Finishing as I mean to go on

After the philosophy of the last blog entry here's my update on working on Triumphs - again!

Yes, back to BRP and bolting everything back together again. There we are - cylinder head on and the front cover on temporarilywith the front pulley whilst I set it to TDC.

Then, following the works manual the front cover comes off to check that the jackshaft is in the right place. It's not possible to see here but there's a scribed line on the jackshaft sprocket that is at 9 o'clock but should be at 3 0'clock so just 180 out then. Setting it right meant though that the rotor arm is pointing at number 4 not number 1 - ho hum, if I remember rightly now come to think of it we did move the distributor back in April to get the car running. More of this kind of stuff to come!

Still, for now I contented myself with bolting the inlet manifold on and getting back into the swing of things. Not sure when I'll get back to the task though as there's Pendle and Pennine "Not the Xmas meal" coming up followed by the Essex Winter rally in the 2000. Kevin, if you are reading this I will probably be giving you a ring in a couple of weeks to see if you fancy helping out again!

Meanwhile, having mentioned the 2000 Bryce and I collected the original engine for it from Craig along with the manual non overdrive gearbox. It would need cleaning, some investigation and some bearing shells but these earlier "flat top" piston 2000 engines have slightly more power according to Chris Witor (the 2000 guru) and it would be nice one day to restore the original engine back into the car - just not anytime soon!!

I have bought a good secondhand distributor though from him, suitable for the later 2000 engine fitted and without the wear of the one that's in it - just a question of dropping it off with my brothers and seeing if we can get it fitted and the car running as reliably as I would like.

Mayhem and destruction

Next step in the Sprint engine saga was to get the front cover off which didn't take too long. This is because I am getting used to it by now and also I used my new air impact wrench.

For those of you familiar with the Sprint engine you will probably recognise the duplex timing chain running down to the cranckshaft sprocket and back up to the jackshaft sprocket - what is not normal is the "half-moon" tab lock washer jammed in down there!

Having removed that carefully I went looking for the missing camshaft sprocket bolt - which should also be at the top of the engine. By lying headfirst into the engine bay upside down (!) whilst using the excellent combined torch and magnetic probe (also used as a radio mike!!) given to me by Paul Darbyshire I spotted the missing bolt and removed it.

If you look very carefully you can see it in the pic below sitting on the front level of the sump - definitely not where it's supposed to be!!

Picture proof

A couple of pictures today of the situation.

The sprocket is not held onto the end of the camshaft and the absence of the two bolts and half-moon retainer clip is obvious.

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.

The virtues of patience

Did a bit more - in fact nearly another 2 hours and didn't seem to get that far.

Basically I got the pistons at TDC and got the cylinder head fully torqued down with the camshaft and rocker arms. How the heck did that take 2 hours?

It's always satisfying to see things going back together though and this gave me an opportunity to retorque the cylinder head whcih is always a good thing on these engines. The cylinder head nuts in the centre of the rocker shaft had to be done of course, but I still retorqued the cylinder head bolts which hadn't been touched and it was surprising that a couple of them "nipped" up.

Next step is to get the new timing chain and tenisioner on as well as fit the camshaft vernier sprocket after which I'll pause whilst I get my head round "timing in the cam" and will probably need Bryce's help on this anyway.

Know when to stop

Know when to stop - that's what I have been trying to learn for years now. I have done some more work on BRP which generally went very well but it's important to stop and put tools away etc before things start to go wrong, usually when my concentration starts to waver a bit!

First off I have done the dreaded shimming which actually doesn't seem to be too bad. I had quite a few shims but not quite enough of the right sizes of course, in fact I had plenty for if the gaps had been too much but not enough for how they were (too tight).

It's all done now though so we'll see what it's like when I fire her up.

Having done that though I moved on to removing the timing chain, tensioner and crankshaft sprocket which you can see here in the pics with the puller attached and nearly off.


Having replaced that it was then back to the top of the engine to refit the camshaft and rocker assembly. Getting this in was a bit if a fiddle and it was now that I realised I should stop - my concentration was falling and impatience growing! This was especially the case when I knocked shims off the top of the exhaust valves so once it was back on and lightly tightened down I called it a day.

Off with a head to get to the prize

In order to source another component for the timing chain job I have had to remove the cylinder head from one of my spare engines. With that is a pair of carbs seen here which I am putting to one side for possible future refurbishment and use.

The important thing here is that the inlet manifold is not the same as the 8 valve engine as the carbs are further apart so keeping a Sprint inlet manifold is always worthwhile. Added to this the afficionados amongst you will have spotted that the carbs are 2" SUs which are very sought after - with a well sorted angine these can give nearly as much power as a pair of 45DCOes but cost much less (certainly in my case!).

It is possible in the future that the convertible will get a Sprint engine with the carbs from BRP whilst BRP gets thse 2 inchers.

Meanwhile, though, here's what I have liberated as a result of this effort - a vernier timing sprocket (fanfare!!)

The slots with bolts to secure them mean that some fine tuning can be had when it's all put together with the new timing chain gear so I can get the most out of that group 2 cam and the car will then fly