Eric Bylenga
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Major Engine Work Part II

Here we go, I cleaned the engine with some serious engine cleaner and tool and parts cleaner for the harder stuff. Not to mention some serious elbow grease. I'm not blessed with funds for a professional engine rebuild and a hot tank but I'm pretty happy with the result. I painted everything up with some high heat enamal spray paint.

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K, so here's the bottom end almost ready to put the crankshaft back in. Just got to change out the bearings and check the clearances.

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Plastiguage! I dry fit all the bearings and checked the clearances. It's looking like everything is still good. The thrust washers are still fine too so I re-used the old ones.

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The front plate is back on again with a new gasket and some RTV sealant to help the seal. Emmett's engine is of course a 1974, which had a single row timing chain. I took the opportunity to upgrade to a dual row timing chain for durability. The sprocket offset on the crankshaft is 4 degrees different from the single row chain which allows the valves to timed slightly differently than stock. We'll see what this means when it comes to tuning this engine.

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Here's a piston just after removal. Nasty, the oil ring particularly is kinda nasty...Well time to remove them. I didn't record this properly but I did test the ring gaps in the cylinders to make sure they were within tolerances. Again all seems to be well thankfully.

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I also bought a ring compressor, here we go putting in a piston.

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Bearings... I replaced all the main bearings and piston bearings. Here is a used piston bearing on the right, and a new one on the left. Super easy to install once everything is apart.

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The distributor is of course part of the engine, I removed this for restoration as well. Nasty and all gummed up. I had one from Lucy too, which turned out to be in better shape. I'll use this one instead.

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Ummm, what? Lucy never seems to cease surprising me (she had an Austin Marina engine). Turns out she also had a distributor from a 1969 if this date code is correct. I compared with Emmet's and yup, that's a '74. So at some point Lucy got a replacement distributor as well.

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There we go... All cleaned up, I installed some new points and a new condenser. When I have some money I'd like to upgrade to a Pertronix or some other electronic ignition. But not yet. Got to get this on the road and a new set of point are super cheap by comparison.

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Finally for now, the back plate, flywheel and the brand new clutch. I'm not done yet... More to come, but this brings us up to date so far.

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On to Part III Major Engine Work Part III

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Major Engine Work Part I

Last Updated: December 21, 2022