[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Finally.....................

After much sweating, swearing, scratching of head etc,i finally have the case apart. She fought me most of the way and getting the rod nuts undone and then getting the rods off the crank proved a real challenge, seeing as there were 3 cylinders in barrels that didnt want to move. The part that made it really difficult is the fact you cannot split the case with the pistons & rods still attached to the crank. You have to undo them and when you have a piston stuck in a barrel and the crank wont turn, getting access to the nuts holding the rods to the crank is a complete PITA.

Anyway, stuck with it and finally got the case apart. There is still one barrel in the side of the case with a piston in it which i need to deal with.





Interestingly, given how filthy the case is, i dont think the crank looks too bad (well, not to me!). The cam gear looks to be in good shape as well. No chipped or missing teeth which is frequently found on these engines.....





This is the only bad bit i can find on it..



Bearings in the case didnt look too bad, apart from these two. This looks like its had a bit of damage previously (odd nothing at all on the journal on the crank)





THis is a real wierd one. Its not a crack but a fair old score i think. Again, the corresponding journal is fine??



So im pretty pleased actually. I was expecting something far, far worse but i do wonder if all the filth has actually afforded it some protection? Need to measure everything to check for wear and decide on a course of action from there. New set of bearings all round at least, i suspect im gonna need at least 2 new pistons/barrels, and a fair few other bits.

THoughts?

looks better than expected, the bearing score could have been done on assembly and is that a location pin in the oil feed hole?
the crank looks pitted it would be worth getting it checked to see how deep it goes and you will need to find the maximum oversize bearings available to see it it will machine down to a good finnish and still fit within the bearing size range.
is the cam rusty or just dirty.

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Cheers Snoopy.

Cam, like everything else is just dirty. Not sure what's in the oil feed hole, might just be the picture

Crank is getting thrown in the electrolytic bath this weekend.

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Bugger.........

Not a good day. One of the really manky looking pistons wasnt coming out of the barrel. At all. Only way to get it out would be with some force.

A wooden drift and a rubber mallet, from inside the case side. Cant do it the other way as the piston fouls on the case ribs. Piston drifting out nicely, wife brings me a brew, i have a gulp, pick up what i thought was the mallet but turned out to be a hammer, and promtly whack a bearing seat....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Not a happy bunny now. Not sure if the case is scrap or not. Its very very slightly deformed. Dont know if if could be machined?? Bearing still appears to seat, though im not sure if it has properly.













So im right racked off. A moment's inattentiveness could have cost me dearly here.........

Having said all that, the case will need to machine work anyway, mainly to the oilways for the bearings. It looks very like they cut the oilways and then drilled the oil hole. You can where they have drilled through. another oil way comes to almost the point of a 'V' where the oil hole is. Watched a video on youtube where a guy was building a vair engine with VW 94mm b&p's and he recommended doing it.

thats salvageable that is mate ....a light bit of line boring will see that gone 10 thou should do it with a 10 thou crank regrind and all should be great

Do you think it needs that Shaggy....

If the seat is just deformed at the corner of the small cutout, I would think the rest of the bearing
seat will be fine...

It would be possible to make. I think, an exact diameter match small disk, the width of the seat.

Gently scraping the seat and checking the fit of the disk as you go will then ensure a nice fit, use engineers blue as you check...

I only say this as the rest of the bearing seat area looks totally untouched.

Is the mating face ok.... as I cant see exactly where its been hit, is it just left of the cutout?

Yes pete thats it exactly just left of the cut out ...as Ben is just starting out on his journey of engine building, I was just trying to explain that there are options that he can take and both are valid by either machining it at a shop, or by doing it himself by hand, depending on his level of confidence and the tools to hand.
With our guidance Ben should be able to do it exactly as you described

Hi Ben, We should be able to rub that burr off no probs!. Do not put your lifters in your electrolysis bath, they need to be stripped one by one, cleaned and then reassembled and then primed to see if they will pump up. It is good to see that new shells are available in all those sizes, so if it does need a regrind; we get that done first and then get the shells to match. An old crank has often run slightly out of true, so I guess it will need a 010" regrind. I guess the 001" and 002" shells, were for the race boys or perhaps if a new crank went tight!.

I did notice one nasty bit about your engine that they changed on later engines!. That was that the gudgeon pin is a push in fit in the piston but you need a press to put in the con rod, which is a bit of a bugger lol. So early ones had no circlips! does yours have circlips or not. If you have no circlips, you can not just warm the piston up and knock out the gudgeon pin, like on the VW's.

Rob

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Peter/Shaggy,

Hopefully this picture shows the impact a little better...



The long arrow is the direction the hammer was taking. I was driting a piston out of the middle cylinder so imagine the hammer head exiting out of the middle piston hole.

The circle shows the impact area. If you look closely above the curved line i put in, you can see the outline of the round hammerhead. What it appear to have done is squash that corner down a very little. Although exacerbated, you can see from the small vertical line where it appears to have bulged out a little.

The rectangular cut out for the bit on the back of the bearing is very slightly out of shape, meaning the bit on the back of the bearing doesnt sit in it.. Im guessing a little very light filing to open this out again is whats required? Ill try to get a pic with the bearing in.

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Rob, thats encouraging!

The case halves have not been put in the bath. Electrolysis is not kind apparently to aluminium, which is what the case is. All the lifters have been removed and bagged.

As far as im aware Rob from the 'Vair boys, the gudgeon (or wrist pins as they seem to call them) were all a press fit. I dont think GM ever fitted the circlips as per VW. The rods need to be heated to about 200 degrees to fit the pins. To remove is the same, you need to heat the rods. You can press them out cold, but it usually knackers the piston. Not sure if i will be resuing the pistons or not yet, so that might not be an issue!

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Ok, some more pics. I was wrong about the bearing. It does sit as it should in the rectangular bit. This pic shows the impact point far better. The bearing is supposed to be off center as well. This one, for some reason, is designed like that.



Another pic showing the bearing seated. It appears to be seatedproperly despite the pic but i think there is alos a little work required on this corner otherwise the bearing is going to be too tight.



You can see on this pic, that the bearing seat is sitting everso slightly proud on one side. This is to the right of the cut out thats sitting proud, its not the bit to the left of the cut out mentioned before.

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Thoughts anyone?

[It would be possible to make. I think, an exact diameter match small disk, the width of the seat.Gently scraping the seat and checking the fit of the disk as you go will then ensure a nice fit, use engineers blue as you check...I only say this as the rest of the bearing seat area looks totally untouched.]

yep as peter said this can be fixed with some careful rework.
quoted from Peter
It would be possible to make. I think, an exact diameter match small disk, the width of the seat.

Gently scraping the seat and checking the fit of the disk as you go will then ensure a nice fit, use engineers blue as you check...

I only say this as the rest of the bearing seat area looks totally untouched.

I think you will also need to make sure the case half mating face below where you hit it is also flat. Just to make sure that when you bolt it up it doesn't deform the bearing and lock up the crank.

[6 Pots...stuff your bhp, torque is king]

Thanks shaggy. There is no damage to the mating face. There will just be a small gap where I have hit it. Don't think this will cause any issues?

the application of a small file will solve that problem perfectly