And finally on Page 4 we have all the Major engine parts, Battery box and Dashboard. I would like to thank David for sharing all this with us I think He has done an amazing job and made quite a few owners very Jealous. cheers David.
It was now time to start the engine strip and see what I was dealing with. The engine was strong before removal without any poor running problems, and with only a very slight tap from one of the tappets when the engine was on over run after the throttle was blipped and this noise only occurred when the oil was very warm. Why rebuild then I hear you ask? Well the engine was out already sooo….. Removal of the rocker covers didn’t turn up any surprises, and removal of the heads and valley gasket also turned up no problems. The coke on the piston tops was lifting off; probably due to the amount of time the engine was left standing before the strip commenced and the cam didn’t show any obvious signs of wear after 40000miles. Combustion chambers turned up no surprises The oil strainer had a fair bit of sealant in it, probably due to over zealous use of the sump sealant. Fortunately this had no adverse affectof the oil pressure
| | The valley and the bottom end were looking quite clean, indicating regular oil changes (backed up by service history), which is good news.
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A bit of slack in the timing chain (annoyingly blurry though) , And wear on the teeth. | | Ta daaa, one stripped engine! |
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I cleaned the block up myself to start with; I did this with white spirits, paint brushes and a jet washer. When I’d finished washing it I poured hot water over the block to make the water evaporate faster. I then droves all the excess moisture out with an oil spray.
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I bought my engine rebuild parts from V8 Developments, I ordered the following items: - Full engine gasket set
- H404 camshaft kit (includes cam, vernier timing gear, hydraulic cam followers, valve springs)
- Big end and main bearings
- Core plugs
- Cam bearings
- Piston rings
- High torque clutch
- Oil pump gears
- Head bolts
- Pushrods
The cam choice was the only difficult decision during the engine rebuild, I knew the H404 was as wild as I’d ever want to go but would it be too wild. That I’d have to find out!!
I polished the pistons up and fitted the new rings to them. I then fitted the new big end bearings, the old ones were not bad but obviously showed signs of wear. | |
| | To ensure the bottom end stays together (touches wood) I bought a set of ARP big end, main bolts and flywheel bolts, I also bought ARP stainless manifold bolts to go with them. Unfortunately the big end bolts were not the correct type, so I went to TVR power for some new original items.
Once the block was back I painted it and started to assemble it. |
| | I spent a weekend working on the cylinder heads, I cleaned them up then decoked the valves. I also reshaped the valves a la Vizzard, and the ground them in nicely. Then the new valve springs were fitted. This took quite some time but it’s a job I find it quite enjoyable . |
I spent a weekend working on the cylinder heads, I cleaned them up then decoked the valves. I also reshaped the valves a la Vizzard, and the ground them in nicely. Then the new valve springs were fitted. This took quite some time but it’s a job I find it quite enjoyable . The pre-cat on the one side was totally loose in the manifold, I already intended to remove them but this made sure I was going to have to do it. The loose one came out without too much trouble but the other one was fixed in solidly, this took quite a bit of persuasion to remove! The removal of the pre-cat won’t make a massive difference; it will mostly be a noise thing. But what it will do is prevent them getting blocked up and losing me power.
I sent the manifold and Y piece away to Camcoat. They cleaned them up and coated the manifolds internally with their highest spec (black) ceramic coating; they then coated the manifold and the Y piece externally with their ceramachrome coating. This looks great I sure you’ll agree and hopefully will help reduce under bonnet temps. | Inlet manifold only resting in place in this photo. Due to various horror stories about the standard aluminium rocker I decided to change them for a set of steel ones. Before fitting the new rockers I timed in the cam on the new timing gear, timing wheel missing from picture below | Inlet Manifold resting in place |
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After the sump was fitted the engine was now nearly finished so it was time to fit the new clutch. First the flywheel needed de-glazing then clutch was aligned and torqued up.
| | | The gearbox was then mated to the engine. | |
While the engine was out I got hold of some heat resistant aluminium matting and made some new engine bay heat shields. The new rivets are stainless so won’t go rusty like the old ones Due to working away and not being able to use my car regular a lot of strain was put on the battery. I used to jump start the car every two weeks when I was back home. This killed the battery, which was not much cop anyway to be honest. So I decided to replace it. Due to the nature of the engine (large capacity, relatively high compression) it can take quite a lot of amps to crank it over strongly. I spent a lot of time researching what would be the best battery I could fit in the standard position. The conclusion I (finally) came to was a 096 type Bosch Silver Star, these batteries are supposed to be superb. The cold cranking amps on this battery are 720amps! And it also puts out 75Ah as a bonus (not that it’s needed on this car) The CCA sold it to me.
I bought the battery from my local GSF (German Swedish French car parts) for £55 after using a 10% discount card (from another car club). To fit the battery in to the standard box required the extra feet at the side of the battery to be cut off (this is really easy being plastic) and a bit of filing of the corners of the battery box. The terminal are also the opposite way to standard, this is not a problem on my car because the leads are long enough to reach. If it was a problem I would have simply mounted the battery the other way around, it is no trouble at all reaching over the battery to connect it. | | In the very accessable box |
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I have now tested the battery and found that it cranks VERY strongly, and I have yet to add the Mod wise hot start kit I have bought for it! It was now time to add a few more bits to the engine, clean the wiring loom up and drop the engine back in to the chassis. Actually manoeuvring the engine and box in to the chassis was not too hard but mating up the gear linkage and the engine mounts was a real pain. It should not be too difficult but for some reason it was, you win some you lose some.
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The next step was to fit the propshaft (cleaned and greased) install the exhaust. This took a while; the rear mount on the exhaust was no where near where it should have been so I had to fabricate an adaptor for it. The gearbox was then filled with Silkolene fully synthetic after getting advice from an oil expert. After adding a few more shiny bits to the engine it was really starting to come together and I was starting to see the finish line. The engine started second attempt after swinging the dizzy a few degrees. It sounds bloody marvellous J it’s a great feeling having completely built this beast with my own hands. The idle is a little lumpy due to the cam but I haven’t had chance to drive it yet to find out have bad it is. I will be in need of a remap shortly which will help smooth the low speed running a little.
I’m looking to go to fully mappable fuel and ignition in the near future, I have built a Megasquirt ECU ready to go on to another car of mine and I think I may take this route with this car as well. I have also changed the dashboard for a Leven stainless item (along with all the other bit you have to but when you do this)
Whilst doing the dash I wet and dried all of the black paint off the dial surround, the now low massively better and more modern than before.
Also notice the column cowl in the above picture has a flocked (I said flocked ) finish now I wasn’t going to show this website until the car was completely finished but due to there being a few other people out there doing or thinking about doing a body off I felt bad holding this back any longer because this may help them.
When I have properly cleaned the car I will upload some more pictures of it. I have missed quite a lot out but I will continue to update the site when I have photos of things. Thanks to: My mates for listening to me talk about it all year! My sister for the use of her garage, thanks Fay Guillotine, wheelJack888, Antony and Quinny for advice. Cheers guys. |
