1969 Daimler v8 250

Hi All yes it has been some time now
well i pulled the engine out to see what was going on with my smoking issue
as said i never in all the years on working on engine for a hobby never seen a car smoke so much as this Daimler

compression was around 100 to 130 on the cylinders
the car has had another set of heads fitted before i brought the car
i have the old heads and are in a bad way with corrosion and burnt valves

engine striped down and found more sludge i seen in all my life loads of it
the bores look to have some water marking and one bore had a score mark in the cylinder wall
was not sure if it was a score or a crack
the funny thing was this cylinder had the beast compression of all 8 cylinders ?

crank looked ok
so i sent the heads off the J and E to have new valve guides fitted to take valve oil seals
and just need to get them collected in the new year

the block i took to F j paynes in oxford what a great bunch of guys old school be going for around 100 years

to the cylinders hone and the crank polish and hot dip the engine / remove the crank sludge plugs
as i have read they was a pain to remove so i let them have the fun and this turned out to be correct
one of the plugs they had to weld a rod to it to get it out

i really did not wont to go down the re bore and crank regrind route due to the expense

so i am now short of one sludge plug and need a original plug to match the other plugs but cant get one

[ if any one has one of the original plugs that was fitted please let me know as i need it before i can start to re build the engine ]

All the cylinder came up really well the bore that had the score mark is still their but not so noticeable and as said had the best compression of all 8
i was expected to find a broken piston ring but no so the only thing i can think of is when the second set of heads was fitted a bit of swarf got in to the cylinder and caused to scoring
i now got all new standard rings and bearing and will start the final cleaning of the block in the next few days ready for re assembly

not sure what to do about the cam to use the one i have or go for an exchange one ? any advice

Goldnrust what AFR meter did you use ?
and would it be possible for you to give me your e mail as if i get a problem re building the engine you may know the solution as you been their before me

Happy new year to you all

Ive been working hard on the heads this week
As said before i never seen an engine smoke so much as this Dailmer v8 engine
the heads have been skimmed and had new exhaust valves fitted a few miles before i had the car
i have now re built the heads with new valve guides and valve guide oil seals
new inner and out springs
valve seats re cut and valve angle re cut and given a good clean
so i hope to now have a good pair of heads that wont smoke any more ?
now on to the engine re build ,,,,all good fun ?

We are now making progress on the Daimler engine re build
crank sludge plugs re fitted rear oil seal sized, took me some time to track down the sizing tool for the rear rope oil seal and crankshaft re fitted with all new bearing

on to the pistons in the next few days all looking good

the only problem i having is i woke up one morning back in January turned the tv on and thought to my self that,s a rubbish picture
turned out to be a blood clot in one eye so i having problems with 1 and half eye working every thing looks bit pist close up ?

I have now started to fit the first pistons to the engine block
i had the block honed and will use the original pistons with new standard rings
the engine shop has measured the bore and are just on standard and ok to use

the problem started when i checked the piston ring gap in the Daimler manual it states a gap of 0.23-0.35mm
sorry only do mm 16/54" and all that was before my time

any way i was finding that the compression top two rings i was getting gaps of around 0.45-0.62mm witch is way out of spec
the rings i have came from martin robey and are unbranded aftermarket ring set
i have been told over the last few years their has been a big problem with Daimler ring set and gaping
any one know more on this ?
i send them a e mail we see what they say back
so it,s now is holding me up on the engine build any one got a new set of standard rings that are of good quality and of a brand manufacture ?

Did you do the heads yourself?  Or did you get them done by a reconditioner? Just wondering how you went about cutting the seats?

Some very nice work on the engine there,
Hopefully should cure your smoking problems,
Any photos of the car ??,
Nigel

Bookmarked

It's certainly an interesting layout. Broadly similar to what Dodge did with their semi heads. It's neatly packaged, but the downside (from what I've read) is that you can't skim the head very far without throwing the valve geometry out, due to the angles the rockers come through the head at.

How's the engine build coming sideoilerv8?

That makes sense. Similar to the Dolly Sprint and their angled head studs. Do people make thicker headgaskets for them? From what I've learnt that's the main way of adjusting an over-skimmed head on Dollies.