Wednesday October 25th - More engine work

 Today's task was to separate the pistons from the con rods. After the struggle of getting the pistons out of the block, I was expecting an equal struggle in getting the gudgeon pins out of the con rods, but to my surprise, they came out fairly easy. 

It was difficult removing the circlips though, and some of them, most of them actually, didn't survive. 

Seeing as this didn't take as long as I thought it would, I then spun the engine block round and started the long and boring process of removing all the old gaskets. These have been stuck on for years and year now, so they will take some removing. The worst bit of any engine rebuild is the gasket removal and thorough cleaning process. So is removing all the old burnt oil from the block and sludge out of the sump. I'm certainly getting through a lot of old rags and blue towell!. It will all be worth it in the end though. 

Monday October 23rd - Engine work continued

 I had a few hours to myself this morning before I went to work, so I thought I'd have another go at knocking the seized pistons out of the 2.5 Pi engine block. 

I started with a piece of wood and a club hammer and this worked well on the first two pistons, but then splintered and broke up. I then found a length of one inch box section and used an old brake calliper piston of a nice round shape to sit level on top of the pistons, before placing the box section on it and then hammering with some force. 

This engine must have been seriously overheated in its lifetime as every piston was stuck solidly. It took some force to eventually knock them all out. Number four piston was particularly seized and I didn't think it was going to come out at all. Eventually, though it gave in and by the time I had to go to work, I had managed to get all six out. The downside was that not one of them came out without damage, but the block looks ok and may just get away with being honed. If not, it's not a big deal as it can be bored to plus 20 thou. A good mornings work though and the next stage now, will be to separate the remains of the pistons from the con rods. 

Sunday October 22nd - Engine work.

 I had a few hours to kill this morning before going to my sisters in London for lunch, so I decided to make a start on removing the pistons from the seized 2.5 engine that I'd recently purchased. This engine has been seized since about 1986, so I was already resigned to the fact that I would probably have to destroy the pistons to get them out, but as long as I didn't damage the bores or the crankshaft, I'd be happy. 

My method this morning was a 4lb club hammer and a long metal bar. After about 15 minutes of sheer brute force I'd managed to get the first piston out. I did indeed destroy the piston and on removal I found that the pistons rings had welded themselves to the piston. This engine had seriously overheated prior to seizing!

With this piston out I then tried to rotate the crankshaft and to my surprise it turned and unseated itself. This meant I was now able to get to the  the last two big end caps and get them unbolted and lift the crankshaft out of the engine. I was really pleased with this as it would now be a lot easier to knock the pistons out of the cylinders without the crankshaft being in the way. 

By the time I had done this, time had caught up with me and it was time to leave for London, but I was at least able to go to my sisters pleased with my mornings work. 

Saturday October 21st - Running on carburettors.

 This Saturday my only task was to get the Triumph running again on carburettors. I had started the conversion back to carbs last weekend, so hopefully today would see it running. 

The first job was to replace the water pump I had spotted leaking last week. After this I had to reconnect the choke cable and then refit the Huco electric fuel pump. For some reason the pump that was fitted originally decided to retire, so I had to fit the pump that I normally carry as a spare.  

With this done I then had to run a new fuel line underneath the car coming from the fuel tank at the back of the car to the fuel input at the front of the car. 

With this done, I added some petrol and then had a go at starting the car up. To my relief it fired first time and after a bit of adjusting of the distributor it ran well and revved fine. It'll probably need a bit more fine tuning once out on the road, but the main thing is that it's running again. 

Sunday October 15th - Battlesbridge Breakfast meet.

 The weather looked good for this morning, so I decided to have a little trip out. The Green Cortina was the only choice as the Triumph is currently immobile and the Zetec Cortina is still at Redline Racing. 

I arrived early and had a couple of cups of coffee while waiting for my friends to arrive. Peter Silk came in his Triumph and Keith Halstead came in his Lotus Cortina, but Gavin left his Triumph at home as he didn't fancy the wet fields. 

It was a nice sunny morning and the place soon really filled up. I think because it was the last meet of the season and also because the other breakfast meet at North Weald wasn't on, it really swelled the numbers. 

Once it got to about 11.30, I decided to make a move as I wanted to get a bit more work done on the Triumph. I was a good meet though and I enjoyed the morning out. 

Saturday October 14th. Back to basics.

 After a very disappointing season regarding the events, I had spent the past week considering my options with my Triumph. To be honest, I have never had so much trouble with this car since converting it to Lucas fuel injection. Fourteen years now I have been doing these events and never had an issue whilst running on carburettors. 

So far this year, I have had to withdraw from the Historic Counties Rally due to the injection system not running right, been recovered home from the Coast to Coast Rally, and for the first time ever, been recovered home and not completed the Round Britain Reliability Run. 

There were also five other cars on the RBRR which suffered fuel injection problems, all with pump over heating problems. We all surmise that it's the modern fuels which are making the pumps run too hot and causing them to overheat. If that is the case, then this isn't a problem that's going to go away. 

As a result of this, I'd spent the past week adding up the pro's and cons of Lucas fuel injection and decided to go back to carburettors. The car has never ran properly since it's been converted and all I've done is reduced my MPG and made the car very unreliable. 

So today's mission was to remove the injection fuel tank and refit the standard tank. This took longer than I thought it would due to two of the captive nuts seizing. Once this was done, I then removed the Pi air filter, plenum and throttle bodies . Once I'd removed the plenum and air filter I could see that the water pump was leaking as well, so that's another job that'll have to fit in at some stage. 

With these items removed I was able to re-fit the inlet manifold and carburettors. By the time I'd done this, it was gone 4pm and I'd been in the garage since 8am, so I decided to call it a day. I was pleased with my days work though and it felt good seeing the carburettors back on the car.  

Friday October 13th. New headlights!

 My Green Cortina was still fitted with its original sealed beam headlights. I have driven this car a couple of times at night now and to say that the headlights are dim is an understatement. The old joke about walking round the front of the car to see if the headlights on is quite accurate with this car. 

Luckily, a friend of mine had some halogen conversion headlights that he had bought for another car, but never used. A price was discussed and a deal was done. I fitted them in my garage to my car before taking the car to work. What a difference! I can now see a lot further, so I'm very pleased with the result. 

Original sealed beam headlights.

Replacement Halogen Headlights.