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6th March 2010

I found out the hard way that BOC only open 'bottle accounts' for welding gasses during the working week, today. The upshot is, therefore, that there was to be no welding this weekend. I took the opportunity to have another tidy round; it's amazing just how quickly all your tools get out of place and you end up wasting hours looking for them when you're trying to press on. Anyway, we'll see if we can get the BOC issue sorted during this coming week.

13th March 2010

A change of focus this week; mainly enforced by the lack of Argon/co2, it has to be said.

Those who visit the site regularly, or have read through all my trials and tribulations, will be aware that the engine on the Austin 10 is a non-runner and due to a stuck valve, signs on a 'boil up' and four missing core plugs, I decided to try and separate the head from the block. That's where the trouble began!

Sadly, the head and block seemed inextricably joined. You will note that the last sentence was in the past tense, as the head is now free of the engine!

With the valve stuck open, I couldn't get any compression to try 'blow' the head free by either cranking the engine or igniting some fuel, so I decided to use a plumber's blowtorch and blow hot air in to the head where the core valves had rotted away. I had a lengthy wait whilst I let the head warm through, regularly moving from one missing core plug to another, so I didn't end up bending the head by overheating one end, whilst the other remained cool. The aim of the exercise was to try and get a bit of differential movement between the head and the studs.

Once I had the head up to a reasonable temperature I used a nylon faced mallet to strike the underside of the head where the dynamo bracket fits right at the front of the engine. Once I had a small gap between the head and the block (and I do mean small), I drove some plastic fox wedges in to the gap all the way down the side of the block, gradually separating the two. The fox wedges were lying around the garage from a laminate floor installation kit that I had bought a couple of years ago and I knew they'd be quite malleable, to bend/break before the head. Obviously the head gasket has been wrecked by the exercise, but it would have needed replacing anyway.

I spent the next couple of hours cleaning the rust and carbon from the block and head, only to discover that someone had been here before me; +020" pistons have been fitted at some point. At this stage a bit of lubrication was applied to the stuck valve, and with nothing more than pressure from my thumb, I managed to re-seat the valve and it is now moving up and down with the cam.

The pistons are showing a little pitting on their heads and the bores are displaying slight scoring, though you cannot feel either with your fingers. I will have to have a closer look at these before I carry out the re-build.

Finally, I decided to put the engine up on the bench to work on it. To lighten it before man handling it up to working height, I removed the starter motor and gearbox.

Next stage will be to remove the sump and inspect the big ends, crank and con rods.

14th March 2010

As it's Mothers' Day, I only had ten minutes to pop out in the garage and film a short video update and upload it.

21st March 2010

I spent an hour fabricating a valve lifting adapter plate for my old Wolftool 'G' clamp, as I don't have the proper tool in my arsenal. Sadly, after removing only half the valves from the cylinder block my tool broke; not the part I had fabricated, but the Wolftool clamp. Old age, it seems, comes to us all, tools included!

The guides seem to be in rather good condition, though there was a lot of rust, carbon and general muck under the valves. An initial clean with a scraper and some petrol seems to have shifted most of it, though I will double check my work next weekend.

In an unusal bout of forethought, I decided to make sure I had a piece of card to hand that I could push each of the valves in to to ensure that they remain in the order that they were removed from the block. Obviously one has to mark the card with the words 'Front' and 'Back' so as to be able to identify which way round they go back in to the engine. Sadly this is where the forethought ended, as I failed to block the breather holes in the bottom of the timing chest with rag and managed to drop one of the split colletts that hold the valves into the valve springs down them. Thank goodness I plan to take the sump off, otherwise I would be really cursing.

It is clear that removing the valves has been a worthwhile exercise, as the valves will certainly need grinding in to ensure a good, gas tight seal.

Finally, I ran a set of feeler gauges down the sides of each of the piston crowns at various heights within the bores. I had a constant 0.008" clearance, which is well within the specified maximum tolerance for the engine at 0.009" without Wellworthy rings and 0.012" with them fitted.

27th March 2010

Following my slip-up last weekend, I had to remove the filter, sump and internal baffle plate from the bottom of the engine to get the collett I dropped through the breather hole in the bottom of the timing chest. The oil, and I use the term in its broadest possible terms, was attemtping to revert to its crude state as it moved more like treacle than oil. Having said that, if we're right and the car was last run in 1979, the stuff is at least 31 years old. On the up side, there were no signs of metal filings or other detritus, so it seems that there are no major issues there.

Looking up in to the engine I noticed that the bolts that secure the gudgeon pins were all facing the same way and these should actually alternate. I could also see a lot of the rust that had been found in the tops of the bores, where the piston rings had drawn it down in to the block of the engine. I also noted that the locking tabs on the washers across the bottoms of the big ends were bearing on the point of the big end securing nuts rather than the flats; these wouldn't stop the nuts coming undone in this state. I then went on to check the play between the big ends and the crank and end float for the crankshaft. Both of these seem fine, but I decided it would be silly not to take the pistons out and check the big end shells and get a hone down the bores.

By this time, my chief purchasing officer (Vanessa) had returned from Banbury with a valve spring compressor and valve grinding paste. Thanks Ness! Two minutes later and I had all eight valves out and stored in order. A couple of slow hours grinding in the valves for cylinders 3 and 4 followed and I discovered that both exhaust valves had signs of burning with local pitting.