On Friday, Roger Garnett said
Of course, it only takes about 30-45 minutes more to pull an A
series engine than to take the head off... (And, they're small,
and light.)
To which I say "Ha! I scoff in your general direction!"
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
sfisher came over, and we proceeded to pull the head. Took about 90 minutes,
max. We found, indeed, that the #3 exhaust valve was badly burned, with the
odd side effect that the #3 piston was nice and clean, where all the others
were dirty with carbon (hmm?)
But we also found that the #2 gudgeon pin had come loose, leaving four
nasty gashes in the cylinder wall. Out comes the engine.
So we take off the front valence. This should be easy - five bolts on each
side, six along the bottom. Except that someone had jammed 10-24 nuts on
10-32 studs. I think it took Scott an hour to do this.
Then we start on the tranny - what a disgusting mess! Jack up the car under
the sump, I crawl under and start undoing the (mechanical) clutch linkage
and rear mounts. It got exciting when the engine mount bonding let go and
the car dropped (thank goodness for a strong scuttle) about 3 inches...
Anyway, another hour has gone by, with me under the car, Scott relaying
tools, and Pat staying clean reading the maual aloud. There were a
couple of times when I had to ask for the instructions again in English -
but that never helped. Ugh.
Anyway, we finally got it all out. Found one amusing design flaw - the
main "frame member" is hollow and traps water inside. When we pulled
off the transmission tunnel, the passenger's side was filled with coolant
that had gotten flushed there when I drained the radiator! There are
drain holes on the *vertical* surfaces, and I guess the rest is meant
to evaporate away, but it's a silly design...
Now, what to do? Scott suggests trying to bore .120 over, out to 1380.
The pistons are available, the low end torque could be useful. Put
in some moderate grind cam, go to a single HS4 from the dual HS2
setup that was stolen from a midget. Datsun five speed...
I still have to figure out how to measure the bore enough to determine
if this will work, and find someone who can do the machine work, but
it sounds like fun!
Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions. I have a smoothcase tranny to sell;
it has a mechanical clutch mechanism, so it may only be useful to
a Morris owner. I'd also sell my twin HS2 setup, or trade for
a single HS4. Suggestions for cam grind are welcome.
Oh, and can anyone identify what car engine 12CJ/DA/H 37561 came from?
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