[jj10]

Aptly named as my R56 currently sounds like a steam train! 🙈

I’ve been buying and selling cars long enough to know that you generally get what you pay for…

On this occasion, heart won against head by first round KO.


There were a couple issues on the test drive but I gambled and lost that these would be minor and offset by the heavily adjusted purchase price.

Fast forward a few months and she dies on me on the motorway in a glorious cloud of smoke!

After much umming and ahhhhing and conversation with a couple of members - I opt against junking her and get in contact with the wizard that is @CarsOrBikes

Fast forward again to a gap opening up and she’s off to see the Wizard.

Any hopes of a “quick fix” were put to bed early with this image of a nicely melted piston…

 

[jj10]

 

[CarsOrBikes]

Well firstly, thanks for entrusting your car to me ;O)

It will be taken care of and hopefully come back to you better than before....

 

[Fro-dizzle]

no hopefully about it, car is in extremely safe hands

 

[jj10]

Just hanging around, waiting for an engine….

Engine is currently at the machine shop - maybe @CarsOrBikes can fill in some of the more technical blanks?

(Yes, I plan on changing the wheels)

 

[big jim]

Is that an almost clear driveway at carsorbikes house?

might be time to get mine over for some little jobs!

 

[jj10]

The 7 Dwarfs rang and asked for their Coal back!

 

[Maccmike]

View attachment 104970

The 7 Dwarfs rang and asked for their Coal back!

 

[CarsOrBikes]

Is that an almost clear driveway at carsorbikes house?

might be time to get mine over for some little jobs!

that was an illusion 😂

 

[CarsOrBikes]

so Jay's motor has a fairly big issue in number 2,

boom

 

[CarsOrBikes]

and as they do....

eat straight into the block

when deep enough to pool oil it ain't coming out with a hone that's for sure

.... or a re-bore !!

actually hard to see here but there is really quite a significant negative peak to this flash through so it could be the block a no go,

we have to test machine it and see if it cleans at sleeve depth.... at the moment the machine shop are divided over that but will be trying it.... you can perhaps only just make out a small black line in the cavity which when looked at closely is actually a further peak, just unlucky that's all.

 

[CarsOrBikes]

Before

After

During

Cleaner ;O)

Before

After

 

[Fro-dizzle]

I'd eat my dinner and dessert off that, great work

 

[Colonel Bogey]

That is a work of art. Very nice.

 

[CarsOrBikes]

just a last few awkward bits of carbon now removed, can wash this off and get the valves lapped in now,

 

[CarsOrBikes]

 

[Jack P]

The internet isn’t wrong.

Your head is fantastic.

 

[jj10]

Genius at work!

 

[CarsOrBikes]

this has been quiet for a long time....

block has been away with the aim of trying to save it....

which I'm pleased to say we have done ;O)

I've had these sleeved before but this one was a bit more of a challenge for the shop, in the bore damage shown above was a negative peak that unfortunately took it outside the diameter of the sleeves we've used previously

it's pretty clear here

it could potentially have been filled and machined prior to sleeving but we didn't really want to do that, instead there was a hunt around for a suitable sleeve that they thought could be used

the machine shop found one which was huge really, so it had to be significantly altered, turning it into something that could be made to work

next came more test machining just to see what block material we were left with, sorry no pics of this but if you saw them you'd probably all say the block was scrap.... it nearly was

after many weeks eventually they got this to a point where they called and said they were of the opinion they could in fact quite likely make it work, where previously the guys were divided on its potential, basically the result being the sleeve and block had to be modified further which has resulted in the sleeve actually touching those of the adjacent cylinders right at the very top only, kind of machining a step in the now rather thin base casting, it's done in such a way that the sleeve top isn't loading the adjacent one so much as having a nice interference apparently, you can see it in the top pic if you enlarge it compared to cylinders 3/4 that retains a gap

clearer here, 1/2, 2/3, vs 3/4, you can see the difference in sleeve thickness at the very top, slightly less below though, as they had to retain block material wherever they could, I'm sure most would have written this off

and now we're in possession of a nicely (luckily) saved N14 original block which is still in standard size 'just', so has some longevity as well as getting to go again now, those slightly dark areas are nothing much and will clean up by hand, just very slightly low ring turn points the honing blades wouldn't quite get, plenty come out like this, the main thing to note is that these are done to measured sizes, most you might get to see probably aren't

we did discuss changing the block of course but Jay's preference was to retain his original if he could, for a while it didn't look promising, but somewhat of a gamble later he has what he asked for ;O)

so now with some other bits out of the way or set aside we can look at finally doing something progressive with this car, now firmly amongst the 'long termers' 😂

first I wanted to get it moved back out of 'pending corner'....

into a priority spot closer to the motor about to be assembled

then onto cleaning stuff up a bit and sorting some things out....

 

[CarsOrBikes]

basically parts get washed off again, threads, galleries, cleaning bearing journals, blow it off/out, repeat etc.

not every motor gets its exterior corrosion cleaned up much if at all but the built up oil deposits get removed and most of the internal staining/varnish goes....

bolts run through the threads making sure they're free and all seat the same, to a 'stop', even though they never need to hit a stop we don't want roughness or obstruction, these only have an initial torque of 30nm for example, a rough thread or similar factors can put a 15 degree difference between one 30nm click out or a true 30nm one, the second stage is a 150deg turn, so an inaccurate 30 can mean a false 150 equating to a 135.... there's more to Seany's way but food for thought perhaps.

clean up the crank a bit more, this was cleaned up by machine a bit (termed polished),

we need a spare piston as one ain't fit for purpose😂

this isn't part of this job, but out of curiosity I looked at the weights of the remaining three pistons which differed by around 2.6g, out of the others I could find two sets ~1g apart. I couldn't find one any nearer the weight of the originals, and going through wear comparisons found that making a new set up, swapping some stuff around, I could get a set to within 0.6g,

so this is what's going in, sure still some wear but almost the same as the originals, comparable size, these just have some exhaust valve witness marks which I've cleaned a bit, the outcome can only be better than before,

the rods I'm not messing with which makes the above somewhat of a waste of time, as those have a weight difference overall, so I've just put the lightest piston with the heaviest rod, as I said this stuff isn't part of this particular job, I was just free to do what I want so chose to look at it a bit,

and they're in....

slimy job that😂