you can get an skf or similar bearing kit,set of seals and gaskets,and a pair of pistons and rings for a few hundred and do it yourself. 

[plasticvandan]

Having watched your video,Conrods look ok to me,tiny bit of up and down play is ok,side to side play perfectly normal.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, plasticvandan said:

prob some good vids on YouTube.

I highly recommend giving this series a watch, if nothing else just because its quite entertaining/satisfying  (but I do recommend watching it through first, since he does make a couple mistakes which he picks up on later in the video etc, also the comments are worth a quick read too as others chime in with their own experience etc)

On 24/05/2024 at 19:13, LightBulbFun said:

glad to hear you have been recovered safely home  as for the poorly engine, theres a great youtube channel called Aging Wheels, one of the star cars of that channel is a Trabant, and the chap has done a series on completely overhauling/rebuilding both the engine and gearbox well worth a watch at any time, but in your case I think it would be a good way to familurise yourself with the road that lies ahead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq5jTB9S5GU&list=PLzV2uljPvyAeEgAEgwYNfKKoFGx2LSejt

(that should be a link to a playlist of the rebuild series) forgive me if your already well familiar with the channel just thought i'd make this comment just incase  

 

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, plasticvandan said:

That one piston has definitely seized at some point. I think from looking at the shrapnel,and assuming is uses a similar construction to my MZs,that could be a piece of oil deflection disc,used to guide oil to the main bearings usually behind the crank seals:

The knobbled edges of the piston crown aren't actually that unusual and a bit of that isn't that much of an issue. Side to side play in the Conrods is perfectly normal,it's up and down play which is when there's a problem.a bit of perceptible play is fine.side to side will waggle all over. Bores look pretty good. Ports need smoothing,looks like it uses the same design pistons where the rings can move a bit either side of it's locating peg,this is meant to help prevent carbon build up, it's very important (though you won't be keeping them) to clean out carbon from in the ring grooves so that the rings are free and don't get caught on the ports,likewise a reason for keeping port edges smoothed off.

If it was mine? It's an hour to take engine out,and can be worked on a kitchen table.most jobs can prob be done just using heat,my mz.engine I rebuilt using just a hotplate (it's in the manual!) strip components and case screws/bolts, sit crankcase on hotplate,once at 100deg cases come off the crank and the bearings fall out,no hammering needed! Tho of course trabi engine may be different,prob some good vids on YouTube. Hardest thing would be finding someone to change the bearings and balance the crank,failing that get a recon crank assy and build it yourself.i don't see a replacement engine being the most cost effective and pattern bits aren't great. Pretty sure you can get an skf or similar bearing kit,set of seals and gaskets,and a pair of pistons and rings for a few hundred and do it yourself. 

Cheers for those two comprehensive replies.  I'm well aware that I'm a pretty deep, fluorescent shade of green where working on engines like this is concerned so it's really useful to get feedback like that.  

Interesting that the lateral play is normal in the con rod bearings.  I'd have expected the needle rollers to keep things in a fixed plane parallel to the crank (hence my assumption that was bad), every day's a school day. 

I think the bottom end needs to come apart no matter what anyway - not least because we need to inspect things to see if we can find where that bit of metal has come from.  If it turns out to be shrapnel left in there from some ancient failure that's just been sitting somewhere and has chosen to just now get itself kicked into the workings I will be...both amused and distinctly annoyed simultaneously!

Given VEB and MZ both being under the IFA banner I'd be surprised if the MZ engines you're used to don't at least share a lot of design features.  The engine used in the Trabant originates from VEB Barkaswerks in terms of design if I remember right.  

I think trying to get a crank made up is probably a non starter given the absolute bloody nightmare I've generally had trying to employ professionals to do basically anything around here, never mind something a bit out of the ordinary.  Getting a ready to go assembly is probably going to be the way to go there.  I'll need to do a bit more reading on what's actually involved.

I'm also trying to be a bit pragmatic here in terms of just getting it done.  I don't want to keep trying to "be sensible" about this too much and winding up with the car suddenly still sitting there by the winter still not sorted.  So "just get it fixed" is quite high up the priority list.  

Next automotive to do item though is sorting the oil leak on the Rover.  Let's see if I can immobilise TWO of my cars at once!  If I'd been smart while I had the Trabant engine actually running, I'd have shuffled it across to move it off the driveway so it's not blocking TPA in the garage before I pulled it this far apart.  Well hindsight is 20/20 and all that.  I guess if it comes to it at least it's a light car to push - though even so it makes you acutely aware of how steep our drive actually is, and that 600kg while light for a car is still bloody heavy to get moving single handedly, uphill.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

I highly recommend giving this series a watch, if nothing else just because its quite entertaining/satisfying  (but I do recommend watching it through first, since he does make a couple mistakes which he picks up on later in the video etc, also the comments are worth a quick read too as others chime in with their own experience etc)

 

I do need to go back and watch that.  I've come across a few of their videos before and I really struggled to gel with the presenter.  Given the relevance though worth giving it another look.

[plasticvandan]

The rust/pitting is usually a sign that water has got in after being sat for a long time. I have seen a tide mark on a crank flywheel from the same scenario.also had a completely,hammer the piston out the barrel sized engine solely because of modern fuel, I bought an mz off my dad that had been sat for a year with the fuel tap on,it eventually overcame the float needle,filled the engine up with fuel,which became.massively hygroscopic,and seized it completely.

IF the guys in the trabi club have any recommended contacts,it would not be beyond realms of possibility to box your crank/bottom end up and send it to be done,possibly in the UK. For context,MZ engines tend to need the top end at least checking every 20k,and usually need the bottom end looking at at 40k, with modern oil and bearings this does get extended a bit longer than it did when they were new.

Trabi engines probably not much different.

Second hand engine might be a good quick fix,but I wouldn't expect much from it and the chances are you will have another list of problems very quickly,they are taken out of cars.for.a reason after all,and are a total unknown.If you are keeping the car,the only way to get peace of mind is to know you've done your best and have new.components,wether in your engine or another.

[Saabnut]

Getting 2 stroke cranks rebuilt in the UK is a major problem, since the founder of Alpha bearings retired and they became worse than useless. A couple of Saab owners have had success at motorcycle specialists but usually with the comment "Don't bring another". Most are now sending them to Sweden to be done which is a sad reflection on the state of Britains once excellent engineering. If you do find someone, do let me know!

[Westbay]

For my tuppence worth ... I'd discount trying to rebuild the engine you have, it's likely to cost more than a "good used unit with (some) provenance and still leave you with the back-of-the-mind thought - how long will it last ... plus the cost could escalate exponentially quickly towards the cost of a new engine,

The new engine option , only you can answer this, are you reparing to sell in 3, 6 or 9 months time ? or is this likely to be a long term 'keeper' ?

[RichardK]

15 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Sadly I rather suspect that they'd be wanting like-for-like in terms of core engines.  So I'd likely need to factor in forefiet of the €400 core charge if I went down that road. 

I'm not sure of that - unless your crankcase is shot, the rebuild kit is probably what they fit to the exchange core and it replaces everything including the oil deflection disc from the look of that picture - it looks to me like that is literally a 'crankcase' that is retained and any crank bearings and things are all replaced in the kit, not like a four stroke where you need to do bearing shells in a casting for the crank to run in?

And based on that logic, the time involved, the effort you've put into the car, and the chances of success when complete, I'd be buying the 'still in three figures' rebuild kit and just assembling a new engine around the old crankcase. Unless that casting is damaged, in which case I'd enquire about 'can I buy a rebuild kit but if my crankcase is damaged, don't suppose you'd sell me one?' or source a duff engine that hasn't had a piston pretending it's in Crystal Maze with a piece of shrapnel to catch...

But I reckon those crankcases rarely have damage, hence they can have the confidence that whatever piece of crap has driven someone to want a new engine, the core will be rebuildable for a big premium over the rebuild kit they sell.

[GlenAnderson]

Are you going to keep the car?

If you are, then I would work towards having the best engine possible, and for me that would mean the uprated 700cc version at the very least; even if it means buying extras like a Mikuni and exhaust later on. 
 

If you’re not planning on owning it long term, then the cheapest fix would be more appropriate. If I were planning on moving it on pronto I’d even consider just putting it back together as-is, given that it was running before you pulled it apart.