Well back a little later than I expected, I did an extra weeks overtime as the ships 2nd Engineer took a sicky and since the redundancies took place there is zero slack in the system. After phoning all the 2nd's on leave and getting told where to get off they scraped the very bottom of the barrel and talked me into staying, so instead of going home I had to stay on in the 2nd's slot. Still the extra money will go into the restoration coffers.
I have only ordered one item when I was away, mainly because I forgot to measure the items I needed before I left; I was going to order the rubber fuel pipe and filters, the rubber engine mounts and the water hoses. I did manage to order the Thermostat to inlet by-pass hose from Tickover as this can only be one size, I know that the upper and lower radiator hoses come from a Fiesta and Allegro but no rush for them as yet. I will order tomorrow and fit next time home.
I spent most of the day waiting in for the courier arriving with my gaskets, I know its a little sad but these are the probably the best gasket I've ever laid eyes on. I am very glad I took Terry's advise (again) and ordered them. The one's from eBay bear no comparison.
They cost £50 plus vat & postage for the upper set from F.W.Thornton, also included with the set were the stem seals for the heads.
I have found out why my sump gasket is different from the cork one supplied in the bottom set I have, apparently my engine has been fitted with a 2.9 sump pan; don't know why as it is a 86 model.
Somehow I doubt it makes it go faster.
This gasket cost £17 plus vat and postage, when I said in my last blog that I had to cut out the original it was the bottom tabs you can see in the photo that I cut. I have been told that I will have to slacken the bearing housing to remove the old one's then insert the new and torque up again.
I have also been busy getting the items ready for the powder coaters.
I had a bit of a hard time removing one of the rubber engine mounts from its bracket as the nut is welded onto the bracket and the threads from the mount was rusted solid. With minimal access I had to do a bit of a bodge job to remove it, no one will know once powder coated.
The aluminum water housing's got cleaned up as well, and after the rusty bits were sandblasted I found a bit more damage than I thought.
You can see the holes in the pipe that revealed themselves, these were filled with soft solder and filed clean.
Everything is now at the powder coater's, the price was a bit higher this time as there is a lot of masking to be done around the flanges and the interior of the sump but still well worth it and I pick them up on Tuesday.
I have also managed some painting, the fuel pump has had its second coat of black gloss and the water pump has has its first coat of bright red. While I was at it I gave the radiator another coat of black and its now ready to fit onto its housing.
I have had a change of mind while away concerning un-leading the heads and fitting a new carburetor, basically I will regret sometime in the future not doing so while the heads are off. So I have found a firm in the Durham area called Cleasby Precision Engine Services to do the job and I shall take them there tomorrow. It will cost £250 plus vat without new valve guides or £300 plus vat with, I have taken advise from a Cologne engine expert (John Wade) who say's that it is more than likely that at only 35,000 miles there will be no requirement for the valve guides to be changed, I have slid the valves up and down in the guides and there is next to no play to be noticed; so they ain't getting done.
The carburetor I have ordered from this very same expert is a Webber DGAS 38 with a manual choke, I could have gone for the automatic choke but I like the idea of pulling the choke and starting the engine like it used to be, it seems to add more of a feeling of involvement than just turning a key or as I may do: Pushing a START button. Also the fuel savings in this current climate will be welcome.
I had a long conversation with John and learnt a lot, he has advised me to leave the original air intake on instead of fitting a shinny K&N as it supplies a whole lot more air and fitting a K&N air filter.
I also still hope to fit side exhaust pipes and have bought the correct size stainless manifold flanges from John, these are laser cut and one flange has a larger hole to take a bigger pipe for the siamesed side, I was going to make my own out of a piece of 10mm stainless I have, but drilling the center holes would have been a bit of a problem.
So tomorrow is a trip to Durham to drop the heads off, Lynne also has the day off so we shall make a day of it and get started again on Saturday.
See Ya
Paul
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