Operation Orange - 1980 Sprint restoration

[SprintMWU773V]

You raise a good point there Jon regarding the timing cover, of course it makes sense to do the timing first. The rear seal, hopefully OK. It came in an Austin Rover box as a complete assembly.

Hopefully the head will be ready end of next week.

[sprint95m]

Well hopefully the head is being sorted, new seat inserts for all 16 valves. A pain both in terms of time and of course the expense but it needs doing so don't really have a choice.

You paid to have the head refurbished, the repairer took your money and didn't do said job properly?
When this was pointed out their response is to tough it out?

With a display of dishonesty such as this it is easy to see why the motor trade in general has such a poor reputation (tarred brush.....)





Ian.

[SprintMWU773V]

To be fair I did not originally ask for the seats to be measured or checked, I kinda assumed they'd be OK. It was unfortunate that they were not. I'm more than happy with the work I asked for which was to clean the head, port and polish it, fit new valve guides and lightly skim.

The issue I had was following up when the response I got was not the answer I was looking for being one of 'use thinner shims' or 'grind the valve tips' which when you're probably 20 thou out is not really possible, nor does it make the problem go away. I therefore took the decision to take my business elsewhere to have new seats fitted by someone who totally understands the issue.

In a nutshell it hasn't actually ended up costing me any more it total, it's just I had hoped NOT to have to replace the seat inserts.

[tony g]

If youre fitting engine from above, definitely have the head , exhaust manifold and down pipe fitted. With gearbox on,what I do Is set the slings/chains on the hoist so they hold the engine /box slightly down at the rear. THEN, with a second sling or rope, tie to the rear of the box where the mount goes and pull this rope towards the beam of the engine crane and wrap it around several times. This gives you the angle to clear the slam panel and get the back of the box through the tunnel. As you get the sump over the slam panel you can start releasing the "extra" sling a bit at a time while pushing the lot in.
Eventually, the sling will be redundant and itll be hovering and a decent angle so a jack can be placed under the box and levelled up.
If you have a spare pair of hands with you it should be fairly easy. I have done it this way on my own but its fiddly

Tony

[SprintMWU773V]

Picked up yesterday having had 16 new valve seat inserts fitted. Very pleased that the chap there seems to 'get it' and did as asked. He had all the bits so was able to cut the seats to a size so I can then shim it up properly.









Back on the bench it's definately much better than it was





Valves, springs etc all fitted and today I did my first set of trial shims and calculated what I need. I now need to check my tin of shims and see which ones I need. All nicely in range, some can be swapped around. I suspect I may need some specific ones but wait and see.

[new to this]

looks a nice job

Dave

[SprintMWU773V]

Well on measuring my extensive collection of shims I'm missing only 4, 2 of which are the same size so I'll have to see which ones we have at work in the Lotus drawer. Seems I have plenty of other sizes so can probably help others out too if they're stuck.

[SprintMWU773V]

Sadly we didn't have the shims I required at work so I figured I'd order some new ones from QED Motorsport as they're not very expensive. They arrived pretty quickly so I shimmed up the head and double checked. As is my luck I had 3 shims incorrect for some reason. Perhaps I had not measured correctly or consistently, the workshop manuals I don't think are very clear. Anyway another 3 shims ordered.

I was determined this would be the final build up so gave the buckets and cam and journals a good coating of cam lube and graphogen, placed the shims and went for it. All re-assembled it seems good. A couple more times round checking and I'm quite satisfied with the end result. Brushed on a bit more cam lube and the head is now ready to be fitted to the rest of the engine at some point.

[SprintnSideways]

Hi Mark,
Whatever became of the Operation Orange resto? is it complete - I'd love to see the finished article.

[SprintMWU773V]

Still progressing albeit slowly. Have had a busy few months doing some essential work on the Greenbrier settling into a new job and taking up running!

I hope to install the engine and gearbox soon though!

[RSi]

Any progress with the Sprint Mark.

[new to this]

Did Mark finish his Sprint ?

Dave