minimax

I only need to go near this car and the heavens open! despite that, a good evening's work has seen the head ready to be removed. There is more than the suspicion of a leak around the inlet manifold; not into the cylinders but into the environment outside the cooling system. The mayo within the engine is not too bad but pretty evident and the cams are a couple of teeth out of phase, despite the engine running quietly and sweetly. The engine mounting bolts were the big problem but the answer was to remove the rubber mounting by removing the rearmost bolt which as fairly easy and then, levering the safety strap round, so that a 13mm ring spanner could be fitted from the side to remove the forward one. That allowed me to jack the engine so that the four bolts holding the main engine mounting bracket to the block could be removed using long extensions, out through the offside wheelarch.The big bolts will get a bit of hot spanner action tomrrow and the exhaust manifold bolts will get a quick blast to free the nuts from them. The biggie though will be the beheading. Fingers crossed the liners haven't sunk.  Once the head has been measured, we will decide what to do next. Gordon is on a tight budget so if it is a matter of needing a 20 thou head saver shim, I will do the skim on the old Bridgeport in the company machine shop. It is very rarely used for our production but the number of motorbike bits (and aeroplane bits for my homebuilt,) that it turns out is quite impressive. I haven't skimmed a head before but as long as it is well bolted down and the surface properly measured, I quite fancy my chances with a good Japanese flycutter and some white spirit as a lubricant.