1974 Daimler Double-Six VDP (higher axle stands)

oh, and the Imp. This link might help explain Imp Pick-Up

That damage looks fresh!!!! I get the sold as seen bit but was the damage declared or visible to see on any listing pictures?

I can see the answer being to strip both down and use the best of both to get yourself back on track

Err I really was thinking the other way round!!!

Transfer all the moving bits in this engine to your block

You really do need to find out why it's stuck solid anyway - so the first stage really is a no brainer - you might find that your existing engine is servicable after all!!

Hi folks. Bit of a change of subject-matter from the engine, today.

I've got myself a proper Churchill tool for compressing the front springs. It was £238 inc P&P, off Ebay.

It's the sort of thing you will only use once or twice in a lifetime but I can always sell it on. There seems to be a big demand for them. Now it won't sort out my engine but it will re-kindle my mojo for the VDP as I'm going to take the front subframe off to get it powder-coated like the rear. To do this I should really get the rear back on which will force me to finish the fuel lines. With the front suspension off it will be a good time to pull the engine as coming up with the crane and down with the body is a good way to get maximum clearance.

There is a good pic on another thread here (MGB V12 project) which shows just how much room I'll need to get the engine & block out.

Anyway here are some pics...



1 x Churchill tool for safe compression of Jaguar XJ front suspension





threaded-spinner? big wing-nut? mine looks like newer version. older ones had better/more elaborate type above with arms angled downwards





top & bottom ends of the threaded central-rod




both faces of piece that sits at top of central-rod. Let's call it the Pacman. not sure which side goes up, or down




I'll call this bit the mushroom. Domed face goes uppermost. Spinner locates in other end, which has circlip in recess for some reason






Teddy-Bear's Head? Squinty Hat? whatever it's called this is quite a substantial part but it's actually made in two parts: ring with 'ears' in it is welded to slash-cut cylinder. goes above mushroom. teddy-bear face upwards. ears are there to accommodate two nuts/bolts that protrude from the spring-pan





doughnut sits between teddy-bear and spring pan. not sure why faces are different or why it is needed

NB. I got £100 back from the Ebay seller for the damaged engine. I asked for £150 but he wasn't budging

Hi carlover. It's not really progressing at all unfortunately.

However....

In my mind I am planning a new chapter for the old VDP. I just cleared 13 weeks' rent arrears on the barn and earned £1270 living/working in a derelict house in London so, after spending about £250 of it on Christmas presents, I can afford to not work much for the next month or so and am gonna make space in the barn and pull the engine/gearbox and hopefully unseize it.

Easy to say but harder to do but you never know....

In fact working away with no bed, tv, internet, heating, flushing toilet or cooking facilitles made me realise it's all those comforts and distractions that stop ppl working on their projects. In London I was working 15 hours a day in the house at times as there was nothing else to do.

Mb I should go and live in the barn for a month

Hi folks. Two things before I start....

1. Sorry about all the broken Photobucket links on the thread. I will fix them all by moving stuff over to Imgur
2. Don't get confused with the date of my last post lol. It was Jan 17 I had big plans for but it's Jan 18 that I'm actually doing something!

I achieved nothing last year. It was just work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep. You get the picture. So this year 2 good things happened and I've actually started back on the VDP project.

• I made a successful NOVA application for a motorbike I brought to UK in 1990 but last all the import documents for. Thread is here if anyone is interested NOVA application
• I sorted out an issue with a fuel line fitting for the VDP, Thread is here fuel-pipe fitting
  
  So two minor things but they've really gave me a mojo-boost. So last couple of nights I got to work and the rough plan is as follows:
  
  
  
  • strip down HE engine to familiarise myself with process
  • keep flooding original engine with ATF/Diesel/whatever and pushing on main crank-bolt whilst working on spare engine
  • fit new fitting to LHS over-axle fuel line
  • re-install IRS
  • pull heads off original engine if it doesn't move this month
  • remove front suspension from car
  • remove sump to get at big-end caps
  • remove pistons C/W liners
  • separate any stuck pistons from liners
  • put engine back together
  
  
  So why am I stripping the other engine? Well basically because I've not done it before and you learn from your mistakes. Now that I've started it seems extremely simple and am keen to get tore into the original.
  
  So the HE engine I've got had no ancilliaries on it. Water-pump, manifolds etc etc all absent. The only thing I'd taken off it since I got it were the cam covers.
  
  
  guinea-pig HE engine 'as found'
  
  The first obstacle you need to get past when stripping one of these is a weird cam-chain tensioner on the front RHS of the engine. Well the manuals call it the RHS, and it is if you're in the driving seat, but as I'm looking back along the engine from the front I'm calling it the LHS. You need to relax the mechanism to get the heads off apparently. I'm not really sure why now that I've done it as the engine turns freely with it in tension.
  
  Anyway I had no experience of releasing the mechanism before and read quite a bit about it online. On the Jag-Lovers forum someone has done quite a detailed article on it which includes useful pictures as you can't see what going on behind the timing-chain cover. The simplest way to describe it would be like a bow (as in bow and arrow) or a capital D shape. The straight bit is towards the edge of the engine (my far left) and the curved bit facing the middle. The exercise it to reach in the top of the cylinder head and pull the (spring-loaded) straight part of the D/bow upwards then lock it with a little catch that is situated behind a rubber bung on the timing-chain cover
  
  The manual advises you need two special tools to deal with it
  
  
  • 'right-angled screwdriver'. This only needs to be right-angled if the engine is in the car with radiator etc in the way but they don't say this. You can use any thin-bladed device really. It is simply to put in a vertical slot in a catch that you turn to your left and it locks the tensioner in the relaxed position
  • The other is basically a hook that you pull upwards. The proper tool is a tube with plate which to the the top of the head and the hook is at the end of a rod which goes thru the tube. You wind a nut down the rod against the top of the tube and the rod (hooked onto the tensioner) moves upwards. like a drawbolt really
  
  
  The tools need to be used in conjunction so as you pull the tensioner up so need to flick the switch before it snaps back down. I didn't want to buy the tools or waste time making them so just bent the tip of a piece of thickish steel (about 5" long) to make the hook and put a lever thru a hole at the other end of it. I used the cam-chain/sprocket as my fulcrum (with a bit of thin metal underneath to spread the load)and after a bit of fiddling about it seemed to be relaxed. Well you could flick the top of the tensioner strut and rattle it back and forwards so it seemed to be loose.
  
  Now the manual advise you to remove two of the 4 bolts which hold each camshaft sprocket to the camshafts then relax the tensioner, turn the engine and insert a little plate on the camshaft(s) than remove the remaining two bolts on each side. Am not sure why you don't need to release the tension before removing any of the bolts.
  
  After that you need to pull the sprockets from the camshafts and hang them on brackets built into the timing-chain cover. Again a another tool is called for. It's basically a metal strip with a couple of holes it it. I think it's to stop the sprockets dropping into the cover.
  
  Now I don't really know why the plate for the camshaft is necessary if you are removing them but I didn't have the plate so went ahead without it. I also made the mistake of releasing the caps from the camshaft journals before the taking the sprockets off the end. Because of this the sprockets and chains started pulling the front of the camshafts down causing the other ends to jack up. So basically take the sprockets off before loosening the caps.
  
  
  
  make sure camshaft sprocket are removed before loosening caps which hold camshaft onto tappet-block journals
  
  
  
  camshaft removed and caps put back on for safe-keeping and to keep placing correct
  
  
  After that you can take the tappet-blocks off. Lots of fasteners but no big deal apart from the Allen-head cap-screws inside the tappet-blocks. I only had a metric (6mm) Allen socket-bit that 'fitted'. They were pretty tight so would've been better with the correct Imperial bit. Outside it's nuts/washers. You also need to remove a banjo-bolt from the rear of each block. After that you can lift the blocks away but the tappets will fall out or just sit on their valve-springs. You need to keep them in original places so it's a good idea to number them before you lift the block off.
  
  I'd have like to keep the cam-covers/camshafts/tappets/blocks all together once they were off the engine but it's not easy to do this as the studs that keep the caps over the camshaft stay on the cylinder head.
  
  Anyway once they're off you can remove the nuts securing the head to the block. the big ones have 11/16 domed bolts and the outer fixings are 9/16" nuts. Nothing to report really apart from the big ones were pretty tight for removing with spanner but I didn't have an 11/16" socket.
  
  
  tappet-blocks & tappets removed and all cylinder-head nuts removed/loosend
  
  
  So once you've got all the nuts of the manual tells you to pull/lift the heads off. This is where the internet forums become full of horror stories about cars being lifted of the ground by hoist and the heads still not budging or heads being mutilated with grinders to get them off. This is all caused by corrosion of the steel studs within the alloy casting.
  
  You can buy tools for £250-£350 which pull the head off. It's basically a very thick hardened-steel plate which bolts onto the tappet block studs (camshaft removed) and hardened steel bolts are wound down onto the main cylinder-head studs to force it off. So it made me think why do you need to take the tappet-block off before removing the heads? Not a big deal but I could've left mine in place I think.
  
  I had a good feeling about this engine as it feels very 'corrosion free' and sure enough a few taps with a block of wood around each head got the bond to break. I left it at that for the night as I wasn't having much luck pulling them off by hand but am sure there's no binding. My problem was more that the engine is in a wooden crate and I can't really get a good grip on it just now.
  
  
  
  both heads moved without any drama. that'll do for today
  
  I also wondered why ppl using the tool continue to wind it off once it has moved. Surely once it's budged the way to go would be back down with plenty of penetrant then up then down etc etc.
  
  So I'm almost 100% sure my original heads won't be as easy. In fact I think they'll be a nightmare, so I might buy the tool or am thinking it might be better to focus on removing the studs. Even if a few snap at least you can get the heads off and focus on any broken or seized studs once that's out the way.
  
  Oh. I forgot to say... the fitting that bolts to the crankshaft pulley, which allows you turn it over with a reasonably-sized spanner. It's held on by two thinish screws. My big strong pal had a go at un-seizing the engine a couple of years back and just snapped one of the thin screws which wasn't surprising (but scared him off enough that he wouldn't ask again) so I took that off to reveal a much more substantial bolt which threads directly into the nose of the crankshaft. This is what I'll be using to try and rock the engine free over next month or so. I've got a big ring spanner that fits it (and was using that to turn the spare engine over) but will get a bit more leverage with a socket on the breaker bar. I think the size is 1 11/32
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Was only thinking about this build a few days ago. Delighted to see some progress on it.

Now if you don't mind I'm going to try and convince myself that I don't need to buy a Jag or a Daimler.

Ok. Here we have a small but important bit that I've been looking for since pg5 of this saga. That's Summer 2012!

It is the nearest I could find to the fitting that was on the original fuel-return pipe that runs from the engine-bay back along the passenger side of the car and connects to another piece which runs up over the IRS into the boot.

It's practically the same size as the original but the thread is a little different. 19TPI as opposed to 24TPI on the original. The new one is a commonly-available BSP thread whereas the old one was a bit of a mystery. Enots?/Norgren?/UNS?. Don't know for sure but it won't matter now and interestingly Enots/Norgren still supply similar fittings but they also have BSP thread.

All I need to do now is see if a 1/4" BSP compression nut & olive I have fit it ok. The only thing that's puzzling me is that the business-end of this part (the male-threaded bit) isn't concave like you'd expect a compression fitting to be. But having said that the olive that came with my BSP compression-nut isn't like a normal olive. It's straight



who'd have thought car manufacturer would have used plumbing-fitting on fuel-lines. this is called various things including 'iron'



fuel-line is silver-soldered into this end which is for 8mm/5/16" tubing



this end connects to over-axle pipe which has compression-nut-olive on it

So why is this bit important? Well once the fuel line is on the car I can get IRS back on which means I can get car back on ground again then lift front end to get suspension off the get sump off OR lift whole engine & box out

God dammit, I want to see everything about this... but flipping photobucket!

Sounds like a cracking project...