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It really didn't take that long to get that engine in, and to make the slightly different bit for the gear linkage. Installing all the bits and pieces was done by the second week in June...
Then the fun began!
The engine fired up after considerable trouble making the distributor work, but it was noisy and smoky and a drive up the street was accompanied by a spray of oil out the filler... it was a real dud. Sold to me as a fair goer, I pulled it out to find two cracked pistons.
As mentioned, however, I had been on a buying spree and there was a car I'd bought about 155km away with what I was assured was a 'good going engine.' Arranging a trailer and tow car took two days, and then half a day to get up there and back... but...
There was a puddle of oil on the trailer when we got it back here... inspection revealed a very large hole in the underside of the block. The number one rod and piston hadn't come with the deal...
So it was down to dismantlying all the engines I had (six off) to sort out the best bits to do a full rebuild. Various obstacles presented themselves, including me being sick for a couple of weeks, but in time it was done.
Took it for a drive... 12km down the road it started to rattle... switched off, got towed back, engine out again and off with the sump... a conrod bolt had its nut screwed about halfway off.
Now, let's go back a step. I bolted these down, installing one piston at a time and then torquing down the bolts on that rod as I went, then I retorqued them all when it was done... I didn't leave any loose.
But I left them that night and then completed the bottom end assembly the next morning. So one had been loosened... not only one, either!
I decided to loctite them, so when I replaced the bearing shells and the bolts in the offending rod, I then went on to redo the others, and found another nut loose!
So, that fixed, the engine went in again and I resumed trying to sort the injection tuning problems. Took it for a drive and a hose fell onto the exhaust, burned through and lost the water. My own silly fault, but that cost me another head gasket and the effort to replace it.
Finally found someone who knew the basic settings for the injection (please, nobody ask why things were altered, just accept that I didn't do it...) and now the car is running well. The five-speed box is a tremendous improvement, too.
Now on to the other car for the same conversion... without the five speed..
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