Sunbeam
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Posts posted by Sunbeam
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2 hours ago, azzurro said:
The dowels are just for alighnment of the head so you could get away without them and rely on the head bolts, but not having them would make my teeth itch too.
But, fo what its worth, the 1500/2300 engines dont have them from factory (tho i did drill my 2300 head and block for a couple because why not).
The water pump thing is wierd! Id look at smooth off a casting dag in the block, or hook a drill on the pulley end and 'lathe' it with a grinder a bit, or is the impeller just way too big?
Just minor interference from the impeller. I’ll deal with it in my usual farm workshop way. Yeah not keen to run dowelless.
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Engine assembly came to a halt very quickly due to the wrong rod bearings being supplied. Bowden Engine parts to the rescue for a princely $50! Not NOS genuine, but very old Repco with great wax paper packaging!
Number 2 daughter then gave me a hand to put the pistons in.
Then it was time to flip it over, torque the caps and fit the crankshaft gallery plugs with a bit of blue loctite. To my horror it appears the engine shop has defiled my engine with imperial plugs! Aaargh, the shame. This mod will cost me horsepower and probably make it leak oil too.
This operation was not without issues, however. Some way short of the torque wrench going click, the 1/4 inch hex key sheared off and was left flush. My magnet would not retrieve it either!
The broken end wasnt in super tight, but it wasn’t letting go either. I contemplated welding a wire to it for more pull, but discarded that idea. I couldn’t drill it either because the tool steel is very hard. In the end creativity won again. I heated the crank web with my heat gun, and then blasted the broken hex with contact cleaner. My reasoning was that the rapid evaporation of the solvent sucks a lot of heat out which worked! Cold hex, hot plug and out she popped on the end of my magnet. Whew! I also smashed myself in the nose when the hex driver let go and 2 days later my nose still feels bruised.
I really want to get the head on because the engine has now been sitting partially assembled in my very drafty dusty shed for over two weeks. This brings me to the next problem. The head dowels were wrecked when they were removed and now I can’t find replacements. I’ve phoned a few outfits but nobody seems that interested in helping/too hard basket. The dowels are quite small at 8mm od and quite short (about 15mm) and they are thin walled and hollow. They need to be hollow as it seems they are located in the oilway… Now I’m not an engineer so I’m just spit ballin here… but is it a dumb idea to cut up an 8mm roll pin and use that as a dowel?
Anyhoo, to plug another hole I offered up the new water pump to the block aaaaand bugger… The impeller fouls the block!
Run it and let it create its own clearance? Skim some material off? Get another pump? Advice welcome.
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I just got the Fiat head back from Kenelly’s before Christmas. Took a while, but no complaints. Decent price.
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Fiat twin cam + 2xDHLA40.
Lock thread.
You’re welcome.
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This artefact turned up via ebay
I was excited to smash the buy now when I saw it. I only realised later that I had failed to read the fine print and this boss kit only fits an OBA branded wheel which has 7 holes. A quick search revealed OBA wheels are obsolete but still available, only I don’t like the looks of any of them. The seller of the boss kit did however have a 7 to 6 hole adapter available in both Momo and Nardi pcd so I bought one. I hope it doesn’t look too janky. The boss kit itself is very nicely made though, although it has now cost me more than just buying an expensive one one from Autoricambi. Sigh. I am feeling the win for max old school packaging though.
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Just looked it up and it seems Digger’s brakes and cables still operate on Halswell Junction Road..
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Today was a trillion degrees out, so I decided to do some more work in the shed where it was 7 trillion degrees. I dug the 125 out of its corner and I have placed it on the hoist for a big push…
I need to remove the springs so that I can eventually drop them off in town to have the leves reset, and have a new pair of fronts made up according to the 125T recipe. First I had to remove the hand brake cables so I could pull them out of their brackets on the top leaf. Disappointingly this led to the discovery of more brokenness.
Weird because it’s not rusty or chafed, just broken. It almost looks like fatigue damage. Pressing on, the bolts all undid easily and there is no corrosion evident on the bolts or in the bush sleeves at all. The rubber is quite perished however, and not surprisingly since they’re probably the original bushes.
I got the transmission jack in there just to take the load but it wasn’t really needed. The bolts were under minimal tension.
The way the leaves are mounted is slightly unconventional. They don’t use U bolts around the axle housing, instead there’s a bracket which also locates the bottom of the shock.
Next, the front springs. If you’ve perused @azzurro‘s excellent 125 build thread you may know the front coils are looong. It’s a bit of a palaver to get them out because you have to feed the individual parts of the spring compressor into the spring through the hole in the shock tower recently vacated by the shock absorber, and then assemble it inside the spring and with your 3rd and 4th arms keep the hooks from popping off until you have cranked sufficient pressure on the thing to hold it all in place. You absolutely have to have the hooks as far apart as you can physically manage because even when the compressor tool bottomed out, I still needed a pry bar to pop it out of place. The difference between the free length and the captive length is around 200mm!! There’s the little bundle of energy..
Job done!
On the shopping list now is spring eye and shackle bushes, new nyloc nuts for reassembly and a new handbrake cable or get the cable remade by the cable barries… I forget the name. Someone?
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Chur.
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Please?
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Also, leaning towards the leatherbound Momo California, soz @azzurro. I love the look of the mahogany one but it’s quite a bit more $$$ and I just don’t love gripping wood as much as I like leather… just sayin.
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More Visa thrashing today. New balljoints, shocks, spigot bearing, timing tensioner bearing, spindle nuts and a couple of oil filters to pad out the shipping are on the way. KYB shocks from Rock Auto $32 nzd a corner! I ordered shocks for a 124 coupe as these should help when some low is installed. Pretty sure they’re the same fit but a smidge shorter than 125 shocks…fingers crossed.
Also, I got the head back from the machine shop the day before Christmas eve. There was a last minute drama as some of the valve stems were under spec/had massive wear grooves (CHANGE YOUR OIL, FOLKS!) so a quick pillage of my spare engine and a trip to town ensued. I didn’t have high hopes as the spare engine is even grungier than the one I’m rebuilding, but we managed to make a full engine set..whew! Apparently other than that my head is mint and has had the lightest of skims.
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Next, I was fizzing to drop the pistons in, so I unpacked the big end shells and….OH NO…. they’re for the wrong engine! I’ve emailed the supplier and he’s looking into it. This won’t be a quick fix because Christmas and they came from Western Australia.
2mm too small:
There’s not much I can do except wrap the engine up and try to keep dust out.
As an outlet for my anger I decided to remove the cooked-on sump gasket. Twist knot cup wire brush 1, old sump gasket 0.
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I cannot however, wait a week and twiddle my thumbs so let’s put some bits back in the inside. Time to open some decades old packaging. Check out the Fiat and Lancia engraving on the shells. I love NOS.
It’s quite satisfying to pop in the shells, smear on the lube and finally nestle the crank in place being careful not to knock the thrust bearings out of place. Caps torqued and crank still turns smoothly, yay!
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Then I masked the block.
And finally I get to apply the Ford Grey engine paint which is very close to the original Fiat grey. EXCEPT…..
IT’S NOT FORD GREY!! Crap crap crap! It looks stupid. I did the full coat to prevent rusting. Not sure what I’ll do about it. I might let it cure and then go over it with something else. I’m not sure how this error occurred.
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I’ve cleaned up the front and rear crank seal housings and fitted new seals, also the oil filter housing.
Then outside with the block for a hot soapy wash.
Of course, the bores started to flash rust immediately despite me working as fast as I could to dry everything. I soaked them in CRC as quickly as possible and wiped it away as well as I could.
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I have the 16cfm toolshed one. GHFWII and hard to look past for the money.
Edit: just looked and it’s on special for 899
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Tis the season to pull finger. I’m eagerly anticipating the return of my head from the engine shop, so therefore I feel it is time to start prepping the bits and pieces for engine assembly. Most minor components were put in plastic bins upon disassembly and left, and thus are caked in baked oil filth. The first job I gave myself was to strip and clean the oil pump. Job 1 was to carefully prise the pickup screen off the pump, as there were several bits of hard carbon lodged in the holes of the mesh. CHANGE YOUR OIL PEOPLE!! There are just 3 M6 bolts holding the two halves of the pump body together, and it pays to have a good hold of both halves as you remove them or else the relief spring might try and launch parts across the workshop.
I don’t have a parts washer, so a container with some liquid gold (petrol) has to suffice. The petrol soon starts to look like the crude from whence it came. There is some light scratching on the mating parts and inside the housing. The flat parts got a tickle up on a sheet of 800 and then 1200. You can’t feel the scratches in the housing so I left them… the car had mint oil pressure before.
All reassembled with a lashing of 20w50 and a new drive gear. The old drive gear looked fine, but they are considered a consumable in Fiat World, as they have a very important job. You see, the gear also drives the distributor (via the auxiliary shaft off the timing belt) and if the internal splines shear (a known occurrence on old engines) the motor will continue to run but the oil pump will suddenly stop!
Now wrapped in my Sunday shirt ready for fitting later.
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The right thing!
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Been in the airport carpark for a few months. #lefttorot. Driver’s window left open, interior full of crap.
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Sunbeam's Fiat 125
in Project Discussion
Posted
Yes, metric 8mm. Must be hollow though as I’m fairly sure they sit in an oil or coolant passage. The head gasket is reinforced around the holes anyway. I’ll try a few more reconditioners and failing that make something up.