CLANK VIII: Off with his head!(Resend)
I think my Internet access is back. Let's give it a try :-)
*********************************************************
Work continued on the clankster this weekend, despite the intermittant rain.
The fuel pump got rebuilt, as well as the oil pump. The crank came home from
the machine shop on Friday. Truly a work of art. More like a large piece of
jewelry than an engine part. Maybe I should junk the car and just hang this
crank on the wall :-).
Having paid attention to recent posts from people rebuilding the AC fuel
pumps, I was careful to reassemble it with the valves facing the right way. So
the pump behaves normally, exhausting on the return stroke of the priming
lever. Rebuilding the oil pump essentially meant adjusting the end float of
the innards. First, I flattened the end plate by sanding it. Then I sanded
the pump body until the end float was .001", as measured by plastigage. After
adjusting it, I packed the pump with Vaseline, and bolted it back together. A
time-consuming but satisfying procedure: I fixed it myself, and didn't spend
any money!
So much for that good stuff. Now for the other stuff:
On Saturday, I found a crack in the engine block, between one of the head
stud holes and the water jacket. :-). A quick call to the machine shop:
"Don't panic! We fix'em!". So I trundled the block down to the shop, and was
quoted $80 to pin the crack, and install an insert in the head stud hole. I
was careful to point out that those studs are torqued to 105 foot-pounds!
Every day brings its new discovery, and Sunday was no exception: I moved on
to the cylinder head, and started popping valves out. I planned to dunk the
head in some solvent, clean it, strip it, and repaint it. A valve job was NOT
on my list at the present time. Can you say "valve seat recession? I knew you
could. Yes Virginia, it does exist. I had a premonition about it when I
sighted along the valve stem tips and noted that they were at different
heights! For some reason, the worst were the outer valves. #1 was receeded
into the head about a sixteenth of an inch.
So I guess I need a valve job and unleaded seats. Has anybody had this
done on a TR four-cylinder engine? My friend the britcar mechanic states that
these heads are "dangerous" to put valve seats into, because there is so little
meat between the intake and exhaust valves. He says that he has seen at least
20 TR engines on which valve seats fell out. (!)
Sounds painful, both to the engine and the owners pocketbook!
- Jerry
|