Getting back on the road

Absolutely. I have a new cam to go in the 2.2. The one in there was a little rounded in the lobes. I still have the 2000tc head on it but I realised after getting it running in Rolly that old cam was more worn than I like. I'm quite enjoying sitting on a stool in the garage listening to podcasts and fettling, very therapeutic. My thumb is still in a cast from breaking it a while back. With luck I can get cracking on pulling the engine.
 
Finished rebuilding the two HIF6's I'm planning on fitting last night. I'm lucky in that I have access to a media blasting cabinet with plastic beads at work so I was able to get them looking tidy fairly easily once I masked off any orifices. I had bought a couple of rebuild kits from Wins a while back and used those to replace seals. The spindles and butterfly valves look in good condition, not discernible movement. I like that they have rubber seals on the HIF spindles, a nice touch. I did however find that there is some roughness on the surface of one of the choke valves. It doesn't appear to be on a surface that seals so fingers crossed.

One oddity was that the carbs (I got them from a chap in Holland) had LPG fitting on their intakes, strangely though they seemed to be for a 1 1/2" carb not a 1 3/4" as they should be. They now sit on the shelf in the basement.

Here's a before and after pic of the carbs
 

Attachments

  • Carbs.JPG
    Carbs.JPG
    113.2 KB · Views: 667
So things are moving along. I've finished rebuilding the carbs. I polished the dash pots and the valve cover while I had the chance to use a buffing lathe. They came out quite well I think. I also mig welded the cracks in the heat shield, replaced the missing pop rivets and cleaned that it up. Hopefully no irritating buzzing from it when fitted.

I've also CNC machined a see saw to adapt the linkage to cable operation for the throttle. If it works when fitted I'll supply drawings for others to use for their HIF6 conversion too.
 

Attachments

  • cxarb-mani.jpg
    cxarb-mani.jpg
    604.6 KB · Views: 600
  • vc.jpg
    vc.jpg
    579.9 KB · Views: 592
I'm pretty happy with the valve cover. We will know if the seesaw actually works hopefully by the weekend. I've booked the week off work here. Pulled the old engine yesterday. I rebuilt a steering box a while ago and will fit that, an idler with less play and the two master cylinders while the engine is out. The 2200 will go in once I've done a few final tweaks to it and then I'll see if I got the Mathis right on the seesaw :).

Plan is to paint the engine bay with some POR15 in satin black as well. So maybe the weekend is being ambitious!
 
Thanks Paul,

Engine came out last night. Now cleaning up the engine bay with degreaser and a wire cup on the angle grinder. The bay is in very nice shape apart from some surface rust in places. Plan is to mask and paint today and tomorrow. Then while the paint is curing over the next few days I will get the new engine finished off. I dropped the tab washer from the top tensioner this weekend so I forsee dropping the sump to retrieve it. You should have heard me swear when it happened!
 
Two days later I have a bare bay (oo, er missus), I thoroughly degreased and rinsed the bay too. I ended up renting a pressure washer to help, it made a huge difference, god knows how long it would have taken with just the hosepipe and simple green after I had wire wheeled the paint and rust off. I also pressure washed the gearbox to get rid of all the grim from that leaking rear main seal. Tomorrow I plan to spray on the metal prep that POR-15 recommends I use, that has to stay wet on the steel and other substrates for 30 mins then get rinsed off thoroughly with water. (yay, more pressure washing :) ). Once that's dry I can finally m,ask and spray. Weather forecast is 80deg F (27c) low humidity and low winds so I think it should work well with the spraying of POR-15 and their satin black top coat. I think I will use my leaf blower to ensure everything is nice and dry before I start the masking and painting. Oh yes, and pick up the newly brazed exhaust manifold from my mate Kenny up the hill!

I'm not after a concourse finish. I want something that will preserve the body, and will last. Hopefully this will do the job. We shall see I guess!
Now to the shower followed by a bottle of Magic Hat #9 to end the day.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2800.JPG
    IMG_2800.JPG
    160.3 KB · Views: 700
Well, I didn't get the engine back in at the weekend. So, after all the degreasing and washing it was finally time to start the prep for painting. I'm using the POR15 system as its meant to be very good at stopping rust I couldn't reach and preventing new rust.

The first step was to use their metal prep. This stuff is a mix of phospheric acid and something that leaves a coating of zinc phosphate. It's water based, so I used a trigger bottle to spray it over the bare metal. You're meant to keep things wet for at least 30 mins to get it working. It was 80 odd F (about 30ish C if your reading in colour) on the day so I was kept busy spraying areas as they dried. After the 30 mins were up I had to flush it with water. Yay! I get to power wash again! So out with that and a thorough rinse off got everything off the metal.

It needed to be bone dry before I could apply the second step, the actual rust preventative paint. So I had a brain wave and used my plug in electric leaf blower to dry off the worst of the water. That and the heat of the day meant I was ready to start masking in no time. A friend dropped by to see how I was doing while I was at it and he made a suggestion that saved me hours; why not use kitchen foil to mask the loom? It worked a treat! I wasn't going to strip everything in the engine bay so I planned on feathering the paint near the bulkhead and this worked nicely for that too.



Next was the first coat of the actual paint. This stuff is a little odd. It uses moisture to help it cure. It also can't be thinned much. Even with it's branded solvent. The TDS says only a max of 5%. I'm using a HVLP gun with a 1.2mm tip so I was a little worried that it wouldn't be able to cope with the viscosity of the paint. I needn't have worried, it flows out beautifully once applied. They say to use two coats, but leave for about 2-3 hours between them. So I left things alone after cleaning the gun and tried to find something else to do. After the second coat I needed to wait another 2-3 hours before I applied a top coat.



Final stage was POR15's top coat (called 'top coat!) I wanted the factory like finish so went for their chassis black finish. It dries to a nice satin finish that looks pretty good from about 5-10 feet. It was a little thicker than the base coat. It flows out fairly well, but I think I was on the edge of my gun's abilities with it. Again I was concerned about over thinning the paint with solvent as it can stop it cross-linking with the basecoat and causing issues with poor cure and adhesion. I definitely didn't want to do this again! As it happens it's not too bad, I have some orange peel in places, but the two coats went on quickly with a 2 hour gap between them and dried fairly quickly. My only concern was that it felt a little soft the next day. I phoned their tech support line and they assured me that it can take up to a week to feel fully cured. I guess watch this space! I have to say it looks ok. I'm happy with the finish and it does feel tough.



I managed to put in the rebuilt master cylinders on the Sunday along with the hydraulic lines and loom. It took about five goes to get everything back in the right order, even with all the photos I had taken before I took her apart.

I'm back at work this week, so I get a little time each day to play in the garage. I wanted to pull the side plates as the engine I will be fitting had sat for a good while at a mechanic's yard. It was from rolly. The car wasn't safe to rebuild after an accident about five years ago. At the time I had built the engine as a 2200 using NOS pistons, conrods, crankshaft and many other ebay finds. It had about 1,500 miles on it at the time of the accident. The mechanic was recommended as a trusted Rover guy and the hope was to straighten out the body and get Rolly back on the road. After a number of false starts I realised that the car was beyond safe repair. I wouldn't have felt safe having it back on the road. I had a lot going on in my private life so it was left at the yard for a few years. Unfortunately I didn't realise that they had left neat water in the cooling system. I pulled the LHS side plate and found 20mm of sediment in the jacket! I wasn't happy! When I got the block bored out I had also had it boiled in a chemical bath to clean the water ways. So now I have to pull both side plates and flush the system as best I can. The side plates seem to be very distorted too. I will use the ones on the engine that came out as they are in good nick. I checked the block for cracks, the gasket sealing surfaces on the block where the side plate goes for flatness and that the studs and bolt line up perfectly with the engine mount bracket too. All appears good. I have to admit I was conviced for a second that I had the wrong engine, but the block number matches as it should, its amazing what a few years sitting can do. Oh well, you live and learn.

Tomorrow the rain stops. It's been raining since Sunday afternoon. I hope to find enough time to fit the rebuilt steering box and the good idler I have waiting for Beryl. After that it's all engine fettling ready for putting it in. I hope I make it this weekend. Time will tell.
 

Attachments

  • Masking.png
    Masking.png
    1.7 MB · Views: 669
  • first coat.png
    first coat.png
    1.6 MB · Views: 666
  • finished top coat.png
    finished top coat.png
    1.7 MB · Views: 668
Great effort
You are going to have so much pride and fun getting he back on the road .
 
That's a good finish you have achieved and considerably quicker than I did mine.

That foil tip is genius! :idea:
 
Thanks Paul, The foil saved me ages! I reckon it was five days work for stripping, cleaning, masking and painting the bay. According to the instructions I had to do all the coats of base and top coat within a certain time frame to ensure proper cross linking and adhesion. The other factor was that I knew a long drawn out thunder storm was coming. I finished the painting on the Saturday. Refitted the brake lines etc on the Sunday morning and the rain started on the Sunday afternoon. It's only just stopped again last night. I work from a single car garage and the drive and at the moment I'm using the garage to hold the engines while I work on them.
 
Old trick, much easier around irregular shapes than paper and self-supporting too, no need to tape the ends. Cling film is useful too.
 
If it wasn't for Jay popping around to see how I was doing I would never have known about it. Seriously helped progress. I think I would have been spraying at midnight if he hadn't told me about it.
 
I try and do a little work on the engine before I go to work in the morning. I've removed the side plates and will be replacing them with the ones on the old engine as they're not distorted. I'm still annoyed that the ones on the new engine were ruined because the mechanic left neat water in the engine and then left the car out in a Massachusetts winter! At least it's only the side plates that got damaged by freezing as far as I can tell.

I'll most likely paint them once cleaned up with silver Rustoleum this weekend along with a quick coat of Admiralty grey on the block. I have many parts to swap over that'll keep me busy. With luck I'll get the engine back in before the end of the month!
 
This weekend's activities included starting to get the engine prepped for installation. I managed to flush out any slit in the block, fit and shim the water pump pulley, and check the side plates before refitting. Matthew, my step son was a great help and repainted the sideplate, a few brackets and the block for me. Managed to get that together ad it looks great! Apart from the one bolt that snapped on the side plate when assembling things. I did manage to drive it out this morning by using a fine punch and a hammer to unwind the stud enough to get my pliers onto it. New bolt in and all is good! Excuse the small dribble of gasket dressing on the block, I've cleaned that off now I promise!

We also split the gearbox from the old engine. As suspected there's tons of oil behind the flywheel on the engine backplate. Surprisingly little clutch contamination considering how much judder it had on take up.

In other news I am using an engine from a non AC equipped car and Beryl was originally AC equipped. So the pulley offsets for the alternator are different. Added to that the new engine was dynamo equipped so I will have to play with mounts to see if I can fit the alternator to the new engine without having to swap the crankshaft harmonic pulley and the water pump nose over too. I think I can, but a little head scratching and maybe some fabrication is in my future.

Anyway, enjoy the glory of a clean Rover 2000TC engine in light Admiralty Grey! I really like Rover's colour choice for the block.
 

Attachments

  • Clean-engine.jpg
    Clean-engine.jpg
    612.6 KB · Views: 480
Dropped the sump this morning before work (almost literally, butterfingers). And I have retrieved the pesky washer that dropped in there. I've taken the baffles off to clean up the sump from whatever nasty stuff the mechanic put on there to seal it. I should have it sorted before long I think. Very happy with how it all looks now. Harvey was very helpful with a question I had about the clutch release mechanism. The engine going in has a new(ish) clutch and cover for a 1968 car, the gearbox had the collar for a 69 clutch cover. Fortunately I had a spare clutch release assembly with the correct collar. I'm relieved I found that out before i put things back together. So, gearbox is back on, sump will soon be back on. Things are moving along nicely.
 

Attachments

  • Eng-GB.jpg
    Eng-GB.jpg
    383.9 KB · Views: 464
Well, I've been working on her again this weekend. On Friday evening and Saturday morning I ground out the holes for the engine mounts by about 1.0mm. I'm using the 87 VW golf gearbox mounts that Demetrius recommended in his post a while ago. They are filled with hydraulic fluid to aid damping and feel much better than the floppy old ones I took out.

I also finally replaced the steering box and idler. I knew the steering box felt heavy, but when I took it out and tried moving the input shaft it was far worse than I expected. It felt like a paint stirrer in a bucket of gravel! Fortunately I had rebuilt my old car's one a while ago. Not just replacing the oil seals but setting up the input shaft in a lathe with a grinder attachment on the tool post and grinding in new races on the shaft. At the time it was an act of desperation as the old box felt fairly bad and I thought I can't use it as it was, so I either make it better or no worse. Turned out it made it better. I think I will try and do the same with this box and keep for next time. LHD manual steering boxes seem in pretty short supply.

My mate Jay and his son, Pete, joined Matthew and I on Saturday afternoon and we finally got the engine back in! Feels like a landmark moment. Having extra eyes and hands really helped with guiding the engine and gearbox back in with minimal fuss. We finished around 5pm and went to the pub to celebrate. Temperatures where in the 90's Saturday afternoon so we were ready for a cold pint.

Sunday morning I finished connecting everything up under the car. Because of possibly years of major oil leaks from the rear main seal the underseal in the transmission tunnel was more like tar. By the time I was finished I looked like the creature from the black lagoon. We had people coming over for a BBQ in the evening and the missus nearly had kittens when she saw me! So glad the that it's the last bit of filthy work on this job!

Anyways, here's a pic of the engine in it's natural habitat.
 

Attachments

  • back-in-sml.jpg
    back-in-sml.jpg
    426.2 KB · Views: 426
Back
Top