First of all, I want to thank all who responded with advice & sympathy.
I received a number of good solutions, some, probably better than the
route I chose. Sorry I worried Woody Cooper, who sold me the engine. He
was very concerned.
Some of the factors that influenced my decision were, engine in the car,
all bolted up; tranny in the car, bolted & unbolted, but held in place
by the cross member; I was getting tired of fooling with the problem;
unwillingness to hunt up a good machine shop & wait on them. And
finally, I wanted a solution I could perform.
As most of you know, the engine turned about 20` at initial start-up,
then locked. The problem I finally discovered, was the longer crank on
the Rover engine bottomed out on the splines of my T-5 tranny. Something
needed shortening, or a spacer must be used.
I think Jack Emery's suggestion of machining the tranny input shaft was
the best idea, had I discovered the problem sooner, this was what I
would have done. For reasons stated above, I decided to use a spacer. My
choices were to space at the bell housing to tranny, or engine to bell
housing. I needed a minimum of 1/8" additional space, & 1/4" would put
things closer to factory specs.
The bell housing to tranny spacer would move the tranny out of the
supporting aperture (big round hole) in the bell housing, & my skills &
equipment were not enough to ensure the spacer would be accurate enough
to properly locate the trans. Thus, I went about making a spacer for the
engine to bell housing out of 1/4" aluminum. I had a spare bell housing
for a pattern, a drill press, & my trusty router. One of the nice things
about aluminum is that wood working tools work quite well to cut &
shape. I made the spacer in 2 pieces to minimize the amount of waste.
The original locating dowels were long enough to properly locate the
bell housing through the spacer, but longer ones would have been no
problem.
All bolted up, final hose & wire check, oil pump was primed, double
checked the timing, thanks to my good friend Dave, & turn the key.
Hit on the first lick, I took the rpm's immediately to 2000, per the cam
mfg.'s instructions, ran it for a sweet beautiful, wonderful sounding 20
min, also per cam mfg.. Dave adjusted the idle so I could get out of the
car, & we both looked for any problems, found none.
Engine did finally begin to run hot. Even a 16" electric fan is not
enough to keep up with a tight engine running indoors at 2100 rpms. It
did take over 20 min to get to 210`. Let everything cool down while I
reworked the shift boot. There are a couple of areas where 1/4" makes a
big difference. Took the car off jack stands for the first time in 2
months, & went for a ride.
AWESOME! 5.0's will be no challenge, I need a Viper or maybe a new 'Vet
to embarrass.
Even gentle driving was a thrill. Can't wait to get some miles on it,
change the oil, & see what its like when it gets angry.
Hope all of you had as good a Christmas as I did.
Jim
( anyone wanting spacer details, let me know.)
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