The All New, New "What have you done to your Bay today" thread.

I bet it was installed so that the motor part was below the pump and it filled up with water from a leaking lip seal between the pump and the motor on the drive shaft, and/or that the pump's motor drain hole was not at the bottom of the installation.. been there done that.

 

Received my heavy parcel from Heritage.

Started off by changing the stainless valves over from the cracked EMPI 040 head to the new EMPI 040 head which had one stainless exhaust valve and one steel intake valve in each cylinder. Used a little grinding paste to re-seat the old valves in the new head. Took about an hour.
Original build "spec" stated stainless valves in the stock style heads . So I just matched it.

Also had to deburr the keeper grooves on the valves before they would come out cleanly through the valve guides - its one of the tricks of stainless valves that the tips get more battered than the steel valves, but they are meant to be more heat resistant.
If you dont do that, and try to hammer the valves through because they seem stiff, you end up stupidly reaming out a fair bit of valve guide.

So now I have a nice coffee tin full of spare new valves and springs.

Started removing all of the remaining pistons and cylinders and was driven mad by it raining on me while I kept the engine in the engine bay out of the rain, and my circlip pliers being cheap and poor technique - I was trying to undo the wrist pin circlips , and some came out first try and others fought me for many attempts. Took an hour to undo a further four circlips and remove one piston.

I have decided to replace all four pistons and cylinders having paid for them, so I end up with them all wearing in step in future.
I will have three spare 87mm AA pistons and cylinders with about 25k miles on them, removed while they still have no scoring and had good compression.

I abandoned the idea to reuse my set of old 87mm Mahle pistons and cylinders - there were three good cylinders and one quite badly scored cylinder amongst them. So it looks like I have one or two good sets there too..

A pity because what was a cheapish improvement option 10 years ago is now £400 a set and not in stock. While the AA set were £260 and in stock.
The Mahle pistons have steel inserts in them taking the loads from the wrist pin part way round the top of the piston.

 

The pins tend to end up hard against one of the circlips. You can warm the pistons with a lightbulb under for 5-10 minutes helps the pins come out easily, you don't want to be hammering on them.

 

He does special `requests` for speshal peeeple

 

heat gun on low works a treat

 

And even then, it might actually come out and go back in while the arm is on the bus, with an eBay ball joint press tool with that adapter.
I did three without the adapter using an angle grinder and a hacksaw to get the ball joints out, and the eBay tool to put them back in. That was knackering..
I bought the adapter for the fourth one..still not needing to do it yet.

 

Before the tool was available I used to cut the ring off, then anyone with a press can do the job, you only need the tool to get them out.

 

And not quite all of the "professionals" line up the marks .. then the owner comes back on TLB..

"My balls (joints) are clicking" or "oops the wheel fell off " .. ball joint stem being sliced through by the side of the fore and aft slot in the socket part..

 

Because slotted ball joints are rare and they can't see the slot. You only have tell them about it. If you don't you might end up with...

Worse one, this couldn't have been much more wrong.
I chopped it up as described above. Fair enough it's a PITA.
You don't need to chop off the mounting bit but it was flopping about getting in the way.

 

Funnily enough, Gwyneth popped round last, so I gave her a quick blow-over

 

Not sure how your post is linked to the thread topic...

 

Does it matter? It's always time for a pic of Gwynny in the nip

Don't buy her candles, BTW

 

God that’s going to be a bugger to shift
Tell her to stick the immersion on
I’m on my way round with a tub of swarfega and a loofah

 

A good scrub with panel wipe should get that off

 

A box of milk tray and a single plastic rose from the petrol station should do the trick

 

Deffo give her candles a miss

 

You could get the his and hers matching set and buy Jeremy Clarkson's candle to go with it: