Wot, not another '79 Targa resto thread

[Darren65]

I've loved this thread Peter and great to see the car nearly there .....

....just brilliant, thanks for sharing

[PeterK]

Sooooooo……..

Although not (yet) accepting any liability, I have received a replacement set of the ‘potential issue’ engine parts from the UK importer, along with a gasket set and an oil filter. So, not everything that I will need, and certainly no compensation for my time and other costs, but the most expensive items have been covered.

In between sailing (have I mentioned that I took a first mate who had never flown a symmetrical spinnaker, together with a crew who had never sailed before Friday’s practice, let them helm during Friday’s Round the Island Race – maybe with a few pointers from me and with me doing the start and collision avoidance stuff – and they came 3rd in class. Not too shabby) Alex the Garage Bitch came to play this morning.

By lunchtime the engine was out.


Although not without a little mess to clear up


This afternoon, with the engine safely on the stand (good job that I hadn’t returned it)


It was time to set to. Tinware off


Intake off


Electrickery and shroud off




Exhaust off



And by then I was knackered, so time for tea.
Off sailing again tomorrow, back late Friday, off again Sunday & back Friday, off again the following Sunday & back Friday, home for a few days then it’s off again for Cowes Week. No peace for the wicked and I’m supposed to be retired and taking it easy !

[PeterK]

Well then, it’s been a while.
In my defence (well, my excuses anyway), Round the Island, training and Cowes Week have all eaten away my time. Just when I thought that it was OK to go back into the garage, our local 914 electrificator called in his favour, which meant me painting his bumpers satin black, so that was a further 4 days gone. Twin 2 is getting married in less than 2 weeks, so ‘assistance’ was needed there, cleaning the house & preparations before & after the hen party ( I wasn't invited) and a day of crafting, which is not my forte (not much is, now I think about it), but I did my best.

Any way, into the garage I did finally go, just before lunchtime.

Under the dust sheet and plastic cover (keeping the paint off), was my engine as I left it all those months ago.

Well, nearly. By the time I took this photo, I had removed the oil cooler and the big pre-‘74 oil pipe.

Then the easy things first, so off with the rocker covers and the timing chain cover plates (including the Carrera hydraulic oil pipes)


It was occasionally hard to turn the engine over, which I traced to the nuts (that I was using as spacers on the studs securing the engine to the stand) catching on the ring gear. I unbolted the clutch and ring gear but couldn’t get them out, passed the cradle. Having man-handled the engine hoist & supported the engine, I was all ready to disconnect the cradle from the engine stand when I had a better idea. I simply removed one of the lower engine / gearbox studs and the clutch assembly could be wiggled out. Still had to dis-assemble the engine hoist and put it away though.

Back to forward progress, next off or out came the rockers, the camshafts and the timing chests


Followed by the cam boxes


And finally for today, the heads and cylinders

Pistons off tomorrow hopefully, then the lovely stress-free job of gapping a new set of pistons and rings. Only 24 rings, each just waiting to chip as I file them. Goodie.

[PeterK]

Doesn’t take long to say ‘pistons off’ does it. Took a while longer though - b4$t4rd circlips. I didn't expect to be removing them again, so I didn't pay enough attention to ensure that the ends of all the circlips were just past the small screwdriver slot when I fitted them. Had to dig a number of them out (real old-skool). Also, several circlips were mauled in the removal exercise (some that were installed in the right orientation, as well), so it's a good job they're not going back in. Anyway, a mere 2 hours later, and they were off / out


So, what to do with these replacements



Piston ring gapping.
First mark each piston with its cylinder number, along with labelling a set of rings for each.

Simply slide ring into the cylinder


Ensure that the ring is level, using its piston


Measure gap and adjust as required



Another of those quick-to-say things - took me a while to grind 24 rings. Easier to remove more metal than it is to put some back, so slowly, slowly, catchee monkey (where does that expression come from ? - hope it's not too insulting to any minorities). With 98mm Wossner pistons, the ring gaps are 0.4, 0.5 and .38mm (top, middle and both oil rings). But finally, all done



Time for a clean up, and we’re ready for re-assembly (again – hopefully for the last time).



That will wait for another day (hopefully, starting tomorrow)

[The Garage Bitch]

Well done mate

All very frustrating through absolutely no fault of your own.

Small comfort maybe but at least you found out about the dodgy batch before you fired it up. Now that would have been a seriously proper ball ache

[PeterK]

And tomorrow was right – time to assemble P&Cs.

Step 1 – gather all your bits


Step 2 – clean the cr4p off the cylinders. This was mainly the Curil T from the base gasket area, but I gave the inside of the cylinders and the outside of the pistons a good seeing too. Celly thinners seemed to work best on the old Curil T and then a good wash with brake cleaner and a liberal coating of clean engine oil.

Step 3 – fit rings to piston, but not before a bit of interweb browsing to check for consensus on the right way to orient the rings. Ended up with oil ring expander at the bottom, with the two oil control rings at about 2 and 10 o’clock. Top 2 rings were then at 8 and 4 o’clock.


Step 4 – gently slide piston into cylinder (checking that it was the correct way up)


Step 5 – place circlip into Stomski tool


Step 6 – fit circlip into piston

This was another of those nearly but not quite areas. Seems simple enough, but took a few attempts on some pistons. Did a lot of checking to make sure that I was fitting the circlip to the correct side of the piston. I think that they’re all the ‘correct’ way in, but when I go to fit them to the conrods, then either they’ll be 100% correct or all wrong. Anyone opening a book ?

Step 7 – repeat 5 more times and then stand back and admire the afternoon's labours.

[PeterK]

And back in the garage for another quick bash.

Slide on the pistons and cylinders. using Curil T on the base gaskets, and not forgetting to fit them



Repeat 5 more times


Well, not strictly true. While fighting with the circlip installation, pistons #5 & 3 both slid out of their cylinders enough for a ring to be free. No. 5 took a bit of jiggling to get the wrist pin out without removing cylinder 6, but with cylinder 3 being on the end, I simply removed the other circlip and slid out the wrist pin. Back to the bench for piston insertion. Good job I had a spare circlip though – one ended up a little second-hand.

Anyway, and in a reversal of historical sayings – on with their heads


Loctite 574 on the underside of the cam carriers, make sure that the oil return tubes are in place and we finish the day almost looking like an engine again.


Timing chests, timing and other fun stuff to follow shortly.

[PeterK]

Back into the garage the next day and timing chests quickly fitted.


Things were progressing well, with all timing gear loosely fitted. Unfortunately, I couldn’t turn the engine over properly – it jammed partway around. A quick look-see revealed that the timing chain for cylinders 1-3 had jumped partly off the main drive sprocket. I fiddled and played trying to get it to jump back on, but without joy. The crankshaft was in a position where it wouldn’t give me enough wriggle room. I started by removing the chain guides, which allowed me to drop the chain away from the sprocket and rotate the crank to TDC. Unfortunately, I then struggled to get the chain guides back in, including dropping one into the engine, which necessitated all sorts of insertions and fancy wriggling to recover. Couldn’t get the chain guides to click back on to their securing bolts, so ended up removing the cam and timing chest, but chain guides refitted in the end. Turned the engine level and the chain fell off the sprocket again before I could get the cam sprocket on. The less bad news was that as the crank was at TDC this time, I managed to get the chain back onto the crank sprocket fairly easily (although I do confess to thinking a few naughty words when it fell off).

Still, we finished the day with the timing gear loosely fitted.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a more productive day and I can report on timing cams.

[sladey]

Good stuff Peter

[911hillclimber]

Nice to see.
That piston circlip tool is a gem! Those clips are really heart stopping to get in. Ideal job on the lathe on a rainy day.

My last rebuild of my 3.2 I had the chains slip off the 'crank' sprockets when ready to time the cams, sprockets off and what a pain to get back on.
Might be doing the engine again this winter.

Have uprated the rods at all?
If you don't mind, where did you get the pistons from?
Graham.

[PeterK]

Thanks both.


Whilst significantly easier than trying to fit circlips without, the circlip tool is not as easy to use as the Stomski video might suggest. However, a big benefit was that when I messed up and a circlip pinged off/out, the circlip was retained on the tool and didn't fall into the engine

Graham, the crank and rods are standard (although balanced) and the pistons are Wossner 98mm (now a 3.2SS SC engine) 10.5CR. I bought through Design 911

[PeterK]

A more productive few hours today.
DTI attached


and LH cam timing set. DTI moved to other side and RH timing set. Managed to get the LH set at 1.4 almost immediately (well, once I did it my way rather than the way included in Wayne’s book). The RH side took a few attempts to get right. It was within 0.05mm, but I wanted better. Perseverance paid off and I got it as near as dammit (within 0.01) by the finish.

Tensioners were fitted


And timing chests all buttoned up


Tomorrow is my last day for a short while. As my daughter (the younger of my twins) is getting married on Tuesday, I have to run errands and not get oily from Friday. Probably ought to think about writing a speech soon though

Target is to get the rockers all fitted and the covers bolted on. Any progress with heat exchangers, etc will be a bonus.

[PeterK]

Well, everything does take longer than you expect, but hurrah, remaining rockers fitted, covers bolted on and long block finally buttoned up


I then tidied a bit, carried the various assemblies (shroud, fan and dissie – exhaust – CIS & inlet system) down from the loft space, but couldn’t resist just trial fitting my new automotive porn


Sorry, not much of an update in terms of words, but a huge milestone for the re-rebuild

[PeterK]

In a surprise let off, I gained an extra few hours in the garage today.
So, on with the heat exchangers, engine support bar and exhaust



Followed by the fan, shroud and distributor


And finally for this week, the inlet / CIS system



So, tinware still to fit, a rubber buffer has split (must have caught it on something, because it was new when I rebuilt the engine the first time), but can now think about getting the Garage Bitch around to put it all back in. Yippee

Got a wedding to attend first – better think about writing my speech soon

[911hillclimber]

Easy, keep the speech short and sweeeet, everyone will love whatever you have to say!
Have a great day, a very proud one too.