Lotus Elan, range rover, TR7, Streetka, mx5, minor,

Today we pulled the engine and stripped it, results were unexpected.

Firstly pulled the head, all came off easily enough, what we found was suprising.

1 piston was a different make to the rest, no2 had pitting up the back of the bore and they all had radial markings.





Also it looks like the head gasket was leaking which might explain why it's been difficult to start lately.




We then drained the oil to find it only had a litre in it, it was half way between min and max on the dipstick so that may explain the oil pressure issue, it has the wrong dipstick!

Dropped the engine and box out which went easily enough.



Then we pulled the flywheel and backplate of followed by the oil pump which looked perfect inside. Next up was the sump, which relealed this mess.



Upon examining the bits we were suprised to find it was pulverised rubber rather than swarf and it was everywhere inside the engine.

Pulled the front cover off to find even more, it was the back rubber ring of the timing wheel which had disentigrated.

Then proceeded to remove the crank, appart from the big end bolts which were way too tight and rounded off it came appart easily enough, this revealed a pleasant suprise, the crank and all it's bearings look like new.







So the conclusion is, oil pressure was probably a combination of low oil and bits of rubber but no damage seems to have been done. We do though need a re-bore, new pistons, the block and head skimmed and a new timing chain set (duplex). While we are in there Andrew is also thinking about a mg metro cam to support an eventual plan to add a hif44 su etc.

Tomorrow I will mic up the crank to check it is definitely ok and then we will have to find a machine shop, the one I usually use closed last year when the owner died, any one any experience of Thurstons in Ongar or Robertsons in Colchester.

Brilliant work. Make it look easy.

Engine block and head dropped off at machine shop, first thing the guy noticed was the odd piston was also a different compression ratio (7:1) van ilo the 8:1 car the other 3 were, with that Andrew  has decided on a re-bore, block skimmed to clean up where the gasket leaking had damaged it, the head fitted with hardened exhaust seats, a 3 angle cut on the inlets and skimmed by 1.5 mm to give him a bit of room to improve the combustion chamber (basically remove some of the shrouding of the valves) plus the whole lot chemically cleaned.

My wife has finally been given a date for her breast cancer operation on the 18th so we are now n full on sheilding mode (requirement from the hospital)  so the last couple of days have been rushing around getting everything we can think we may need, locally  my dad will go and get the engine parts back , we have the new cam, a cooper s oil pressure relief valve and a damped cast crank pulley, the rest will be ordered from ESM today.  In the meantime since the weather has warmed up a bit I have started rubbing the front wing on the Lotus back, it's coming out OK  with only a couple of areas needing further filling so far





The whole front end  (bonnet and rearward of the doors have been replaced) is bubbling but that will have to wait until later in the year, purpose of this is to get it looking tidy enough to use this summer.