Re: 1.2 Track car Conversion
Picked up an engine on Saturday, had the sump off and one of the mains caps to check everything was all good before buying. Turned over fine by hand, decent compression, etc - all seemed good.
Decided to take the rocker cover off once we got it back to re-do the sealant so we knew it was done right - so cleaned it all up as said, refitted the cams, rocker cover back on and everything torqued up as per the manual like I have done the past 100 times. Went to put the timing (horseshoe) tool in the end to get the cams level and the cam would physically not move.
Initially thought it might be a rocker fallen off or something similar, so took the rocker cover back off again, cleaned all the sealant off and started again. All the rockers were fine and sat in position etc. So repeated the fitting of the rocker cover and it was exactly the same, just like the cams were jammed.
Only option again was to take the rocker cover off and check if any valves were bent. Removed the rocker cover and cleaned everything up again, then pushed down on each valve one by one and watched them down the ports open and close, all smooth and fine. All the valve stems are sat at the same height too so pretty sure none of them would be bent. Checked the hydraulic tappets next, although I don't think these would affect it - Ten of them were fine, six of them were stuck solid. Free'd them up anyway so all 16 were smooth and easy to depress, then refitted them into the head.
Double checked all the bearings/cams for damage, all seemed fine. So the rockers went back in, cams back in, rocker cover back with sealant again and all torqued up - it was exactly the same. The only thing I could think of was if the engine had been put together without the rocker cover being torqued up properly and/or in the right order. We loosened off the 12 bolts on the rocker cover that surround the the inlet cam (just literally cracked off) and tried to turn the cam - span perfectly.
Going from that I think it confirms the rocker cover is the problem - either its not matched for this head, out of shape or just generally f*cked. We must have been lucky to be able to turn it over when we picked the engine up - I still think that was because the rocker cover was 'loose' and not properly torqued, allowing the cams to spin. As soon as its torqued they are pretty much locked solid. Very very weird.
Sooooo at 10pm last night after having the rocker cover on and off four times we went to pick a spare head for the engine - which has its matching cover, cams, etc. So we don't have to f*ck around with the dodgy one that's currently on the engine. That should give a solid engine once built and we will know that its been done properly. I'm glad we took the cover off now to replace the sealant or we would have never found the problem... and who knows what might have happened when it was run.
Although, I still cant believe how hard it is to find a decent working engine that's not f*cked or been messed with in the past. From previous experience with buying bad engines we purposely took the bottom end off to check everything was clean with no damage - which it was! Thats confirmed by it spinning over very smoothly and easily with no cams in, just as a good one would. The surprise was that the head is knackered when we got it back - absolute joke. Never again will I trust anyone off this forum when buying stuff like this, its just so much easier to build one up from scratch knowing its been done right.
. Gutted to hear about the gearbox though! 
