Antonnick

I assume you mean an original Stanpart pump? 

Another question . With the engine bottom end open  you can easily see the Camshaft. One of the surfaces is marked/scratched. Is this bad? The area is marked by the arrow  

Engine is out, bottom end dismantled and the Crankshaft is on the bench.  I do not have a micrometer so have used digital calipers. Main Bearing measurements at 90° to each other 1  50,82      50,78 2  50,82      50,76 3. 50,76       50,74  The Manual quotes 50,81 for the Journal and 50,85 for the internal dia ??? am not sure which is relvant.    Big end measurements at 90° to each other 1.  41,11    41,25 2.  41,20    41,29 3.  41,19    41,24 4.   41,10   41,31  The manual gives the value of  41,30    Can it be concluded that the Crankshaft is due for a grind and more importantly ( because I am sending oit off anyway for this to be done) that this is the cause of the engine noise?

Hard to tell if it has done the miles or not ( it does km now 😊 ) but it was quite poorly when I got it and hardly anything worked - heater, doors , windows, boot lid etc. The oil was so thick and black I had to renew it three times in as many months before it became clean. So in a sentence totally vernachlässigt ...."neglected" says my dictionary. Obviously it was not garaged at all and had only done just over 400 miles in 8 years according to the MOT records.  But apart from the noise rattel/knock, it looks and drives quite nicely now.   

The pistons have obviously been renewed and a rebore done as they are stamped +0.030 ( from memory).  would that be a reasonable conclusion?

This is what it looked like when the head was off

The rattle never really went away, I have been driving it only occaisionally and try not to do more than 70kmh. I am having a look to see who may be able to regrind locally. I took the head off recently and renewed the valves and springs and removed the carbon. Cylinder nr 4 had obviously been letting in water as it was clean! I noticed on removing the cylinder head bolts that some of the nuts were not that tight so perhaps that was the reason.  I renewed all the studs and nuts as well as the gasket of course.

It has been a long time. My problem is still there but today I went to see a proper mechanic (retired) and with no hesitation he said it was the crankshaft.  "does it rumble on a cold start?" he asked me.  when I told him it did, he was 100% sure that the Crank was at fault.  Apart from the main two main suppliers, is there anywhere or anyone else in GB I can get one (exchange or whatever) ?

I had not thought of that - there is a Spitfire Club here in Germany although it is quite small in numbers and they do have Meetings around the Country - I will investigate for next year, thanks.  

It has been already over a month. I managed to set in place what I think is the right thickness gasket and have done some test driving around. I do not take the car out on the road when it is wet so the opportunities have been  minimal. So to bring the thread to an end, at first I thought the noise had gone but probably because of the lower temps this time of year it took longar than usual for the oil to warm up and the noise then came back. Oh I forgot, I did remove the pedestal from the Distributor Body as Nick recommended in order to measure the clearance. For the time being I have given up. The car is now in winter Hibernation anyway. Next year I will not make any Long journeys in it as previously planned but use it locally, perhaps max 200km a day just to see what develops. The next Task however is the Drivers door which has a horrible gap at the bottom - that was another thread I think.   

@ Rob - yes the 1 mm applies to both sides and the nuts are finger tightened just enough to make the pedastal stable. No. it is not an external rocker feed but the Connection to the oil pressure gauge. @ Nick - I think for peace of mind it will be a good Thing to do to remove the Distributor Body even though the Timing will be disturbed. But the engine is sitting now at TDC so that should not cause a Problem if putting everything back together as it is. That will have to wait though - I am going to Berlin tomorrow for a week to relive some meories of when I did live there. 😊 The Oil gauge.......  

and when I use the gauges in the central Position I can measure 1,4mm so _      

Thankyou . I understand now. Now that Pictures can be posted this might explain the difficulty. When the feeler gauges are used to measure the gap in this Position I can get exactly 1,0 mm which goes right through

The use of the stethoscope did not give any clues. Perhaps this is to be expected as the rattle/clang onlx occurs under load at 2.500 to 3000 revs approx. I have though ordered some gaskets for the distrubutor pedestal which have not arrived yet. But I have removed the Distributor in order to measure the gear float. This seemed like an easy Thing to do...but it is not. The Manual says to remove the drive gear, put in a washer temporarily over the geardrive shaft and then put the drive gear back in. Thence the Distributor is placed back on to the pedestal. The gap between the pedestal flange and the Distributor flange measured. I found you Need to replace the nuts and schrew them dowm finger tight in order to stop the flange rocking. The Manual has incorrectly stated the Maximum tolerance in mm as 1,78. It should be 0,178 mm in converting the imperial measurement of 0,007 in. Now  the washer I used measures 1,49 mm thickness and after a lot of playing about using feeler gauges, I measured the gap as 1,35, perhaps 1,40mm if you try and push the feelers in with pressure. It is a bit awkward to measure as there is not much room and I get the Feeling that the gap varies depending on where you measure. Oh I forgot, any gasket that was there before had broken up. It was very thin. OK , so if the end float difference as measured is now 0,09mm, then I Need a gasket of 0,03 for the correct mean tolerance to bring it to 0,12mm . If , on the other Hand the 1,35 is valid, then I do not Need any gasket, which is in effect what I have now. But then I thought, what happens when the temporary washer is removed? The measured tolerance is then fudge, so perhaps the washer is permanent? Confused 😟  

Now that is a good thought! Both of those items I have removed and replaced. i have been given a Special stethascope to try and localise the noise. Will Report back in a week when I get home again  

Yes you have mentioned that before and I did try it last year, no difference to the Sound. I have been told off for calling it pinking, which only occurs at low engine revs when trying to accelerate - the same Sound as a diesel engine if you are in too low a gear. I cannot get my Herald to pink like that. Oh I forgót to mention that I found the bottom hose weeping at the Joint which I have now tightened up. This has solved the water loss. I am away for some days now but when I get back I will try to listen to the rattle with the bonnet open. It seems to be there but not so loud at a fast idle so perhaps I can, with some help, hear if it is coming from the bottom or the top or the front or the back of the engine.......plenty of choices!  

Yes I have done this test of the vacuum function and the top plate with Points does move .....but not very much. I am not sure if it easily moves as it Needs a lot of lung power. I then tried to move the finger ( I have one of the new better red ones) to check the function of the weights and it hardly moves at all. It seems that this is correct and expected.

If only I could be sure that this is actually the case. Certainly the mixture set at the carb using colortune was correct but I made it a bit richer anyway. I use 98 octane fuel. Is the Distributor faulty? I do not have the Impression that power is lacking in any way. I am inclined to think there is a mechanical Problem somewhere - a worn or weak tappet spring for example. Perhaps listening with a stethoscope might Isolate the root cause....

If it is a high Speed pinking then presumably, this can be corrected by a pre-programmed  Distributor? I have tried retarding the Basic ingnition which has only marginal effect but the idle is very uneven as a result. Alternativly I can advance the ignition at idle and the engine ticks over much faster and evenly. But when I do the "pinking" is no better, perhaps worse  

Al back together again but the test drive showed no Change to the engine rattle when lightly accelerating at 6ß to 70kmh. At least it has now ruled out the bearings. And I forgot to redo the sealing plate front bolt which I knew was a loose fit. So it leaks a bit. Next steps? Check the cylinder compressions I think to rule out a head gasket. Interestingly, I had to top up the Radiator a bit. That could mean something.......

I could not get hold of a DTI today so had to revert to using feeler gauges. After much Trial and error the clearance was measured as 0,25mm so then I tried to put the bearing cap back. It would not seat properly but fortunately I saw this before trying to tighten the bolts up. It ranspired that one of the thrust washers had come out! The 0,1 Inch oversize ones I could not get back in but I had 0,05 Inch ones which did go in. The movement was then measured at only 0,15mm and before anything else could go wrong I put the bearing cap back on and torqued it to 70Nm as specified. Next Task is the sealing Piece. I Need to make new Wood wedges and get hold of the high temperature liquid gasket and sealant. I also Need to put the sump back on a lot better than last time because it leaked oil all over the place. I have a new gasket for this.  

Mine is GE. So the 0,01 Inch are the largest available it seems. I do not think it is possible to measure for ovalness of the main bearing unless you remove the crank - which to do, you have to take the engine out of the car. I am not ready for that. The big end ovalness I measured last year already and all 4 were ok.  

Last time it reduced the noise but did not eliminate it. ..and just to Show that I do not always work on the car ...

The bigends I replaced last year - at that time I could download Pictures and the Consensus of opinion was that they did not look bad at all. I replaced them anyway. The thrustwashers I replaced as well at that time using Standard ones. Only the one at the rear Looks a Little worn but hardly anything. In the Manual, it refers to the "thickness of thrust washers"  with "clearances" from 0,15 to 0,35 mm. The Manual also notes the "crankshaft end float" to be 0,10 to 0,20 mm. Which should I aim for? Once the thrustwasher issue is settled and the rattle is still there then at least this has ruled out the bottom end so to speak. The next check will be the head gasket - I have ordered a compression tester - they are cheap enough. There is also the possibility of a worn Distributor where the Timing curve at Speed no longar matches and for that I have it in mind to send it to the "doctor" anyway. Postscript - wow - I can download Pictures!! Is this the new update of the Website? Wonderful!

Thankyou for that Clive, it answers a question I was going to make. So I took off the sealing plate carefully this morning and it seems that previously someone had used liquid sealing compound alongsside the Wood wedges. I will try to put it back as suggested - the front gasket to the front plate is quite good. I removed first the front main bearing to have a look. If I had not had new bearings to Hand I would have re-used the old ones - they showed hardly any signs of wear or Scratching. Presumably therefore, the main bearing is not the cause of my knocking Sound. The crankcase movement though looked quite large when I pulled at it. I do not have a dial test indicator today but I thought I would try to measure the movement using my digital calipers, ( is it called that?) I read 1,2mm which is rather large. So, I removed main bearing no3  and checked the thrust washers to see if I had previously put them in wrongly. No, they were correctly positioned, smooth face against the main bearing. I have some new oversize thrust washers from last years work so I have temporarily at least installed a pair of +0,01 Inch just to see what the result is. My measurement now gives a free Play of 0,3mm which is in tolerance. However, before tightening everything up, I will check tomorrow properly with the dial test indicator. I am trying not to be too optimistic that the large amount of free Play was really the cause of the rattle.