604 replies to this topic

[I hate Brian]

Brilliant period look love it 

[johnR]

You're very kind, thank you. 

[johnR]

My son and I took the car out for a 0 - 60 timed run this evening. In standard form (city E 998 with peashooter exhaust) we'd only managed an asthmatic 35 seconds! Tonight with LCB rc40 and lighter flywheel plus some Vizarding to the carb on a Fletcher manifold we were at @ 20 seconds - not a landspeed record but a considerable improvement that shows the value of stage 1 improvements.

[johnR]

Spiyda were very good, sending out a remote tacho control board in exchange for the internal one which was a little too large for my tacho by return at no extra charge. I fitted it to a plate which I then stuck to the bulkhead and now have my tacho back.

[johnR]

I took the carb off to solder up this hole in the butterfly to try to lower the revs at idle a little

Not sure there was a great difference.

Then took it out for a drive as it's a lovely evening 

[Ell.s]

Looks beautiful

[johnR]

Some gobbets of grease around the offside wheelarch alerted me to this split outer driveshaft boot, and an inspection showed the other side heading the same way. The hub nuts were very tight and needed a long bar extended further with some tubing to crack them off. After removal of the retaining bolts I tied the caliper up to the shock upper mount and removed the disc. The steering arm and upper swivel joints parted with a quick knock of the hammer on the arms - the lower swivel played hard to get until I put a jack under the loosened swivel bolt/nut and used a forked swivel breaker to break the taper. I don't like using these if I can avoid it because they can rip the rubber boots but this time the boot survived. I then removed the inner pot boot tie and pulled the driveshaft out from the pot. Holding the shaft with the hub section against the side of my bench vice to stop it just swinging away while hitting it with a copper mallet removed the shaft. Unfortunately the wire circlip was in two parts on removal so I've had to order new. I'll remove the other side and repaint the driveshafts while I wait for them to arrive.

[johnR]

My local engineering workshop made me up a washer to pre-load the cv/axle - just waiting for a new torque wrench as the requirement is 255 - 270 Nm and mine were only good for 110.

[KTS]

apologies if it's already been mentioned/discussed, but next time you have the front hubs off, you might want to consider swapping the bolt round that links the tie-bar to the lower arm so it can't fall out in the event the nut should ever come undone

[johnR]

apologies if it's already been mentioned/discussed, but next time you have the front hubs off, you might want to consider swapping the bolt round that links the tie-bar to the lower arm so it can't fall out in the event the nut should ever come undone

Fair point! That's why it's good to post pics here - peer review is really useful. 

[johnR]

Got fed up with the oil drip which I think is coming from the timing cover gasket so as it's raining I decided to sort it. Removed radiator shroud bolts, top hose and top and bottom bracket bolts so I could move the rad enough to get to the bottom hose jubilee and removed the rad. I've sluiced the radiator out and have rubbed down the shroud ready for a re-paint while it's off.

[johnR]

After much cursing and swearing (and repainting the rad shroud three times as I knocked it trying to reinstall it) it's back in and the oil weep from the timing cover seems cured. Out for a little drive and a pic in the evening sunshine.

[I hate Brian]

great stance 

[tankertanker]

Looks the bizz

[johnR]

Finally gathered the nerve, took the plunge and started to take the 'new' engine apart. Immediately obvious was the crank was stiff to turn and it turns out that the crank bearings and big end ones as well as the bigger cam one are well and truly shagged. The bores looked OK at first glance but I haven't taken the pistons out yet. Am I right to suspect oil pump failure? I had an issue with the cam oilway plug being wrong but Swiftune said it would be OK to use once I'd relieved the pump drive tang to clear the ballbearing plug that was too close to the pump.

Looks like I should have sent it back at the time! 

Edited by johnR, 27 February 2021 - 05:20 PM.