'Easy' engine to rebuild?

Wasn't it basically the pre-war Standard 10 engine? Of course even post-war it was common-place for engines to be de-coked and have the valves ground every 5-10,000 miles, so heads never stayed on for very long. I wonder if the problem with Ford exhaust valves was anything to do with the lack of clearance adjustment on the E93A. In theory it was an OK idea, but with a bit of seat recession the valve clearance disappeared, closely followed by the valve. The 100E with adjustable tappets should have been better, though I've only had personal experience of one and that OK, but it was in a Lotus 6 so it didn't really have to work very hard.

Ron Robinson

But in the days of having to overhaul engines, how often would you remove the pistons without also removing the crank for a re-grind?

Not the 10, it was the engine from the Standard Flying 9.

My second Mayflower had been rebored 40 thou oversize, so there was only a tiny amount of metal between 3 & 4 cylinders, and although the head was flat (I checked) it managed to burn the gasket through at that point. I was averaging 3 head gasket replacements a year. I used to keep a spare in the boot, and could change it at the roadside in an hour and 15 minutes....

Jim

message

east to work

doubt you'd

bore, so the

engine I have

removing the head!

e.g. the side

arrangement then

don't go up

undo the

it will go,

rod as it

the bore.

AFAIR the Standard Vanguard engine req'd the same procedure if the crankshaft was not removed. Mike.

Jim Warren ( snipped-for-privacy@OMITblueyonder.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Didn't it used to be fairly common for engines to come with heads cast integrally to the block? I'm thinking of real oldie stuff - twenties at the most recent.

Never "common", but "monobloc" designs were an early attempt to solve head gasket problems on high performance engines.

-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

Yes - at one time detachable heads were quite a novelty. Made de-coking a bit of an adventure - more gyneacology than mechanics. Don't know if it's true, but I heard once that the decoke procedure for a Duesenberg started with dropping the back axle....

Geoff MacK

It must have taken them a good fifteen years to sort out then as it was still a problem in HA vans in the late seventies.

The message from Adrian contains these words:

I don't know how common that was but the horsepower tax based on a formula that penalised short stroke engines would certainly have made it less likely that the big end would have passed up the bore on engines designed at least partly to save tax.

Roger

It would have been around then. I had a pal with an HA van that I serviced for him, and he loved spending money on it. When the oil pump shaft that drives the dristributor sheared one side as you said, the local Vauxhall agent said this was the cure. IIRC, we got the shaft only for the pump, but had to buy a new distributor. But could have been the other way round. I subsequently bought the van off him, and kept it for many years. It got loaned to every Tom Dick and Harry for house moves etc, and was a super little vehicle - so easy to drive with a flick switch for a gearchange and the lightest ever steering for a non power system. It was also extremely fast away from the lights unladen due to the low gearing.

When it eventually failed an MOT due to needing welding, I gave it to a neighbour who sorted it and got another couple of years out of it.

Easiest way to replace the rusted out crossmember under a Range Rover tailgate starts by taking the roof off !

-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

Nah, the cure was to cut half an inch of steel tubing. Slip it over the oil pump drive. Fill it with Araldite. Press in the distributer and wait for it to set. Having "mended" one with this method once, I was dead chuffed to find that our next van had already been seen to in the same manner!

I'll assume then that you never tried to replace its starter motor, a job that's almost guaranteed to make you hate Viva vans for ever more.

Yes, but the block was usually separate from the crankcase. Some bloody-minded designers have been known to put baffles in the crankcase so that you couldn't lower a block full of pistons and rods onto the crankcase, but these tend to get themselves modified by people who are not very good at lowering blocks onto pistons.

Ron Robinson

Don't know much about Duesenbergs, but on the pre-Rootes (Roesch designed) Talbots dropping the sump was reputed to involve removing the back axle.

Ron Robinson

Fair engines (timing chain wear aside) provided the oil has been changed regualy but if not the oil feed(s) through the centre of the GM USA style rocker stud posts block up and the head is fit for nothing but scrap.

What about a Reliant engine? Small, light and simple, IIRC.

Richard

Not a good way to learn the value of the torque wrench!

The message from Richard Kilpatrick contains these words:

IIRC a certain regular had great difficulty in removing a cylinder head from one of those. I don't recall him ever saying he had succeeded but that might just be my poor memory.

Roger

Dropping the sump on a Vauxhall Senator/Carlton six-pot involves either removing the front subframe (wheels, suspension etc etc) or removing the engine.

Or what I did. released the engine mounts, lifted the engine as far as I could, and cursed and swore and removed the oil pump with the sump in place, cursed and swore some more, and belted it with a hammer untill it came off.

Alex