The Silver Ring Rally has lots to answer for!

First off, as in my last post, I didn’t get to go to the Nurburgring. While the guy that went in my place was there we got his car into my garage and sprayed the front end.

On their return from the rally, I heard a rumour that another mate had blown the engine in his car at Spa (a French motor racing circuit). The rumour was confirmed at Minis On The Hill, a local Mini meet. Phil had indeed blown the engine. There was a bit of the block missing between bores 3 and 4. In a flash of inspiration it was suggested that they fill the hole with chemical metal, bung a new head gasket on and drive home carefully. They did this and the engine got Phil and Sam from Spa to Dunkirk. A quick ferry crossing to Dover and the car got them home to Hampshire.

CRW_2793I had a spare 1000cc (aka 998) A Series engine in my garage. I had removed it from an old project and then sold the project. I knew the engine was good so offered to Phil. He gladly accepted and the next night saw the car in my garage. The engine came out just after lunch on Sunday (I missed Saturday as I was out) and the new engine was positioned for some minor surgery.

Between three of us (myself, phil - the owner, and Scott - some random Mini freak ;o)!) came up with the madcap idea to throw on a 12g295 (1960s Mini Cooper) head, roller tip rockers and a lightened and balanced flywheel. All the items were within easy reach in the area and we went and collected.

When we got back we hit the first and second problems.

1. The engine has a verto flywheel/clutch assembly. The lightened flywheel and housing is pre-verto and won’t fit.
2. There were some marks on the under-side of the head.

The flywheel assembly is still sat in my garage waiting to go back to the owner, while we took an executive decision to risk the head.

After more mucking about, cleaning and painting the engine in high temperature matt black engine paint (which looks AWESOME!) the engine was lifted in on Tuesday evening. Everything was connected (yes, this is glossed over!) and the car was pushed out of the garage on Wednesday afternoon.

Then we hit the third problem:

CRW_28273. We put the car in gear (which slid in beautifully), removed the handbrake and tried to roll the car to move the rockers so we could set the tappet gaps. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Engine was completely locked up. What the hell! Removing the rockers didn’t help and we ensured that the cam followers were free and correctly positioned. Still nothing, engine was locked. Then a thought sprung to Scott. He had used two random bolts to hold the clutch slave cylinder plate in place which were too long and were fowling the flywheel. We found the right bolts and everything was tickety boo again. Tappets got set on the new roller-tip rockers with no major hassle after that.

So, we’re ready to start the car for the first time with the new engine. Turn the key, Engine spins beautifully. Nothing else happened though. The engine didn’t fire and run, we didn’t drive off into the sunset and nobody went to the pub to celebrate.

Part 2 tomorrow (ish!)