Sprint Restoration in South Australia (pic heavy)

[straylight]

cheers Mart. makes sense. saves a cross shaft

[straylight]

in the mood to get it sorted...

drilled the hole, welded up a small diameter drill bit onto an old engine block stud. Not exactly on the same axis, poked that through but had a lot of difficulty penetrating the shorn off weglok bolt. Series of taps, wallops and hammering down the protruding weglok, eventually drifetd the cross shaft out. Only to find the cross shaft was in poor nick anyway.


wear to the shaft at the ends. the bearings haven't exactly done their job. As far as I can tell the bearings are plastic sheaths anyway.


slave cylinder end. No wonder I had 3mm of lateral play.


the offending left behind bit of the weglok bolt. simply fell out when given a tap on the other end.


the access hole in the bell housing. Easy enough to fill with some kneadite (alloy two part compound).

so, advice please. Replace the cross shaft due to the wear at the ends ? new bearings/seals in the bell housing, new release bearing, new weglok bolt (is there a better way ?)...

thanks

stu

[Neil907]

That sounds like your best bet or id you cant get one easily you could push the new bearings further inot the casing ( there is room for 2 side by side) and it should run on the decent part of the shaft. having just looked at your pics again the wear looks a long way in so you could probably get away with putting the bushes in their normal position.

[sprint95m]

Unlucky Stu.
New everything I'm afraid, no point skimping now I suggest.
These parts are available here in the UK fairly cheaply. The TDC sells new cross shafts. Uprated parts from Chris Witor (T2000 specialist).
Given the popularity of the T2000 range in Australia, are these parts not easily available for you as well?
Sprintparts for cross shaft?

[straylight]

thanks, yeah, Sprintparts have the cross shaft.

Cross Shaft
release bearing
cross shaft bushes.

The fork unit looks okay, slides nicely with little play. The slippers might need replacing, but they fitted well.

thinking about how this mess occured, I'm guessing the bushes wore away at some point and the cross shaft came into contact with the alloy bell housing, but the bell housing would be softer metal than the cross shaft. The bushes look like plastic inserts rtaher than proper bearings or sintered bearings, so I'm at a bit of a mystery how this wear occured. The cross shaft has been out once, in about 1998 iirc, but never replaced.

thanks for the help.

stu

[straylight]

Mark at SPRINTPARTS has suggested trying to weld up the old cross shaft and then lathe it down to size. I've got access to a lathe, so might give that a go.

The rest of the parts have been ordered. hd to put the brakes on as I was getting well ahead of myself. New leads ? who am I kidding !

engine now boasts the crank and pistons in place, all revolving nicely. Couldn't get any crankshaft float measurement, should be 3 to 15 thou, but I had difficulty squeezing in an extra thou feeler. There was very little friction when the thrust washers went in and the crank bolted down nicely and turned by hand. Very satisfying job that, took care with every step, everything oiled and contact parts smeared with assembly grease. Torque wrench used in anger. Photos up soon. The best part is that with the pulley nut on, I can freely rotate the engine complete with pistons and it mesmerises me, feels really smooth and so little friction. Still needs a sliding-t-bar to turn her, can't do it by fingers unless I hold onto the crankshaft counterweights.

This weekend I'm moving on to the rear oil seals, obviously stopping short of the bell housing, then trying the timing chain end and sump. If everything is going well, will try for a head bolt down. A few questions though:

the workshop manual says do the back of the engine before the front, but being an efficient git, I want to do the front end first. Anything to stop me working up the front before I take the engine off the stand ?

gasket fitting says to use gasket compound/cement. I bought some hylomar and some aviation gasket cement. Which is best for the oil seals and gaskets around the rear of the engine ? I'm guessing the aviation stuff, but recall someone saying that is best used on gaskets that are exposed to water, while hylomar is high temp oil resistant sealing compound.

could be a good (long) weekend.

stu

[sprint95m]

Stu, I agree with the workshop manual, do the back of the engine assembly work first. This is because I prefer to hold the flywheel for turning the engine by hand. I have only ever used Hylomar. It hasn't given me any trouble.

For torqueing the head down the workshop manual is rather short on detail. It is important to allow the head to settle.
Based on what Jamie Weidner from Sprintspares advised and information written in the Dolomite Sprint Register magazine, this is the way I have successfully done it. (I assume you have new studs and bolts of the later type).
The studs and bolts should first be lightly oiled. I then trial fit each to the block to make sure they fit easily and then remove them. (Make sure there isn't oil left in the bottom of the block's holes.)
Angle the block so its face is horizontal.
Position head gasket, offer up cylinder head then fit studs and bolts.
Using the BL sequence, tighten in stages from 25lbf ft to 55lbf ft (I used 5lbf ft increments).
(Use the hole in the inlet manifold above the thermostat for filling with coolant and, to avoid air locks, set the heater control to hot.)
When the engine is first fired up, run for a couple of minutes then allow to cool down (overnight).
Torque the head again, start engine and then run up to operating temperature. Then allow to cool (overnight).
Torque head once again and then retorque after 500 miles (800 km).

Hope this is helpful.

[straylight]

thanks Ian, beautiful......just what I wanted to know.

Going to get a short video of the engine turning over by hand, then into the work.

I'll need to order new head studs and nuts too, so head won't go on this weekend.

Mark is racing his sprint at Bathurst this weekend, I'll be able to add the studs and bits to the order !

stu

[xvivalve]

George is famous for wearing thongs 12 months of the year.

Thongs are a different item of clothing over here in Europe...and thankfully I can't picture George wearing them!

Good progress, I reckon you're quicker at this restoration business than our Mart!

[straylight]

george in a thong ? <shudders>

problem is, while the engine is coming along, george hasn't started on the bodywork. Caught up with him yesterday, but it has just been too hot to work.

xvivalve, can you pass me an email address for a paypal payment to the tdc please...

good friday and Tiff decided a morning game of "upwords" with the kids would be a good idea. 3D scrabble. so far shat and shad have just been ruled out and all I want to do is get cracking on the engine

stu

<edit>

got the vids up on utube of a rotating engine...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja2lKuj8qBk

should be #2 available shortly

if anyone can see any obvious mistakes....let me know !

stu

[sprint95m]

Regarding the oil seals, I steep (soak) these in engine oil for an hour or so before fitting.


Too hot for work?
Well Stu, its bitter cold here at present as the wind is in the north. We could do with some of your hot weather .

[straylight]

dunno, at least you can rug up against the cold. 14 days of temperatures above 35 celcius starts to fray the nerves after a while. A few of those days pushed the temp up into the low 40s. Everyone is watching out for the break in the season, when we might get some rain. It has been a long summer.

Give me windchill any day !

cracking day yeserday though, very mild 22 degrees. had a fantastic run with engine reassembly. Jacksahft in, rear oil seal done, adapter plate and flywheel housing on. Flywheel on, clutch assembly back on. Renovated the water pump and she is back in, all sparkly. water pump housing back on. Oil transfer plate on. All smallish jobs but the luxury of being able to take my time and clean every part, never-seize/loctite the bolts.

The only slight hiccup is that I can hear the flywheel (or a part near the flywheel) rubbing on at certain angle of engine rotation. Metal on metal. Clutch is in and centred but this noise is very slight and I can't feel the resistance when turning the engine when the noise is being made. No dial gauge to measure flywheel runout. I think I'll have to remove the flywheel and find out what is happening.

stu

[newguy]

Turn it over a few more times so it really marks the flywheel where it is hitting touching etc.

[straylight]

scraping sound found....

I had put split washers on the adaptor plate bolts. This elevated them and one was just proud enough to brush up on the flywheel. (Which also tells me the flywheel has a slight runout/wobble).

Question though. When reassembling the flywheel, the book says to match up the mark on the flywheel with the one on the adaptor plate/flywheel housing. This must be when #1 is at tdc yes ? otherwise there is no point in orienting the two marks since you could turn the engine to line them up rather than orient the flywheel correctly.

How would the flywheel runout be corrected ? machine the flywheel ?

stu

[DavePoth]

Probably machining. A good machine shop will be able to check the balance of the flywheel first to make sure it is the flywheel that needs machining rather than anything else.