I'm happy to say that I finally got my Mayflower engine running!! Its not
running in tip top condition as yet but at least its running!
As background information, the engine in the car wasn't running when I bought
the car last december. I tried starting the engine this spring and it didn't
even try and fire once. So I did a compression check and found that only #1
cylinder had any compression and then not a great deal. I ended up pulling the
head and found that one valve in #2 cylinder was stuck open, part of the gasket
was missing between #3 and #4 cylinders and #4 cylinder had both valves stuck
open.
Also looking the head over I found that it was in horrible shape with regards
to the coolant passages and the holes where the head studs pass through.
I ended up taking the head to a respected machinist that I know and he sent the
head out for welding. They welded up most of the head stud holes and also
around a lot of the coolant passages. He then got the head back and machine
the head surface flat again and started reworking the coolant passage openings
by machining them back to the proper sizes.
After that he bored out the head stead openings to oversize condition and then
pressed bronze valve guides into all 16 holes. He then bored the guide
openings to the proper diameter for the 3/8" head studs. He did an excellent
job and I'm quite pleased with the end product. Wasn't cheap at $200 but I do
know he charged me a lot less than he should have based on the number of hours
he had in it.
As for all of the stuck valves I ended up spraying them with "Rust Bomb" made
by Conklin. This stuff is great and if you ever find some buy it!
What I did was to start cranking the engine over, spray the valves constantly
with rust bomb and when I saw a valve stick open I wacked it with a rubber
mallet. After about a half our of this game all of the valves were free and
moving on their own.
I then cleaned everything up, installed the new head and reassembled everything
under the bonnet. Once I started cranking it over I noticed right away that I
actually had compression!! The only way I could get the engine to start was to
pour some gas down the throat of the carburetor. Once I did that it fired off
a few times and eventually it started running. Well sorta anyway! The
carburetor was so screwed up I ended up replacing it with the nice new one I
got from the Mayflower club. That solved the carburetion problem. The engine
now runs pretty good but definitely smokes. The exhaust smoke is a light grey
in color. I'm not real sure whats causing it as yet but I'm at least happy
that the engine is running.
After the initial startup I noticed that the antifreeze was foaming badly. At
this point I thought "oh no, another bad head gasket"! In order to fix this
problem I ended up doing a retorque while the engine was hot and also using a
product called "dyke" that you use in the coolant system to stop coolant system
leaks. The combination of the retorque and Dyke seems to have solved the
coolant system problems. I used a glass candy thermometer and stuck it in the
radiator opening and the temperature never got above 155 degrees F. I think
that should be good enough!
I did take it for some drives around the neighborhood and had a blast doing so!
Had to pump up the brakes a bunch of times but they finally seem to be holding
ok. Its definite that I have to completely rebuild the suspension on the car.
It was still fun to drive however!!
Sorry about the long winded write up but its kind of hard to explain everything
without doing so!!
--
Brad
http://www.141.com/Triumphs
http://www.141.com/Dodge
1951 Dodge 1/2 ton B3B pickup (being restored)
1953 Mayflower TT29490LDL (almost a driver)
1961 TR4 CT288L (being restored)
1962 TR3B TCF1564L (some day)
1964 Spitfire 4 BFC25720L (of Belgian decent)
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