Author Topic: Engine Rebuild Videos (Read 2158 times)

MiniDave · « **Reply #25 on:** September 18, 2021, 06:11:41 PM »

New posts should show up as such on the home page tho, right?

94touring · « **Reply #26 on:** September 18, 2021, 07:03:32 PM »

Correct. And looks like-like post are working in here now. From my phone anyways.

cstudep · « **Reply #27 on:** September 18, 2021, 07:09:25 PM »

Yep looks like you can like stuff here now.

I noticed it wasn't an option a while back but since it only seemed to be in Dave's garage I just figured maybe he didn't care if we liked what he was doing or not

John Gervais · « **Reply #28 on:** September 18, 2021, 08:33:20 PM »

Hey, that's real cool - thanks a bunch!

MiniDave · « **Reply #29 on:** September 18, 2021, 09:25:47 PM »

Trying to think of a color for the engine block and head other than red, black, green or yellow.....those have been done to death.

Stan painted his engine Pontiac metallic blue and it looked pretty good, but I dunno how that would go with the metallic green of the body.....

I've seen some pretty interesting paint technologies lately, nanotech, ceramic, anodized.....

Maybe olde englishe white?

gr8kornholio · « **Reply #30 on:** September 18, 2021, 10:01:06 PM »

Bright green like your avatar or more like British racing green? I was thinking a grey. It’s a popular color currently and there have been some beautiful grey classics posted.

MiniDave · « **Reply #31 on:** September 19, 2021, 08:37:53 AM »

The head is already down at the machine shop, tho they are waiting on valves and guides from me.....in the meantime I forgot to post a pic of how the head turned out - I don't have any good pics of the combustion chambers but here's how the ports looked when I was done......

I also did quite a bit down in the ports them selves to smooth the flow and remove bumps and such. I was limited a bit by the length of the shafts on my carbide burrs, there were some areas I couldn't reach as well as I wanted, but I figure anything I did is an improvement. I have a head for another engine here that was done by Keith Calver and I used it for my model.

Before and after.

MiniDave · « **Reply #32 on:** September 20, 2021, 04:23:17 PM »

I spent a little time today getting ready for the assembly once the parts get here. I've got everything cleaned and painted so I'm down to just little stuff till the parts get here.

To that end I put in all the shift linkage inside the case and drove the small roll pin in place to lock it in.

I also removed the remains of the bearing inner race on the 2.76 crown gear. I tried to use my bearing spreader on it but it simply wasn't having it, so I got out the cutting wheel and made a slice in the bearing race, I didn't even have to hit it with the cold chisel, after I made the cut as I was walking over to get the hammer and chisel I heard a 'pop" and when I looked at it I could clearly see the split, it pulled right off with a pair of channel locks. No damage to the gear either.

The last thing I did was install the seal and support bushing for the shift shaft, and the seals in the side covers.

I dug out extra shims and other odds and ends for the assembly, the new crown wheel bolts and lock tabs etc. Now I'm stopped till the new parts get here. More as it happens, probably a week from now.

MiniDave · « **Reply #33 on:** September 23, 2021, 03:00:44 PM »

I placed an order to MiniSpares last Thursday, and one to Moss on Monday of this week, and I wondered which would get here sooner - it's still a toss up as I haven't gotten a ship notice yet from DHL and it's usually at least three days from then that parts arrive. I did get ship notices from Moss, 1/2 of my parts are coming from Virginia, the other half from California! Still a toss up on whether England or the US parts will arrive first!

MiniDave · « **Reply #34 on:** September 27, 2021, 03:34:59 PM »

Well, Moss won - both shipments came in - one on Sunday and one today. It surprised me to see that what they shipped from California - one tiny little spring! I needed it so I was glad it came in - now I just nee DHL to visit so I can get the machine shops to work on the block, head and crankshaft.

The Mini gearbox is cleaned and ready for assembly....

MiniDave · « **Reply #35 on:** September 29, 2021, 11:34:37 AM »

DHL dropped my parts off yesterday, so I ran the valves and guides down to the cyl head shop and the pistons out to the block guy - their crank guy will be in Friday and mine is the first one on his list so I'm hopeful everything will be done Friday afternoon and I can pick it all up and start building again.

MiniDave · « **Reply #36 on:** October 01, 2021, 09:27:40 PM »

I picked up the block, pistons and crank today, but the head won't be ready for another week or more - the shop is that backed up.

So tonight I decided to start on the diff - to that end I took it the rest of the way apart - my plan was only to change out the cross shaft as that's the part that wears, but it was badly damaged, along with the bushings in the side gears so a decision has been made for me - I'll be installing a new cross pin diff carrier!

I also noticed that one of the fiber thrust washers for the stub axles was completely worn out and gone. All these parts come new in the cross pin kit so they'll all be replaced. Now I need to double check the bushings in the side covers and see if they've worn badly too - I can press new ones in but they'll have to be reamed to fit and I don't have that reamer either. I hope they're OK.....I suppose I can just buy new side covers with new bushings already installed and sized.....that would run another $150......what the hell, it's only money!

Lastly I took a look at the new laygear inner shaft - I noticed it's made a little differently than the old one - someone tell me why this matters?

MiniDave · « **Reply #37 on:** October 03, 2021, 05:26:09 PM »

No takers for my question about the inner layshaft?

Normally you would not want to see a sharp edge on a shaft as it transitions from one size to another, as those create stress risers and they can break there. However, if you look closely in the second pic you can see there is a small radius at that edge - MED sells the exact same shaft for their race gearboxes, so it must be OK!

Today I built the cross pin differential and installed the 2:76 final drive gear, film at eleven!

I also got started on the gearbox re-assembly but ran into a small issue on the shifter - I hope I don't have to remove the entire main shaft again to fix it!

94touring · « **Reply #38 on:** October 03, 2021, 07:13:56 PM »

Awesome! Probably feels good to have your gearing and transmission coming along.

MiniDave · « **Reply #39 on:** October 03, 2021, 07:46:18 PM »

Yep, once this is done I'm ready to start on the engine block.....I have a lot of cleaning and such to do.

I usually have the machine shop remove the core plugs and oil gallery plugs before they run it thru the jet wash but they "forgot" to do that this time, so I get to. They also didn't remove the cam bearings so I'll need to do those too.....

tsumini · « **Reply #40 on:** October 03, 2021, 09:16:12 PM »

Quote from: MiniDave on October 03, 2021, 05:26:09 PM

No takers for my question about the inner layshaft?

Normally you would not want to see a sharp edge on a shaft as it transitions from one size to another, as those create stress risers and they can break there. However, if you look closely in the second pic you can see there is a small radius at that edge - MED sells the exact same shaft for their race gearboxes, so it must be OK!

Normally it would be designed with a generous transition radius. Zoom in shows it has a radius but is really rough.

MiniDave · « **Reply #41 on:** October 11, 2021, 07:51:30 PM »

Tonight's video.....the gearbox is done, so I've started working on the block. Just got the call today that the head is done too so progress should speed up on this project.

MPlayle · « **Reply #42 on:** October 12, 2021, 09:11:43 AM »

Where you changed the final drive ratio, are you going to also change the speedometer drive gears to keep the speedometer accurate?

MiniDave · « **Reply #43 on:** October 12, 2021, 10:10:22 AM »

Nah.....I just use my Garmin.

Who knows, it might be accurate with the 2.76......going from the 3.44 to the 3.1 got it almost right.....maybe the 2.76 will match up with the cluster that's in it, since that's also not original.

MiniDave · « **Reply #44 on:** October 12, 2021, 01:41:28 PM »

Got the block all cleaned up and I'm giving it a few coats of paint today, the weather is perfect for painting outside - we had a hell of a rain storm last night so there's no dust in the air, and today it's sunny, warm and fairly not humid with a very light breeze. Just enough to carry off the paint fumes!

I installed all the water and oil core plugs - one tip, drill the hole in the oil plugs with a 1/4" bit, not 5/16" as I used - it leaves a lot more metal to tap the old shell out with. Much easier that way....

Color to be revealed in my next video, where I'll be building the block back up.

MiniDave · « **Reply #45 on:** October 13, 2021, 03:26:52 PM »

I found that I forgot to order thrust washers, so I cleaned up the originals and stuck them in to see how badly they might be worn (it was pretty clear from looking at them that they were worn - I didn't know how badly) I set up the dial indicator - normal clearance is about 3 thou, but as the picture shows - these are way too far gone. Just to be on the safe side I also ordered a set of 3 thou oversize too.

Today I'm mostly just cleaning and painting bits, so when the rest of my small parts get in I'll (hopefully) have everything I need to put it together.

The cylinder head came back yesterday so I can clean it up and get it assembled in the meantime. I'm using a set of forged 1.13 rockers and a new shaft.

MiniDave · « **Reply #46 on:** October 18, 2021, 07:09:56 PM »

In tonight's installment I put in the pistons, crank, cam bearings and cam......

New thrust washers came in so I got the clearance set right - 3.5-4 thou instead of 10.

I also set the cam timing, installed the timing chain tensioner and put the front cover on.

Bottom end is now basically done, the head is also done and ready to install BUT my new cylinder head studs were supposed to be here "by the end of the day" and they didn't show, so it will be tomorrow sometime before I can drop the head on and put the block onto the transmission assembly.

MiniDave · « **Reply #47 on:** October 19, 2021, 08:16:10 PM »

Today I drop the motor onto the gearbox.....my Spares order now says it will be here Friday (which probably means Thursday given the way they've been running lately) but either way it won't matter, I'm stopped till the order gets here as it has the new headstuds in it.....so the head can't go on till then, I still have a few more things I can go to get ready to drop the head on the block, and I have some cleanup and arranging to do before a new arrival hits the shop on Thursday too.

Stay tuned, same Bat time, same Bat channel!

One interesting thing happened with yesterday's video - because the radio was playing in the background, You Tube banned the video for copyright infringement! I had to use the "song mute" program to delete just that song - I listened to the video today and I couldn't hear any difference other than the radio disappeared out of the video for a bit, didn't seem to make any difference to the narration.

MiniDave · « **Reply #48 on:** October 20, 2021, 07:17:07 PM »

DHL dropped a couple of days early so I had the parts I needed to install the cylinder head....

MiniDave · « **Reply #49 on:** October 29, 2021, 04:32:04 PM »

The next chapter - does it run?

Well, of course it does!

I warmed it up and retorqued the head, then fired it up again and ran for 20 min to bed in the cam. This is the final run up before I pull it out of the stand and put it in the car - that's a whole 'nother story tho!

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Author Topic: Engine Rebuild Videos (Read 2158 times)