To recap the adventure so far:
Step 1: An certain womyn blows up the engine in my precious Daimler.
Step 2: Risking life and limb, we trailer the carcass to the Mighty Roar
Racing Team's Jaguar Dream Speed Shop and put it up on the lift.
Step 3: The head comes off revealing a bent valve.
Step 4: The front cover comes off revealing a hoseified chain sprocket.
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It seems that in the previous steps, I usually end up with three choices:
1) A no brainer, bandaid fix that would end up putting me back in the
shop after a week to repair the resulting massive collateral damage.
2) A moderate fix that would kinda repair the problem ("This'll be just
a temporary fix, unless, of course, it works." Red Green) and
3) The Right Fix, which involves getting further into the engine than I
ever imagined.
And once again, I seem to be heading down path number 3. After finding
the chipped timing chain sprocket and retrieving small chunks of
shrapnel from the bottom of the oil pan, the decision to drop the
suspension was easy.
Over the next couple days, I went slow, getting stuff unhooked. I
removed the clamps securing the power steering hoses, disconnected the
brakes (5/16 Whitworth!) and the shocks. After wrestling for 20 minutes
with hand wrenches on one of the upper shock bolts, I broke down and got
into Bob's tools to use his main 600 ft-lb impact air wrench. One tenth
of a second later it was free.
Thursday afternoon, we got an early start since this was the night to
drop the suspension. Pat, Bob Grossman's wife and pilot of their fast
MkII, stopped back to say Hi. Among her comments was the inspired
suggestion that, since it was all apart, we might as well take this
opportunity to drop in a V12. Great idea. She also noted that the
smart Jaguar owner keeps a spare engine or two around to just drop in
when you experience problems like this. Point taken, I guess I'll put
a couple of those on my Xmas list.
We cut two 2x4's to fit across the engine bay and ran a chain over the
2x4's and bolted it to the front of the block to suspend the engine when
we dropped the suspension. Johannes and I were confused for awhile with
the spline on steering shaft until he discovered that the whole locking
bolt had to come out to separate the spline. We disconnected the motor
mounts and were ready to drop the suspension. With the car a foot off
the ground and a floor jack under the back of the front suspension, I
undid the two bolts securing the back of the cross member. Johannes
slowly lowered the floor jack and the suspension rotated down an inch
until getting hung up on the top of the shocks. We raised it all back
up, dealt with the shocks and finally got it rotated the suspension all
the way down, pivoting it down around the front mounts. We raised the
lift to put the Daimler 6 feet up in the air and stepped back to marvel
at the incongruity of the obscene sight before us. Johannes noted that
with all that suspension travel, we could have us a four wheel drive
Jag. We told him to get his mind off that splayed-out suspension and
get back to work.
But, after his brilliant stint at the helm of the floor jack, Johannes,
mumbling something about some sweet young blonde thang that he recently
met, deserted us to go enjoy a Thai dinner with his new squeeze. Hummm,
sounds like that boy's got his priorities straight. I sure hope she
didn't mind that "Le odor de motor oil" cologne we sent him off wearing.
Scotty and I soldiered on, unbolting the oil pan. Working on the gunky
lower end of the engine made it clear that wives should be reminded to
carefully steam-clean the engine _before_ they break it. We finally got
the oil pan off, revealing the chocolate brown bottom end of the engine
in all it's glory. At this point, this is all new to me, but Scotty had
been here before with his TR-6.
I cleaned up the oil pan, finding some more chain bits and random chunks
of sprocket teeth (I'm sure glad I did this). While I cleaned, Scotty
removed the bottom end bearings, finding a few with some slight scores
and one just worn thru the silver coating. But overall, they didn't
look too bad and the crank looked beautiful. I ran out for some STP oil
treatment to use as prelub and installed the new connecting rod bearings
while Scotty finished lapping the exhaust valves. We did experience a
slight disaster when Scott bravely used his eye to keep an errant squirt
of brake cleaner from getting on Bob's tools. That prompted a quick
trip to an eye bath station. He was really hurting, that stuff really
stings.
So, it looks like I've reached the 1/2 way point and am now assembling
rather than disassembling. It`s sure been educational. Now if I can
just remember what my wife and kids look like.
/\ Lawrence "I wear 'Scent du Steering Fluid' or I wear nothing." Buja
\_][ southern@ncar.ucar.edu National Center for Atmospheric Research
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