Sunbeam

Those wheels are a VAST improvement!

About time! (Also people who live in glass houses, I can’t talk etc…)

Pretty much, yeah. The result surprised me, because normally I’m sceptical of magic potions.

In other news the Fiat 1500 isn’t happening. The too hard basket became a yawning abyss and the owner offered to reverse the deal, so I said yes. You North Islanders keep an eye out on TradeMe. It’ll be relisted soon. Sad, but onward and upward.

Rewind even further. Before I tore into the engine I needed to do something with the bumpers because they were cluttering up my work bench. They’re alright on the outside, and mostly straight but the overriders have seen better days and probably a few knocks too. I wanted to do an overrider delete anyway because I prefer the look. The insides of the bumpers were deeply rusty. I mummified the shiny side with masking tape. Then, I spent ages trying to clean up the inner surfaces. Starting with a wire brush and then moving to sandpaper. This took hours! The end result wasn’t great, but I cleaned and degreased them and then went Brunox x 3 coats, high build primer, then 3 top coats in black. I then needed some long bolts to replace the long studs that are part of the overriders. No bumper bolts I have seen are anywhere near long enough, so I ended up buying stainless engineering coach bolts. These are a very dull finish and have grading numbers on the heads. I ground the numbers off very carefully with my most worn out flap disc. Then I went through wet sanding by hand up to 2000 grit and then finished with Autosol. They came up nice. No wide shot, sorry due to fullness of shed, but I’m happy enough. There are some visible witness marks in the chrome mostly on the rear bumper where the overriders used to sit, but the bumpers are not the worst looking part of the car by a long way. I’m no further with the engine either.

Buy a Land Rover. All your troubles will melt away.

Rewinding a little, I stripped the spare engine. Remember how I had written earlier that the vendor had stated it had “good bores”? It seems my scepticism was well founded! mhmm.. Ooh, nice. Clearly well maintained. Won’t turn, so soak them pistons Three days later, 3 pistons out, one still firmly in. I tried all sorts of brews, heat etc. Hammering with a wooden drift did not work at all, the drift was absorbing too much force. In the end I smashed it out with a steel drift. During this pounding, the head flew off my big ball pein hammer and of course it landed on the CAR!! Bounced twice, and luckily missed the boy, Anyway, check out the mint bore And piston I will scrap this piston due to the loads I imposed on it during extraction. So I have a usable crank, head and some pistons and rods and of course the block could be used if bored out, but since pistons are unobtainium that’s academic. The cam lobes are rusted to buggery and the intake cam is rusted into the cam box and I’ve been unable to extract it.

Oooh what have we here? Postie brings stuff. I wonder what’s in it? If I was a maladjusted human I would make an unboxing video for youtube. Er, I am maladjusted but in a different way…anyhoo. VOILA! I think they were on Trademe for a few minutes tops til I stabbed the buy now so hard I almost punched a hole in the ipad. Good price for some very tidy carbs. Such fun!

I rest my case. And trunnions…..

I didn’t realise these things still ran such a primitive front suspension setup

Photo dump! I doubt this is the O.G. gasket. Bores are well glazed too. Some marks, but can’t really feel them. The gasket is damaged… Underside, check out the scorch mark: Mark on the head between 1&2 (left of following pic) Scorch mark on block Big end cap, bearing has faint scuff, but can’t feel anything. Big end journal: This is where it gets uglier. Main cap & bearing. Check out the dark marks on the edges of the bearing: Main journals have black skid marks on them. I can’t tell if they’re damaged at this point, or if it’s deposited burnt oil. Cam boxes are FILTHY, however the exhaust cam is quite a bit less filthy. The cams have a lot of end float, but there’s no specs for it in the book. Crank end float seems fine. Finally, the pistons look like standard size, they have very gummed up oil rings but most worryingly they are very tight on the gudgeon pins, the rods won’t swing at all. In fact it takes a fair bit of force to rock the piston. Something aint right. Aaaand I accidentally dropped number 4 on the concrete. Looks fine though…

I did know that early and late had different setups. I think I prefer the early. Anyway, I get to decide later, but I don’t think I’ll run 2 again! Stay tuned for more engine teardown pain!

I got started on the engine strip down today. I was confused almost immediately (not difficult to achieve). This is the thermostat housing, next to the new thermostat I have in stock: The first thing I did was to take the coolant neck off the head. What I found was another thermostat! Then I was confused. That’s my story.

Not my cup of tea (that’s not a criticism btw), but I’m loving the attention to detail, and the workmanship. Really well done, amazing stuff!

I had wanted an excuse to try evaporust because the Land Rover tank is way rustier than the Fiat’s. So I went and bought a 5 litre can and sloshed it round in the Fiat tank for a couple of days. Then drained it back into the container (it’s reusable!) and poked the water blaster lance around the insides. Then dried it out Left the heat gun in there on low while I went inside for a cuppa. It worked a treat. The innards now look like this: Then, to retard rusting I made a brew to slosh around Also reusable, it will be good for lighting the incinerator. Then I smashed and scraped all the paint off the tank:

On further testing, there’s a bit of loose flaky rust right around the bung area. You’re probably right, the innards are pretty good. I’ll remove the loose stuff and slosh some kero around it as a preservative until it’s ready for petrol again. Whenever that may be.

The water jacket is in very nice condition. No pitting, and just a light dusting of surface rust. I have cleaned up the outside of the fuel tank too. No pics because it’s boring. I just hit any spots with signs of rust spidering under the paint with a strip disc, then spot painted with brunox. Then I hit the whole thing with 400 grit and painted it with a brush and some White Knight rust killer paint I had leftover from another project. Inside the tank looks like this though: that’s the back of the drain bung you can see on the right of the picture. Check out the tide mark. Thoughts on how to treat?

Hehe. Not really fizzing to do another mission like I did with the MG. However, if needs must. I’ll get in touch with Classic Towing next week to see how prohibitively expensive shipping it will be. Dependent on alert levels too of course. Seller is happy to store it for as long as needed, BUT it’s been moved outside, so I’m feeling a bit of pressure because it won’t take long to slide downhill real fast.

Uh oh. I done bought a thing on the wrong side of the Covidistan border. EDIT. wrong end of country too.

We have RBI (via cell tower) because it’s all we can get short of Starlink. I consider 3-4 Mbps pretty good. (It’s actually shit, but during the school hols it’s been sitting around 0.5-0.8!!)

I think the correct answer is get some hub-centric rings. However, wheel bolts are better for positive fitment than studs and nuts. Also, I have personally run 4x100 mags on an alfa with wobble bolts that weren’t hub centric either (in my defence I purchased the car in this condition) and I drove it HARD. I am not dead. Don’t do what I do. Hope this is helpful.

I wouldn’t rate the new guy as an improvement over Mal. Nowhere near the depth of knowledge and doesn’t strike me as a go-getter.

Dino Enterprises in Cambridge Ebay Rock Auto Rexbo (although can’t seem to get access anymore) Lada Power Auto Ricambi Midwest Bayless There’s more, but I can’t remember all of them off the top of my head.

Good enough for me. Might bling it up with some brass. TOTP fail!

@azzurro, you’re the man with the manual, what size are the core plugs on these things? Chur. measurometer says 40(ish)mm