Oil burner.....

[sparky_spit]

Went out to check the car over after the Nachtrit.  Does anyone know how much oil it takes to top up a 4 pot engine from the low mark to the high mark on the dipstick?

Whatever it is, the Spitfire used that much driving the 300 miles back from Holland on Sunday, so I guess it's time to dig out the Ford Pinto valve stem seals that I bought last year and have not yet fitted. It's been getting worse since the 10CR and I'm pretty sure its coming down the inlet valves. I'll fit these, without taking the head off, use some Jaguar XJ single springs (the doubles won't fit with the Pinto seals) and see how it goes. If it's not this, then it's going to need a bit more than just the bottom end refresh I was planning for after Christmas  :(

[Nick Jones]

In my experience you don't loose that much oil down the inlet guides unless you have an unrestricted external rocker feed..... even if you have 6 inlet guides.  Worth a try though.

Nick

[sparky_spit]

I fear you may be right Nick, but I'm ever the optimist.

General use in local 12 car rallies, etc, and it's not too bad, maybe an 1/8" lost on the dipstick after about 150 miles or so of hard-ish driving. On the way to Holland (300 miles at 3000/3500 rpm) it used a bit, about the same on the event itself (180 miles with fairly hard driving), but a whole dipstick's worth on the way back at the same speed as going there. It was getting slowly worse, but not so bad that I couldn't live with it, since the 10CR. Maybe I broke something on the Nachtrit. I'll have a look at the plugs and do a compression test before putting the seals on.

Dave and Vi (murphit ritesplif) were ight behind me most of the way back so it would be interesting to see if the front of their car is covered in oil.

No external feed fitted... horrible things.

[Nick Jones]

I have been experimenting for a while now as the Vitesse engine is well past it's best and now drinks ordinary 20/50 like a rabbit hole..... A rebuilt head with valve guide seals made very little difference even though the old guides were completely shot  :(  Some oils are definitely better than others but all get tired after about 3000 miles.  My current fave is the cheapest Comma 20/50 I could find with a can of Wynns added.  That works pretty well (back up to nearly 1000 miles/pint from about 200!) but the oil pressure is a bit scary when cold!

I've now got just about everything to build a fresh bottom end but seem to have acquired another project along the way which is taking priority.....

Nick

[sparky_spit]

Did some tests today with the engine hot after a 10 mile run, but not "hot" as in just completed 300 miles at 70mph in the middle of summer. Using a Smiths oil pressure gauge instead of the cheap TIM one in the car, I had 40psi at idle, 60psi at 2000 rpm, and 65psi at 3000 rpm, which is not too bad.

Compression dry test: cylinder 1 - 180psi, 2 - 150psi, 3 - 145psi, 4 - 160psi
A wet test produced -              1 - 210psi, 2 - 170psi, 3 - 170psi, 4 - 200psi

...which was not good, but not quite as bad as I feared. Interestingly, the car runs really well, probably the best it has done on that engine. Maybe a slight concern over the headgasket between 2 and 3, but that may be a red herring? As I said, the engine runs really well.

(Incidentally, whilst doing the wet test on cylinder 1 (with 210psi wet) the engine actually "fired" on the mix of the oil that I squirted in the plug hole and the fuel drawn in by me holding the throttle full open, and threw out the starter! Maybe I can run this as a diesel  :) )

So, I'm in 2 minds as to what to do. Burning Millers Classic Sport semi-synth is not cheap at £35 a gallon, but I'm a bit reluctant to rip it all out when it is running so well, and the oil pressure is not that bad after all, so the bottom end is still okay-ish. I quite like Nick's idea of using cheaper oil with added Wynns to keep it going until it gets worse, and then do a rebuild. But will I be damaging the bores by keeping on using it like this, needing a re-bore that I may otherwise get away with? If the rings were stuck, would using Redex be of any use?

I think I'll put seals on the inlet stems anyway, as this can be done without any dismantling, but I'd welcome any ideas or advice as to whether to leave the rebuild until it gets worse, or to do it now.

[Nick Jones]

Oil pressure looks very good and compressions don't look all that bad - ring probs on no. 3 maybe.......

You also might want to check the valve lifts on nos. 1 & 4 exhaust (two end ones) as these do seem to wear first and worn exhaust cam lobes sometimes seem to give higher cranking compressions (not sure why!).

Nick

[sparky_spit]

Well, the oil burning 1500 is out on the garage floor and a Mk3 Spit FD engine is back in the car.  The FD was in good nick when I took it out 4 years ago, and apart from me pulling the head, cleaning it up and lapping in the valves, it all went back in just as it came out. A bit of carb cleaner squirted though the carbs, a twiddle on the oil pump drive with an elecric drill through the dizzy hole (yes Nick, you're right... you certainly know when the pump's primed!), points cleaned and adjusted, some oil flooded down the followers and over the rockers, and it started first go and ran beautifully. I'd forgotten how smooth and revvy these small crank 1300 are, and the test drive was fun.

But back to the 1500.... Looking at the 1st picture below you can see cylinder no 3 looks very glazed, and no 2 is also like this. Both of them also have these strange ring marks halfway down the bores, plus some marks that look like rust. Whilst you can feel the ring marks with your fingernails very slightly, the "rust" marks seem to be under the glazing. This glazing certainly bears out the lower compression figures I was getting for the middle 2 cylinders.  I reckon the "rust" marks come from a hurried headgasket change just before the last 10CR, when I didn't drain the block fully and water got in the cylinders as I took the head off. Maybe the ring marks are from that too, where the pistons sat with wet rings for 24 hours or so until I started it up again? Who knows..  Anyway, there is only a tiny amount of ridging on the bores, they are already at +20 thou., and I reckon a hone and new rings will suffice. Won't know really until the pistons are out

Pictures 2 and 3 explain a lot.  Ever since I've had this engine it has had a "tick" in the valve train. I found that tightening up No. 2's inlet valve clearance a bit cured it for a while, but then it came back. Another couple of thou and it would be okay for a bit, but I reallised this couldn't go on forever. Picture 2 tells it own story.... have you ever seen one that bad? Picture 3 shows the mess made of the cam lobe (right-hand one) - imagine what that did for No 2's inlet valve lift! Not a very good photo as it was taken down the follower hole - so I'll get a better idea once the pulley nut has given up the fight and I can get the timing cover off and the camshaft out. Whatever, it means a new cam and followers.

Next after that is Mains and BEs off, pistons out, clean up the bores, measure everything up and decide what needs machining and replacing. At least I now know what was causing the oil usage, and what was causing the valvetrain ticking. The head is okay, and will just get new guides and Jag springs, and a bit of a clean up. It has already been port matched, so I'll leave it at that.

[Velocita Rosso]

You will thrash these engines Mike............ ;)

[GT6 M]

Nick , if its the exhaust cam that wears out, then the valve closes sooner, thus loosing any valve over lap , that would let compression escape at low speed.
so by having less  comp loss, you get higher comp readings lower down.
but loose out, higher up.

[sparky_spit]

Well, the pulley nut finally gave up the struggle after some heat, a BFH and some swearing. Timing cover, chain/spockets, and camshaft out. The pic below shows No 2 inlet lobe really munched up, and also No 4 inlet starting to go as well. The only use for this cam now is to use as a drift, if I decide to put cam bearings in the block.

Mains and BEs all look very good. These have done about 33,000 miles. Mains are STD and BEs are -10 thou. I'm almost tempted to keep the main shells as they look perfect, but I'll probably renew both mains and BEs with Tri-metals. I'll measure the journals and almost certainly just polish them. Only minor issue was a bad score on No 4 BE shell, in line of where the oil hole runs; the journal itself is fine so I guess there was a piece of grit in there at some time.

The pistons are marginal for re-use. No 4 has a stuck 2nd compression ring. All have over-spec ring/groove side clearances on the top rings, which should only be 1.5 to 3.5 thou. Picture shows No 3 piston with a 10 thou feeler gauge in it! All the second rings' groove clearances are okay. I initially thought that the top ring lands had badly worn, but looking closely, I can see that the top rings are all much thinner than the 2nd rings, so maybe the wear is with the rings rather than the grooves, as I'm sure top and middle rings are the same thickness? Anyone confirm? I have some odd few new rings so will measure everything up and see. So, either the pistons are scrap or just need new rings.

Next step is to measure the bores and, as above, the piston grooves.

[Nick Jones]

Unusually good bearings for a 1500!  Cam is thoroughly wrecked though.

Nick

[sparky_spit]

Spent a bit of time this evening measuring the bores and checking the piston grooves.  The bores are very good, with very little wear, and just a minimal top wear lip on each of less than a thou measurable on the thrust side. All I'll do with these is to hone them to remove the marks and get rid of the glazing. Will probably still need to get stepped top rings though to be on the safe side.

The pistons are scrap, unfortunately. Although there is a lot of thinning of the top rings, accounting for most of the slack, the top groove is still 6 thou too wide on the worst piston and 3 thou on the best. Also, they are no longer parallel and taper quite a bit towards the top. The least worn were Nos 1 and 4, and the worst were 3 and then 2. These are AE +020 pistons so I guess I'm looking at some new County ones, unless something else crops up.  Anyone got any good 1500 +020 pistons going spare?

So it looks like a new cam/followers/pistons/mains/big-ends/valve guides/timing chain and usual gaskets and core plugs,etc.  Anything else worth doing while it's in bits?

I had one hell of a job getting some of the core plugs out, but also some almost just fell out. The water drain plug on the block was completely blocked with hardend crud, and took a lot of poking and scraping until I found the passageway from the jacket down to the drain hole (it's about an inch lower on the 1500 block than the 1300).  Also, the previous builder (well known specialist) used silicone sealant like it was going out of fashion on this engine - it was everywhere. One interesting mod I found was with the oilway between the rear cam bearing and the top of the block, the one that feeds oil up to the rocker shaft. This had been drilled out oversize and then a copper tube inserted into it. The tube sits proud of the block face by about 5mm and fits into a matching oversize countersink in the head. The bottom end has an angled cut end so that it matches the profile of the cam bearing journal. Its purpose is to help stop oil leaks at the HG I guess?  I think it was probably originally loctited in place but this had obviously failed so that it had slipped down and was rubbing on the cam bearing journal. Luckily, being copper, it had not marked the surface greatly (although this cam is now scrap, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway). I'm not sure whether to put this back in or not. If I don't, will the oversized passage reduce oil pressure and hence flow to the rocker shaft?

[sparky_spit]

Update...  Slight change of plan. In phoning around for new pistons, it seems clear that you cannot get them supplied with stepped top rings anymore. This means trying to find a separate set of stepped top rings in +20 or finding somewhere to step the new ones that come with the pistons for me. Whilst talking to Towler Engineering in Clacton, he also suggested machining the existing pistons (with the worn top lands) to take new rings with a ring spacer fitted. He could also ridge-ream the slight top ridge on the bores so that I didn't have to have stepped rings. I'd then hone the bores and just fit new rings to the modded pistons

I took the block and pistons over to see him and he confirmed what he'd said on the phone. BUT... the cost of doing this was more than him reboring the block and me fitting new pistons anyway, so it was a no-brainer. So we decided I'd source some new pistons and he'd rebore to match them. Although I've heard good things about County pistons and was quite fine using them, he would prefer to use AE as he says they are less likely to have any dimensional differences and therefore less work for him. So; I've now sourced a set of AE Hepolite in the next size up and he'll be doing the rebore sometime over the next few weeks.

I've found a source for VP2 mains, and some King tri-metal big-ends (if Stoneleigh does not provide any VP2s - very unlikely I know...)

So, just need to decide on a camshaft, buy all the odds and ends, and glue it back together. Probably not now in time for the HCR (the 1300 seems to be going well so far - it'll get a good "testing" on this weekend's jolly to Stoneleigh :)), but definitely in good time for the 10CR.

[sparky_spit]

I dismantled the head earlier so that I could check to see if it is straight and flat, or whether it needs skimming, so that if it does it can go to Towler’s along with the block. It’s fine, but I was shocked to see the state of the backs of the inlet valve heads (see pic below) which shows that as much oil must have been going down the guides as coming up past the rings. The valve guides can’t have helped in this respect; I’ve never seen any like this before – they have a “nibble” out of the top, with a spiral groove going all the way through them, presumably to aid lubrication of the valve stems? (see 2nd pic). Anyone else ever seen any like this? They are fairly worn, so I will replace them with normal cast iron ones and with Pinto seals on the inlets. The valves themselves seem fine after a clean up, but I will mic them to check they are still within tolerance and okay to reuse.

When checking the head numbers, I was very surprised with what I found. The PO of the 1500 Spit that this engine came out of had had a well known Triumph specialist supply a new unleaded head with the recon engine 10 years and 33K miles ago. I wonder if he knew that what he got was a 218141 Toledo 1300 head with the big inlet valves (1.438” as opposed to 1.380” on the 1500) and a CR of about 9.6:1? Suits me fine! (it does also explain why it likes V-power and Tesco 99 and pinks on 95RON).  What’s more, the head has had some extra work as well; I already knew that it had been nicely port matched from when I first had the manifold off, but I can now see that it has had the inlet short side radius’s done, and the lump around where the guide protrudes cleaned up as well. It all looks to be very well done too, at least to my amateur eye. But what is surprising is that some monkey has then put the unleaded valve seat inserts in, making a terrible job of it. Some seats are overhanging the port, some have a bloody great step – quite easy for me to fix with a burr, but surprising in that it seems that they went to all the trouble of doing a really nice head job on it; then getting it unleaded, and then whacking it on without a further thought.  Anyway, I’ve ultimately benefitted from it so I can’t complain.

The Hepolite pistons turned up from Ireland this week, so the block is off to Towler’s any day now. Today a new Mk3 Spitfire camshaft and followers arrived from Canley’s. This is the one that is ground onto a large journal cam, so I won’t need to put bearings into the block. Very nice it looks too, and the new followers look really well made. I would have had no qualms about using some excellent used OE ones I have (not the 1500 ones!!!) but thought it wise to use new ones from the same supplier. Funny how Dave Pearson wasn’t keen on taking my 1500 cam back in lieu of the exchange surcharge when I told him what it was like… ;D  Luckily I have another large journal cam which will go back to get my £35 refunded.

I was very lucky at Stoneleigh and found some NOS Vandervell VP2 main bearing shells in standard size on Doug Foreman’s stall, so that just leaves the big end shells to source.  A proper early Rolon timing chain came from TRGB’s stall.  Other stuff I’ve either got, or I’ll order later.

I’ll update again, with pics, once the block is back from Towler’s.

[TimW]

nice valves!! ??) ??) ??)

[sparky_spit]

Thread resurrection warning.....

It's been 18 months since I did much on the 1500 engine rebuild but now the cold weather is here I've been messing around in the garage a bit more and decided to just get on with it.  I'd left this because I was trying to source a decent quality long shank 5/16" twist drill to open out the centre-main bearing oilway in the block. The oilway is 98mm long horizontally and 56mm upwards, and standard length drills are too short.  I was also putting it off, as the scope to cock this up was considerable and I didn't want to make my re-machined block into scrap.

However, yesterday I found some long drills when sorting though a box of old lathe tools I'd bought. All the stuff came from a proper engineer and was top quality. So this morning I did the job.

As it turned out it was easy. I even did it with a hand-held electric drill instead of a pillar drill. The existing 1/4" oilway makes a perfect pilot hole for, firstly a 9/32" drill, and then the 5/16" drill, pecking every 1/4" or so and using plenty of lubricant. The depth is marked onto the drill with tape.

However, it became clear that the 2 holes were not not aligned correctly from the factory and their junction was offset very slightly from each other.  Also, there is not much material there to allow for any error, so I chickened out and made the final drilled holes at 19/64", just 1/64" smaller than the planned 5/16". I'm happy with that, the junction is now larger and cleaner, and I still have the correct number of holes in the block.

Next job is cleaning the block, pulling the distributor drive bush back in (that needed to come out to drill the horizontal oilway) and start building up the crank, rods and pistons into the clean block.

[sparky_spit]

When cleaning the block up, I've noticed that nothing I've used, chemical or mechanical, gets the bearing oilways clean enough without using a twist-drill in them  I thought it was all clean but checking with a torch down the oilways I could see "rough" walls to the oilways, which are obviously drilled and should be smooth. Carefully using a 1/4" twist drill a whole load of hard baked-on crud came out, despite already using doubled-up pipecleaners and long twisted bristle brushes along with paraffin.

With all the effort I took to enlarge the centre main oilway, I'm glad I noticed this on the others as there must have been quite a reduction in flow as a result.

[Nick Jones]

About the only non-mechanical thing that shifts that sort of crud is hot caustic.  That will also remove all paint, aluminium, brass etc.

Can't remember the details of 4 pots now (haven't messed with one for over 20 years  :o) but on the 6 pot you need to withdraw the oil pump/dizzy drive bush to get at everything.  Reasonably easy to do with a length of studding and suitable washers.

Cheers

Nick

[JensH]

Done that (oil pump/dizzy drive bush) on my small crank 1300 engine (FD). There is an oil way just behind; you can find all sorts of debris there  :o

http://thetriumphanimal.blogspot.dk/2009/08/engine-ii.html

[sparky_spit]

Yes, the dizzy/oil pump drive bush is out, as are the blanking plugs that give access to the other 2 drillings, through the main gallery, for the front and rear mains.  You do need that long shank drill though, as mentioned above.  About £14 to buy, but I was lucky that I found I had some in a box of old bits I'd bought. They were just long enough to be gripped by about 3/8" in a drill chuck.

And I used your tip, Nick, to pull the bush out with studding, nuts and washers.  I'll pull it back in the same way.