What can I say?

I forgot to take my camera so I can't show any evidence but progress continues.

Since the last update I have been building up the engine, new cam followers in, dizzy drive and getting the cylinder head studs fitted.

Unfortunately one cylinder head stud was missing and I couldn't easily get one from the current engine in PMW (in fact they were very stubborn and it looked like I would need to liberate the cylinder head as well).

This called a halt whilst I ordered a new stud and there's no sense in doing that along with post and packing for one stud. Thinking on this, I therefore ordered something I know I will need/want at some point for the car and that was an electric fan kit.

Progress was also held up by me missing a weekend working on PMW so that I could marshall on the Round Britain at Tebay which was thoroughly enjoyable.

Yesterday, I returned to the build though and with the new stud was able to fit the cylinder head. Carefull torqueing up followed of course. Next the rocker gear whilst making sure the push rods were correctly in place and all of a sudden the engine really does look like an engine again.

It was at this point though that I again had doubts. I have been using a combination of a Haynes manual for a Vitesse/GT6 (same engine in essence) and an original Triumph workshop manual for a MK1 2000. Usng the Haynes manual I had fitted the camshaft and crankshaft sprockets with alignment marks in them funnily enough aligned!

The Triumph manual though told me to not have the sprockets fitted and set the tappets for cylinders 1 to 5 at 10 thou with no 6 at 40 thou. This was all with the tdc marker on the flywheel 45 degrees before the tdc marker on the back plate.

Confused? I being a thickie certainly was. Of course, this can't be done with the engine in the car as the marks are covered by the gearbox bellhousing.

Anyway, it then goes on to say line up the tdc marks and have the number 6 cylinder valves in a particular position and at this point the cam shaft and crankshaft will be in perfect relationship with each other - that is, correct cam timing.

Well, I removed the sprockets and timing chain (again) followed all this process and then spent ages agonising over whether I had the cam in the right place. Finally deciding yes the sprockets then went back on but the camshaft sprocket would only fit reversed from how it had been when I had fit it before using the Hayned manual.

So, either it was out before or it's out now - or maybe it's still not right!

At least I have followed the Triumph procedure though and the dizzy drive looks to be pointing in the right place (although it was before!). With that I called it a day.

Not what I wanted

Well, I put everything back together today, quietly and slowly so as to surprise BRP!

Finally when it was all back in place, the big moment came - turn the key and ....... no joy.


The engine sounds like it's firing but not at the right place so there's probably something wrong with the timing - oh good! I thought I'd try swapping plug leads around but having pulled the number 1 it came apart as can be seen in the photo.

Time to call a day I decided, after all, I can't drive until November at the earliest!

Another go

Slowly progressing on the cam timing front.

Kevin came along again this morning and first we secured the camshaft sprocket to the camshaft with 2 new longer cap head bolts as only one of the originals was long enough to bite! So that was one bit of security dealt with.

Then I reset the pointer with a longer bit of wire and we rotated the engine a few times manually and did a few checks. Yes, the protractor was moving - goodness knows how but it was.

So, off it came and we cut a larger hole in the centre and glued it to the crankshaft pulley so there was no chance it could move with the pulley bolt.

At last we were able to get some consistent results so that we then adjusted to cam timing to 108 degrees after top dead centre which is where it should be (about!).

Having done this it seems the cam is a 275 degree duration which is very unusual, certainly i can't find a Triumphtune or a Piper cam of this duration and the calculated max lift should be at 112 degrees, not the 108 we have set it at.

Hmmm - I think this could be where we put it all back together and see how the car runs!

A protracted affair

Sorry about the pun in the title but it is getting like that! Thanks to help from Carl Shalespeare I am moving on very slowly, it's all about timing you know

Sorry about that one too!

Anyway, Carl has been helping me out with long distance advice and he even went so far as to post me a laminated timing wheel/protractor that I could use with the standard pulley bolt.

Once it arrived I thought - "I could do that" so went on to scan my Piper Cams protractor, laminate it and then carefully scribe out a hole in the centre to the exact size of the cranckshaft pulley bolt. Then with a few packing washers behind it, it can be bolted into place as seen in the photo.

Kevin will be along in the morning with a dial gauge that will reach the inlet buckets and we'll swing into action. It's a good thing I know so many kind people or I would be lost.

After I got this into place I moved on to looking at fitting the Brantz Rally Tripmeter I had at Christmas. If anyone at work is reading this by the way, I have taken a day off!

Siiting in the co-driver's seat (something I will need to be getting used to) and looking straight ahead I felt the right location was on the glovebox door as in Theo Boonen's car and as can be seen here as a trial.

What it also meant though was that the leather strap I fitted to stop the glove box lid coming open when the going gets a bit rough needed relocating to the left. Sounds easy enough and it is but did take a fair bit of time as the trim above the lid where the electric fire extinguisher control box is needed removing to get at the back of the fixing.

The Welsh flag by the way is Sarah's as she is very proud of her ancestry and quite right too.

Then it was a case of fixing the Brantz which I did by virtue of long countersunk black screws which really match well the car and the Brantz. To ensure the Brantz is vertical I needed some spacers and having thought about this I came up with what I hope is a very neat solution.

I cut some spacers (longer at the bottom than at the top) from black flexible fuel pipe which nicely helps locate the Brantz. The fuel pipe makes the spacers the right colour (a good thing) but also give some cushioning which I think must be a benefit.

More time needed to plumb it in but here's a picture of the installation and it's looking good, very businesslike and functional - just how I like it.

4 more hours

Almost like the crowd cheering "4 more years" for a new President but in this case, it's me in my head, saying 4 more hours, 4 more hours.

In my case though, it takes so much longer than I know a skilled mechanic could do things. A case in point can be illustrated by the picture above whcih does show the front timing cover back on the engine but this took way too long to do.

The good thing, however, is that I can now take things steady and when things aren't right I take the time to find out what the problem is rather than just "banging it on". When I tried to fit the front cover, no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to close up and it seemed to "pivot" on a high spot.

So, I took it off several times and then spotted I had fitted one of the chain guides wrong. But to remove it and fit it correctly the tensioner had to come off again as well, then it was necessary to check the alignment of the jackshaft sprocket which I did and had to ease the chain away whilst I rotated it to the correct place.

Doing all of that and then putting it back correctly took at least an hour but that has saved a great deal of grief. The front cover still wouldn't go on though and I spent more time lieing over the engine bay with my head where the radiator should be trying to work out what the problem was. Found it though - I had fitted a bolt which shouldn't have been there!

After that it just was just a case of bolting everything back up - and remembering that the reason 2 of the bolts seemed too long was because the alternator bracketry had to be there and I had forgotten grrrr!!!!

There's also time for philosphy - like "why do many of the bolts which prove to be the most difficult have to be at full stretch for me?" Then there's a time for courage - I had removed the clutch slave cylinder to hold the ring gear and jam the engine whilst removing the crankshaft pulley bolt. It didn't help of course (!) but now the slave cylinder needed to go back on and it wouldn't co-operate when I ws lieing safely to the side of the car (at full stretch again of course). No, the only solution was to crawl under the car which is suspended on axle stands and just get on with it whilst ignoring the fact that if anything went wrong the whole car would crush me. It was good to be back "out from under" when that was done.

Finally, with all that done you can see in the pic below my attempt to establish TDC using a dial gauge on the top of an extension down number 1 plug hole.

Looks pretty good, almost like I now what I am doing but I have to say that I was not at all confident I was doing things right here so decided to remember " the right time to say enough for the day".

I will return to this next weekend.