Dangerous Times!
Yesterday I spent the day with a friend helping him sort out his HB Estate, the plan was to build up a new 1159cc engine with a ’90’ camshaft and drop it into his estate, after first having removed the troublesome 1256cc engine from it. A lot of work in a single day, but I am always game on for these things.
I arrived around 8am at Dangerous’s house and bagged a cup of coffee and had a good look around the job in hand. By 10 am we had established the new engine already had a 90 cam in it and in fact the engine was one of my recon units I had built around a year ago! This engine was obtained in March 2008 and was in a sorry state when I first got it. I called it the “number of the beast”
Anyway after arriving and at first not realising it was one of my engine we popped the sump off ready to swap the camshaft, and I noticed the insides were all shiny still (good news!).
It was only when washing the head down I noticed that it was one of my heads and the penny dropped. That’s good news as I felt good to be using another engine I had built.
So after the engine was built up as far as we could go, it was time to get the old engine out of the car. I got mike to do the nasty jobs like draining oil, water and undoing the clutch cable whist I took off all the starters, alternators etc.
Mike then produced his engine hoist, a piece of junk that frankly befits his name, it meant we could only half lift the engine out of the car! So we had to somehow support the engine with wood whist changes to the ropes were made to enable us to fully lift the engine out of the car. I suspect I will need to drop a hint that its best to get a real hoist.
I notice its only 11:30 and the old engine is out!!! Could of been out 30 minutes earlier for the help of a real engine hoist! (second hint). At this point we retired for a sausage sandwich (my pay for the day) and another coffee. Over our sandwich we discussed the timetable for the afternoon and with a tongue in cheek announced 4pm was test drive time!
Back in the workshop we decided to invest some time in cleaning up the engine bay of old oil so out came the jet wash and gunk, so our test drive was delayed 30 minutes or so.
To cut a longer story shorter, we readied the new engine to fit, then fitted it (I have removed the 90 minutes of F’in hoist and the use of things the HAYNES book of lies doesn’t tell you):
Mike was set about putting things back on, with me telling him each bolt didn’t need over tightening !
We were now in a position to see if it turned over, Mike had to grab the battery from the GT, and after a quick change of plug leads around the engine fired up and my work was done.
I left around 5:30PM and by 7:30 PM Mike had it up running smooth and quiet, and just needed to sort out why the clutch pedal wasn’t working (we guessed it was the cable come off the top of the pedal). I was at home sat rested and relaxed after a good days work, and felt Mike was easily able to sort the rest out.
This was the moment of truth at 4:30pm (well I say moment I mean 5 seconds)
