Topic

I forgot to add this yesterday but you were spot on RE the bumper mounts.

Stuck valve or something else? Yes.

Ah yes that manglement is familiar, I've had soup tins more resiliant than those mounts & as I recall their expensive for a spam can, & you don't even get one of those twist off opener things.

It’s never good practice to try and rotate an engine with a cam belt backwards unless the manufacturer recommends it,
It depends on the tensioner set up, for example those old Ford 2.0 Pinto motors were notorious for jumping a tooth or two when wound in reverse.

Was the engine running when the car got drowned? If so did it ingest any water? That could do it.
Did any water get into the combustion chambers? Maybe there’s a high tide mark of rust in the bore.

The time between recovering the car from the water and working on the car could have let corrosion set in somewhere.

The engine wasn't running at the time and the battery was disconnected. No water in oil but the top of the pistons did look very wet when I put a scope in.

I wish that I had started this sooner but unfortunately the house got flooded at the same time and it's taken a while to get that sorted.

You know that all the drive train has to be dropped to gain access to the clutch etc, it would be much easier to assess these problems whilst the engine is more accessible.
You seem to be making headway with cleaning & refurbishing, let that distract you until you’ve no option but to look at the engine. Your already taking action to mitigate any internal rust. Mind you it wouldn’t be a big job to pop the cam cover off & have a nosey around, poke a few bits that you might expect to move & see if they do. If you can turn the crank a bit you’ll move the cams a bit, that might shed some light.
M

Todays efforts.

I have a plan to lift the body off both subframes..

Front 1st.
Driver's side wheel arch lining and mud flaps off.

I added a new wing to the parts list.

I drained the fluid from the suspension next following a guide on here. Thank you IPex-7

I thought that hydrogas fluid was green..

I have had my wheel arch liners off a few weeks ago and mine were a lot worse than yours for debris build up! But no serious rust that I could detect.

When you bores scoped your engine did you replace your plugs? Just sounds like you may have a sticking valve. Its not likely to be a hydrostatic lock! Unless you poured diesel down your bores and then put your plugs back in!

Apart from the driver side wing and a small repair to the inner sill on the same side I'm amazed how good everything looks.

The front subframe will be out tomorrow and (weather permitting) I should have the engine out next weekend 😅

I take it that the Ugg in the container is / has been the hydrogas fluid, my reading is that the rust inhibitor gave up the ghost a long time ago. How good are your displacer & do you have a pump? You can assess the amount of nitrogen in the displacers by clamping them top to bottom & pumping them up, you monitor the pressure build up & the pressure at its levelling off point & this will give you a guide to the health of the unit. There's a very good Youtube video illustrating the test. You need to get as much rust / muck out of the units as possible, again there's a video covering this also. I'm having my spare set re-gassed by a chap in Stockport when I'm back from holiday; he refills the units, not by welding on a valve but by using the original Dunlop system. I had a phosphoric acid potion in my set for a month or more & the grot that came out was a revelation, actually it wasn’t a revelation it was simply disgusting & all that shite clogs up the bypass.
Airportable, the bringer of joy. Sorry.
m

R40MGF wrote:

Mmmmmmmmmm……crunchy!