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.





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.



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.





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.



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.





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



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



On to Part III Major Engine Work Part III

Links

Major Engine Work Part I

Last Updated: December 21, 2022