Kent,
At the bottom of these first few lines, I've appended
a previous email that I posted many moons ago. The
thing to look out for on the 1500 Midget is the
Engine.
Enjoy the appended reading and feel free to ask me any
questions you may have.
Dan
I thought I would post this to the list to help
others
avoid what I failed to avoid.
I purchased a 1500 engine for my Midget this past
fall. The engine had good compression and oil
pressure. I recently decided that I would clean
it up
and respray it before dropping it in the Midget.
After
removing a few parts, I bumped the crank pulley
and it
moved to the rear...hmmm...so I pulled on the
pulley
and it and the flywheel moved forward. This isn't
good!
I decided to take a rough measurement of the
movement... .128". Guess what?...this is WAY TOO
MUCH.
I made a couple of calls and the normal end float
is
.006 to .014". Well...off comes the pan to check
out
the bottom end. My worst nightmares have been
acknowledged. The crank and block have damage. It
is
repairable...so I'm told BUT the cost to repair
would
be greater than it's worth.
Well, it looks like the original engine is going
to
get a rebuild after all...sigh.
I'm not saying that I got ripped off (well
notintentionally
I'm sure but I paid a premium price forthis
engine...so I'm told)
but I am saying I didn'tknow what to check for on
this type
of engine. I figured compression was good, oil
pressure
was good,it ran fine...must be good right? wrong!
When looking to purchase a 1500 engine for either
a
Midget or Spitfire, take a small prybar or large
screwdriver and check for forward movement of the
crank pulley. If it moves a noticeable
amount...walk
away or run! A dropped thrust washer can cause
extra
end-float but a non-repaired dropped thrust
washer
will trash the bottom end of this engine.
Sorry to take up so much bandwidth with this but
I
thought this was an important lesson learned and
I
wanted to pass on my misfortune to those who may
have
travelled down the same road of fate as I.
--- "Kent J. Miller" <Bushwacker4@prodigy.net> wrote:
> I have been communicating with a guy in Hanover
> Park, IL (Chicago area) and
> would like to know if any lister is close enough to
> have a look for me. He
> has a 1979 Midget with 34K on it but it has not run
> for many years.
>
> If anyone can check it out without any
> inconvenience, please email me off
> list.
>
> TIA
>
> Kent
>
>
>
=====
Dan Dwelley
77 Midget
Alexandria, Va.
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