Tony Winterton
So finally a triple engine is back together – but not without a fight!
Heat
Preparations began last weekend and resulted in some frustration as two studs that had sheared on dis-assembly refused to budge despite the application of heat and releasing fluid. The cases got sent to an engineering firm whom I’m pleased to report snapped the studs – but unlike me have the gear to sort it out and so they returned good to go, new studs courtesy of Slaters.
I say preparation began last week but clearly I wasn’t up to scratch because Tony Winterton arrived ready to help with the build and immediately declared everything ‘unclean’. I hadn’t removed the slinger plates and once these came off it revealed a nasty kind of paste in the sump – oops! So cleaning began as did the inspection of the gearbox which revealed a missing needle roller in the 5th gear sleeve. Inspection also revealed wear in the shaft and on one of the bearings so a trawl through my box of spares came up with a more robust combination.
All ready to go the crank went in (still in a box from Keith Nairn) and everything was tightened down. A tip from Scott Potter to lay the engine at 180 degrees helped to install the pistons as it is easier to push the barrels on than fight gravity with the engine in its normal position. Head on and now the challenge was to hook up the cam chain…
Hide and seek
We didn’t know at the time but we were trying to put a IWIS link into a Regina chain and the IWIS simply wasn’t wide enough. Anyways after some fiddling and at close to midnight the spring clip disappeared down the engine!!! We spent 90 minutes with magnets and trying to shake the clip but with no success so retired a bit down at 1 am resolved to rise early on Sunday to recover the situation…
Die you bastard!
Sunday and 6:30 am it was back on the job and we quickly concluded we’d have to start again…cases apart and there was the clip looking a bit smug! Assembly the second time round was a lot quicker and by 10:30 we had an engine albeit with no valve clearances but then that’s for another day…
Not quite the Sunday roast Mrs A was expecting!
So the RGS engine is kind of built – needs detail work but the main lump is done. RGA now needs proper cleaning but having just gone through this I feel confident it’ll also but built by Christmas…
Nick 🙂
PS Yes we did use the kitchen while Mrs A was away visiting family…
Bent screwdrivers, big hammers and old Laverdas 