I'm starting this thread to keep a more specific log of the progress made on this 1275 I've bought, for the benefit of not cluttering up my cars project thread and to have a more specific resource for others to read in to in the future. If I do anything right on this engine that is - there's every chance that you should all ignore what I say and do, and go read a thread by someone with more experience
I've covered the first few bits in my cars project thread, but I'll go over them here to build the story.I haven't done any major engine work before, so most of this will essentially be new to me in practical terms, but reading up on here and watching other people tinker with Mini engines has given me the confidence to give a serious rebuild a go myself. I'm also at uni doing Motorsport Engineering, so I really want to get a bit of practice at the practical side of what I've read about in text books
The story begins with my plans for a slight power upgrade, which originally involved a bit more modification on my mildly tuned 998 in the form of an uprated cam and maybe a few other little things. However, because I'm awkward and because the car is my daily driver, I wanted another engine to drop in whilst I did a bit of work on the 998 so I could still get around in it. So I hit eBay with not much of an idea of what I wanted, but of course it should be cheap, complete and running so I can just drop it in and get on with the 998, out of the car at my leisure over the summer. Of course I ended up buying this:
A 1275 of unknown spec/condition with no head or ancillaries.
On a side note, the auction also included a partly built up front subframe, so I had to get that home as well, which meant that I bought some roof bars to strap it to to get it home. I only wanted an engine... Nonetheless, it turned in to a bit of a mini roadtrip to a remote part of South Wales, with rob963 in convoy the whole way!
When we got home we started having a poke around the engine to see what's what.
Now from the outside you can see that it has a pre-verto clutch (long lever arm and deeper recess in the wok for an inertia starter), but is an A+ block (ribs in the casting, no dip stick tube sticking out), so it's already clear this isn't an original spec engine and that it's been played with to some extent at least. The engine number reveals that the block at least is from an '88 Metro, which isn't too surprising a thing to find, but the piston numbers reveal that the pistons are in fact from a Metro Turbo (or are some variety of turbo piston at least). So who knows, maybe this thing was turbo powered at some point! I guess we'll never know...
The day after we picked the engine and subframe up, it was the day of the Bingley Hall mini show, and I already knew I needed a couple of key things for the engine - primarily a head! So after much deliberation with my sensible side (wallet) and my not so sensible side (POWAHHHH), I ended up coming out of the show with this:
A big valve MG Metro head, which I've recently stripped apart and inspected, but I'll get to that later.
I also picked up a set of early pressed rockers (for free!) from Steely on here, and an MG Metro rocker cover from Bingley - along with a few other bits for the car - so it was a productive day and I'd ended the weekend with a lot less money and a lot more engine than I had before it started!
Well that pretty much covers what I've gone over in my project thread so far - next I start tearing bits off and looking inside. I found something, err, 'interesting' straight away...
