Hi everyone,
A while ago I was headed for the hardware store in my TR3 and the
engine started missing and finaly quit all together. To make a long
story short, what happened was that the pivot pin came out of the
aftermarket fuel pump and allowed the lever to jam the cam. After
taking the valve cover off I found that the rear stud for the rocker
arm assembly had broken. This is probably what caused the car to
quit running. The only thing I could think of that would cause this
was that the cam had been broken (always assume the worst) causing
the valve timing for the #4 cylinder to go out and allowing the piston
to bash into the valves. So I proceeded to pull the head to check the
piston and valve. Although the valve and piston looked ok there was
a pretty heavy ridge at the top of all the cylinders. I knew the engine
had lots of blow-by and pretty tired. This plus knowing something happened
to the cam caused me to decide to pull the engine and rebuild it.
Once I got around to pulling the cam out I was supprised and pleased
that it came out in one piece. I guess that what really happened when
the cam was jammed was that it caused the timing chain to skip one
or more teeth.
So anyway the engine is all a part and kind of spread around the garage
now and I'm afraid I'm going to be asking all sorts of silly questions
for a while. I guess I might as well start now.
When I pulled the cylinders out the water jacket had all kinds of rust
in it, particularly towards the rear of the block. I'm going to take
the block and head somewhere to get them cleaned out and was wondering
if this will remove the rust build up? I'm also concerned about the
aluminum plugs in the head and oil gallery. Does the cleaning solution
used to clean things up eat aluminum?
I'm not sure but it looks like there may be a crack in the web that runs
across the block between the number two and three cylinders. It looks to
start at the top of the web and runs to the rectangular hole. Is this
common and is it significant? I'm not sure that it's really a crack. It
may be the imprint of a crack in the pattern used to make the mold for
the block (wishfull thinking).
One interesting thing I noticed when cleaning up the block is that it
has the letters:
T R
3
painted on the side in orange paint. I had read in Piggot's book that
at least some of the engines were marked this way. Anyone else have this
on their engine?
Like I said this is probably the start of many questions. I've tried
to save previous messages which I figured I'd need some day but I'm
sure I don't have everything covered.
Thanks,
Drew
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Drew Rogge
drew@pixar.com
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