Drew:
I have my '59 TR3A engine on a stand awaiting my attention while
I am working on the frame. My engine has the original TR3 painted
on the right side. I have taken a number of pictures to get a good
record of the paint brush strokes and the color and plan on painting
it back on after I paint the block.
Scott Suhring
Elizabethtown, PA
'70 TR6
'59 TR3
Drew Rogge wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> A while ago I was headed for the hardware store in my TR3 and the
> engine started missing and finaly quit all together. To make a long
> story short, what happened was that the pivot pin came out of the
> aftermarket fuel pump and allowed the lever to jam the cam. After
> taking the valve cover off I found that the rear stud for the rocker
> arm assembly had broken. This is probably what caused the car to
> quit running. The only thing I could think of that would cause this
> was that the cam had been broken (always assume the worst) causing
> the valve timing for the #4 cylinder to go out and allowing the piston
> to bash into the valves. So I proceeded to pull the head to check the
> piston and valve. Although the valve and piston looked ok there was
> a pretty heavy ridge at the top of all the cylinders. I knew the engine
> had lots of blow-by and pretty tired. This plus knowing something happened
> to the cam caused me to decide to pull the engine and rebuild it.
> Once I got around to pulling the cam out I was supprised and pleased
> that it came out in one piece. I guess that what really happened when
> the cam was jammed was that it caused the timing chain to skip one
> or more teeth.
>
> So anyway the engine is all a part and kind of spread around the garage
> now and I'm afraid I'm going to be asking all sorts of silly questions
> for a while. I guess I might as well start now.
>
> When I pulled the cylinders out the water jacket had all kinds of rust
> in it, particularly towards the rear of the block. I'm going to take
> the block and head somewhere to get them cleaned out and was wondering
> if this will remove the rust build up? I'm also concerned about the
> aluminum plugs in the head and oil gallery. Does the cleaning solution
> used to clean things up eat aluminum?
>
> I'm not sure but it looks like there may be a crack in the web that runs
> across the block between the number two and three cylinders. It looks to
> start at the top of the web and runs to the rectangular hole. Is this
> common and is it significant? I'm not sure that it's really a crack. It
> may be the imprint of a crack in the pattern used to make the mold for
> the block (wishfull thinking).
>
> One interesting thing I noticed when cleaning up the block is that it
> has the letters:
>
> T R
> 3
>
> painted on the side in orange paint. I had read in Piggot's book that
> at least some of the engines were marked this way. Anyone else have this
> on their engine?
>
> Like I said this is probably the start of many questions. I've tried
> to save previous messages which I figured I'd need some day but I'm
> sure I don't have everything covered.
>
> Thanks,
> Drew
>
> --
> Drew Rogge
> drew@pixar.com
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