What a long, but fantastic day!
An absolutely
Massive thanks has to go to Bill and Tuffty, to put up with me for an entire day takes some extreme patience!
I can think of very few tuners who would be happy to give up a Sunday to help a Prawn build up a new engine, but Bill let me come up today, with the original intention of me doing all of the work under the watchfull eye of Bill and Tuffty.
What actually happened in reality is that with me in a strange place, not knowing where tools were, and a little lacking in confidence on my first 20vt build, Tuffty ended up doing the majority of the difficult work, with me doing the leg work and cleaning things and prepping stuff.
I can't thank Paul enough for all his work today, and to Bill for watching over, it's great knowing that you've got so much experience making sure it goes together properly
So, some pictures!
I arrived at Badger 5 around half 10 this morning, and after a tea, we unloaded my donor engine from the my French Deisel Coupe, and bolted it up to an engine stand. I whipped the sump off, cracked the caps off the big ends, and we pushed the pistons out and onto the bench
Paul removed the circlips, and pushed the wrist pins out of the old standard rods. When they were all seperated, we removed the old rings, and I got to work with the parts washer cleaning the pistons up:
I also cleaned up the oil pick up pipe, which came up like brand new:
With the pistons cleaned up, and the ring grooves clear of carbon deposits, the master PT began installing the pistons on my DM forged rifle drilled rods:
4 AGU pistons, now with forged rods
Next, I got to work cleaning up my head a bit more using Bills parts washer. it came up brilliantly and looks almost like new!
Whilst I was cleaning the head, Paul used the flex hone to freshen up the bores in my 108k block:
He also gave the deck of the block a bit of a clean up too:
With that done, the rings were gapped. This took a while as most of them needed a tiny bit taking off. This seems like a good sign though, as it would suggest bore wear is minimal. With that done (again by the expert PT) the rings were fitted to the pistons:
Then the shells were fitted, ensuring everything is clinically clean before hand:
With the rings aligned at 120 degree intervals, the pistons were slotted into the bores, and the big end caps torqued up.
Interestingly, something I'd not read before, the big ends were torqued up to 55lbft, and released again 3 times to ensure everything was seated correctly. Another point that I'm sure many have missed not having the benefit of experience.
The oil pump was fitted, followed by the windage tray, and then finally my new baffled sump, and the whole lot was torqued up, and the engine turned the right way up ready to recieve the head:
Yes - the head gasket is up the wrong way round. I just dropped it on for a picture without paying much attention, and quickly got told I'm a muppet
The head was dropped on, and the 10 bolts torqued up. what a HORRIBLE experience that was! 60Nm, then 2 lots of 90 degrees on the stretch bolts - most odd, but the correct way to do it!
With that done, I fitted the new waterpump and tensioner damper, and we fitted timed up the engine and fitted the gates timing belt:
And that's it done! I'm not able to work on it for a week or so now sadly, but I'll crack on with it next weekend and start bolting up the ancillaries.
Had a really good day, even if I was most use in Danes roll as Tea Boy
Thanks guys!
And for those that didn't know previously, Tuffty is spelt with 2 Fs! I think I've been spelling it wrong for about 2 years! Ohps!