Re: Bren's Sunflower 172
Well the engine was ripped out a couple of weeks ago, and I've spent that time waiting for parts to arrive. Also, as I'm doing most of this on favours I've had to wait until other people are free to help out. So finally when f0xy was free he popped down and got to stripping down the old engine. Friend of ours wants the head off it as long as it's in good order, and we also wanted to see what went wrong. I was banking on the oil pump having failed just due to the way it lost pressure completely at random... so we (or shall I say f0xy) got cracking.
The thermostat housing seemed to be have been sealed at some point with what looks like actual faeces.
after much fiddling about, swearing and beef sandwiches almost everything was off. As you can see to our surprise there was no scoring whatsoever on the head, cams or rocker cover. Strange, but the bottom end went literally around the corner from my house, so it wasn't running very long. Also meant Adam could have the head for his F4R'd MK1.
Annoyingly, even though we were careful we rounded off the first head bolt we tried, so it'll head off to the machine shop to be milled off. Not too much of a problem as the new engine will be heading to the same machine shop to have work done.
We then turned the engine over and started to take the bottom end apart. Sump came off easy enough, ready to see what the problem was. Didn't take long to find it. Well, it was staring us in the face really.
At first we thought it was metal swarf from the bottom end that had just been sucked in and clogged the pickup. After a bit of pocking around we realised it was actually sealant. Basically... when I cracked the sump in Ireland last year, my cousin and a friend had to put the new sump back on (with no knowledge of the F4R). So when they stuck on the new sump then put some universal gasket around it to stop any leaks on the drive home. It was really just a 'patch up' job to get the car back in England, yet it lasted well over 5k. After a while the sealant on the inside of the sump has degraded and broken free to get sucked into the pump. This has probably built up over a couple of months, and finally come to a head. We could see that the end of the pickup had actually bowed due to the pressure of forcing oil past the blockage.
The sump/pan looked in a bit of a state too.
Took a look at the crank, and it was cylinder 3 that had been damaged, there was a nice chunk of swarf resting on the crank, and the bearings where also deeply scored.
However, the rest of the cylinders were immaculate, just like the head and cams etc. Again, the car only ran for 1-2 miles when I first heard a knock.
So the plan is to sort this mess out next weekend ideally, get rid of any trace of the crappy clifford alarm/immobiliser that was retrofitted at some point, and fit the new locks and ignition.
So the car is currently packed full of engine parts (there is a lot under that box)
.....and this is what's left of the old engine, ready to head off to the machine shop to get the head off, and then off to the scrap heap.
Looking at the new engine being ready in a week or two. We'll have the electrics sorted, pop the ancillaries on and stick the new engine in, new driveshafts in, new track rods and new hub on... then all should be set.
*should*
