Bongo Fury

To seal or not to seal...? Gasket sealant is 10 miles and 18 hours away.

Oil feed spigot came out of the head without too much bother. It is very soft and there is some scoring on it, but I can't see any way, given the o-ring etc why it would be a problem. Replace or re-fit?

Head injector ports (inserts?) feel ever so slightly proud of the rest of the mating surface. I can't fit a 0.02mm feeler either side of them but can just catch a nail on it. Has anyone else found this? Obviously a skim would sort, but I had talked myself out of that.

Exhaust manifold is getting skimmed tonight. He separated the manifold from the turbo last night and said it was a nightmare - damaged some threads on the studs but "should be fine".

I've spent most of my time since the boy's bedtime chatting but I have prepared and wet-sanded the block with 180 paper (not quite finished), to be finished off with a 240. There are a couple of trouble spots around the 1st and 4th cylinders but to get down to them I need to take the 2nd and 3rd down too. I took lots of photos.

Does anyone have a wheel nut they'd be willing to send me?

Driver+Passengers wrote:I've spent most of my time since the boy's bedtime chatting but I have prepared and wet-sanded the block with 180 paper (not quite finished), to be finished off with a 240. There are a couple of trouble spots around the 1st and 4th cylinders but to get down to them I need to take the 2nd and 3rd down too. I took lots of photos.

Does anyone have a wheel nut they'd be willing to send me?

are you using a flatting tool of any sort? Simon Jones did this job expertly some years back.

He has the magic tool of flatness .

Simon Jones wrote:He has the magic tool of flatness .

6 inch sqaure marble trivet. Moving to a new sheet of 180. Picket up gasket sealant this morning.

Simon Jones wrote:He has the magic tool of flatness .

Ah, what grinding I could do with a flat tool and some fine grit ha ha

Fine grit is just not gritty enough!

Ready to assemble, mate coming round to help and/or observe.

I'll be back out to the dog house after doing the dishes.

Exhaust manifold is back. Need a new copper nut.

Timing belt is on.

Arrrghhh - the suspense is killing me. D'ya mean to say you've already refitted the head, complete with gasket sealant a la Simon Jones and (I hope) new bolts. Makes me think that as long as you can get it running and do engine tests stationary and without having to re-assemble the whole car, then it seems worth seeing if the old head is OK (how?) before (if necessary) dismantling again and fitting a new one. Mind you what's the cost of fresh bolts. Mind you, are they u/s for re-use after only one tighten and a bit of testing. Then again, for a bit of testing, could one almost just fit the old bolts. Then again, a pain to dismantle if head is fine, just cos new bolts must be fitted. Then again, I suppose the old ones could be removed one at a time whilst the new ones were fitted by following on behind, and that way the head would remain effectively bedded and sealed, with only one bolt untorqued at any one time, just need to make sure new ones throughly checked for torqueing. Oh my, what a conundrum. Anyone care to comment on all that?

mikeonb4c wrote:Arrrghhh - the suspense is killing me. D'ya mean to say you've already refitted the head, complete with gasket sealant a la Simon Jones and (I hope) new bolts. Makes me think that as long as you can get it running and do engine tests stationary and without having to re-assemble the whole car, then it seems worth seeing if the old head is OK (how?) before (if necessary) dismantling again and fitting a new one. Mind you what's the cost of fresh bolts. Mind you, are they u/s for re-use after only one tighten and a bit of testing. Then again, for a bit of testing, could one almost just fit the old bolts. Then again, a pain to dismantle if head is fine, just cos new bolts must be fitted. Then again, I suppose the old ones could be removed one at a time whilst the new ones were fitted by following on behind, and that way the head would remain effectively bedded and sealed, with only one bolt untorqued at any one time, just need to make sure new ones throughly checked for torqueing. Oh my, what a conundrum. Anyone care to comment on all that?

Yes, yes and yes.

Provided the van actually bleeds, starts and runs up to temperature ok in the garage, the only way I'm going to know if "it's fixed" is a road test, as I was only measurably pressurising the coolant under load, like pulling up a hill or onto a slip road.

Looks like another trip over the pass in Glen Ogle for you then Matt. If all is well we should see you again in Glencoe later in the month. That's unless you have driven us all mad with suspense by then or put us all in hospital with high blood pressure.

Now I know what being hooked on Twitter is like.

Tony

Not sure I have followed the posts about the bolts properly. I think you have used new bolts and will scrap them if you have to strip again?

I'm inclined to think that is the best way because I think the ratio of torque to actual clamping force would be different with stretched bolts and there would be an increased danger of shearing them. Just a hunch.

Impressed with your productivity, I so wish I had somewhere under cover to work on mine.

The suspense is killing me, too!

Today, Al and I got the engine rebuilt and (almost) ready to turn over.

I fetched the Wellseal from the depot and then set about using it. There was a dribble of oil out of the rear of the head as we turned it right way up. I had stored it upside down with the cam cover on and had not drained it. Don't do that. We drained it, wiped the oil-ways clean and worked quickly. We wiped a little from the area after tightening the head. The gasket may therefore fail at the rear but I'll wait and see. I used new bolts and followed the tightening procedure with a two foot bar. 16 of them felt about even, one lighter, one tighter. I forgot which ones.

Trial and error got the rest rebuilt.

I inventoried the injectors and there was one shim missing from #2. I got two magnets out of an old hard disk and screwed them onto a wee square of wood. Scooping it through the scruff for a minute I was sure I'd seen it fall out of my hands once. My perseverance paid off. When comparing it to one of the other ones, I got them mixed up, but I think I got them the right way round.

I've reasoned that the fibre or plastic rings on the injectors are not critical. I've had to reason about a lot of things while doing this. The high pressure oil feed from block to head was cleaned up and refitted. We put the old tensioner wheel back on instead of the new one. Al had to get a little creative with bolting the turbo and exhaust manifold to the head, but fair play, everything's in order.

At about 11, we started to removed carbon deposits (I hope) from the injector heads with a razor blade and gave all the parts a swill in petrol. I'll go and buy a deep socket tomorrow.

So really, all that's left is the injectors, fuel pipes and battery.