Irish Mini Owners Club

coolmini wrote:right i discovered sand onto of pistons and some grit in the oil...
Not good this at all.
Westward can't balance cranks for 2 months looks like i'll be waiting for a while now.

Where the hell did sand come from? Was the head not cleaned fully after it was cast ? Some nice work on the manifold there

i am not sure how the sand got in to be honest.
it must have gotten in the inlet side cause theres no sand in elsewhere.
anyways
engine apart, just weighing up the pistons, rings and pins. got them from 362.9 to 363.0grams across the set. well chuffed with that.
going at the con rods tomorrow to get them weight balanced too.

I'll post some pics later on when i have the whole thing sorted again.
Some changes to filtration system and inlet / throttle bodies as i'm trying to fit it under round nose. will see how that goes.

Right finally got to do some more stuff.
Since engine is out I took the time to balance the conrods.
Made up a jig that can weigh either side of the conrod with repeatable results.
Setting up the jig with level.
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/o68 ... hfs6mw.jpg


Measuring big end


Measuring small end


Have all ends and overall weight within 0.3 of a gram. Initially the were out by as much as 5 grams.

The jigs centrepieces for holding the ends are 2 of 20mm diameter and 35mm long alum pieces. For the big end a third piece with 44mm diameter and a 20mm hole is used that can be swapped to either side of the jig. Simples. The side that is not being weight is hung so that the reading on the scale is correct. I.e. To reduce false readings of side loading.
Cost of the jig 10 for the digital scale of fleebay. 40 for the the aluminium and stainless steel pieces. Oh and got the center cap milled for center strap. Included in the price. All in all a good day.

Nice bit of kit.

Had another go at things over the last 2 nights.
Block is in machine shop
So I cleaned all other parts using thinners


What you see in the tray is the infamous grit and sand. From the bottom of the gear box.
All is nice and clean now and reassembled.
Last check then was idler gear end float as I had to reface the shims and the side of the idler gear as it was badly marked.


Above is zero point and below is final measurement


Now I know the manual say end float to be between 0.101- 0.177 but since I run straight drops and plenty more power I think heat expansion will be up to 0.15 mm which will bring me into the running clearance limit.
Just waiting on parts from the shop now to reassemble the engine.
More later folks

Right had the block in molasses for a week to get rid of all the rust. this really works and gets rid of rust in the water jacket as well.
then i sent it to machine shop to get it rebored /honed and 10th and 11th studs drilled.
Oil ways unclogged and drilled and tapped and re cleaned.

so am just in process of putting it back together.

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So i went to measure the volumes for calculating the CR. Feck me 11.7:1 with a standard gasket.
Bit too much for what i'll be using and the cam.
so now i have to wait for a cometic thicker gasket to bring it back down to 10.6:1
It never rains but it poors when will this ever stop.
Ah well at least i spend the time building it properly with great attention to detail of deburring every edge within the engine, including cam lobe sides
all pistons and con rods weighted to within 0.2 of a gram crank and flywheel and clutch balanced .
to top it off some nice RE 72.5mm pistons giving 1342cc.
Cylinder head all cleaned up and skimmed.

still gonna try and fit it under a round nose this time with air filter but more on that later.

His is the slowest engine rebuild in history
Too many things keeping me busy elsewhere.

But getting there slowly

Some very nice engineering going on here. I'd love to have the equipment to do some of this kind of stuff.

Interested in seeing what you get out of it in the end.

Just as I thought I was getting somewhere this happened



Ahhhhhrrrrrg

Some low amp Tig welding



And got the fecker out without damaging thread nor head face

It never rains but it poors
Any ideas were I can get these longer head studs from they are half inch longer than standard arp studs

Made up a mix of mpi and older mini fanbelt setup.



So I can use the 5 vgrove belt. Bracket for tensioner wheel is of mpi mini and so are all the pulleys. Alternator now sits nearly fully on the block so that I can mount the air filter lower to try and get it under round nose bonnet.

Someone asked me about rust removal on small parts.

What I do is degrease parts in thinners I use a painters tin tray for that.
This will also get rid of paint resedues.
Then I wash the parts with washing liquid in water to get rid of remainder of oily film on parts.

Next I have a container with 5 gallons of water and 1 gallon of molasses from the NCF it's about 3.60 for a gallon of molasses.



I place the parts in it and leave in it until rust is gone usually 3 days.
I will take the parts out every evening and rinse in water with a scotch pad.
This speeds up the process as fresh molasses can get at the underlying rust.

You can see the reaction of it in the picture from the water pulley.
After 3 days I took it out again and washed it with clean water. Here is the result.



Keep in mind that it takes longer in colder temperatures and won't really work if it's close 0 degrees. But 10 or more degrees it really works.



So all I have to do now is give them a quick spray of paint.

At long last found a belt to go with this setup. Thanks to one of the local motor factors he was searching high and low to find one that fits.

Slowest engine build coming together



Just need to sort out air inlet temp and map sensor location.

And finally fit the damn thing. Modified top front rail to make space for the filter as it's sitting lower now but it's a bit ugly right now and not worth a pic until I have edges folded properly.

Side shot with filter



This is as low as I can fit it let's hope it'll clear a round bonnet.

Talk about patience.
Long time coming together but the results are worth it.
Lovely clean engine though, fair play.

Lol wonder how long it will stay clean once in lol.

Right in an act of lunacy I fitted the engine at 12 at night



Then I had a break fluid leak



Will have to fix those spots of dissolved paint. 2 pack paint ain't what it used to be anymore.
Loads to sort out yet like wiring etc. and fitting exhaust and auxiliaries

Did you try the standard bonnet for size?
On the engine steadyI always put the bolt in from the bottom, makes it easier to remove later.

Hi woody
haven't got a spare standard bonnet at the moment, besides i need a Fiberglas one as i can't use the standard looking mechanism.
The lugs of the filter will be in the way by about 10mm as i tried the modified bonnet and sellotaped a piece of paper on the inside, which priced the paper. other than that i looks promising.

i always fit bolts from top so they can't fall out if nut comes loose. i wrap the bolt with oily paper, that way it won seize.

The backplate of the air filter needs to be modified to be able to fit the TPS sensor. should have checked that earlier.

anyways its back in the car and i've space on the workbench again.

Ps anyone got a spare fiberglass bonnet lying around.

Right i got the damn thing running finally.



and it all fits under the round Fiberglas bonnet ,



only just about though.


mind ye i had some trouble along the way here.
I thought i'd be smart and run an electric FAN and ditch the mechanical one as this might give me a few horses higher up.
However when i did that i could not keep the engine under 90 Degrees on a cold evening.
So if anyone is contemplating ditching the Mechanical fan and replacing it with an electric one on a SIDE Mounted RAD , the answer is DONT.
At least not on a car with increased power out put.

Anyways she stays nice and cool now at 75 degrees just the way i like it.
Right time to go to some events now, oh and the rolling road when i ain't broke so that i can get the results.

MPi engines normally run at around 98 - 100 deg. When I fitted the carb on mine it still ran at that temperature ,I don't know why but it may be something in the block design. I checked mine and standard MPi's with an infra-red thermostate and that is the normal running temperature ,I had fun sorting out the temerature gauge and fan stat. I used to run engines cool (82 deg stat) but now I perfare to run them nearer on 88deg stats.
Car is looking good.

looks well, snug fit alright

Right got some of those classic seats and made up some brackets to have it folding like the original seat. And one can still slide it too.






Only to find out that my ass is too big to fit into the damn seat.

Ah FFs lol any one wanna buy these seats of me.

Any pics of the seats?

Here are some pics f the seats








They are brand new