Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[CitroJim]

Looking good Zel

[Zelandeth]

Well I'd hoped to get the Rover back together today, didn't quite end up getting that far.  Did make some good progress overall though.

Biggest holdup is that given there are a few areas on the inlet manifold which are pretty pitted, I do want to put a bit of sealant on there to help the gasket out (a *sensible* amount rather than the several tubes worth that went on last time around apparently).  Discovered that my previous tube has turned to a rock at some point in the last year. 

Figured it would be something Halfords would have...nope!  Maybe I can grab antifreeze while I'm there at least.  Not a chance, any modern flavour I like, but not a single bottle of the old blue stuff...Well that was a waste of my time, and some idiot has scraped the passenger side mirror on the Volvo while I was parked.  Great.  I'll go grab both things from elsewhere tomorrow - an hour and a half round trip I could have done without. That'll teach me not to use the Trabant for my short trip.

In better news, with the jammed heater valve removed, turns out we do have perfectly decent flow through the heater core on the Rover.



Not even all that much gunk came out of it to be honest.

The valve however is a block of aluminium oxide and rust and is utterly beyond saving.  They're not expensive so I've got a new one ordered.  There should have been an O-ring between the two parts of the connection which was completely missing...so I'm guessing it was purely sealed by scale and rust! So maybe didn't get far towards getting the head back on, but I'll take the progress towards a working heater.

I've flushed as much of the gunge out the block as I reasonably can without pulling out the (clearly pretty new) core plugs.

It's a bit awkward to do a really good job of as the only real low point would be the water pump - and given those studs apparently like to snap, I'm not pulling that off if I don't have to.  All of the hoses come off the top of it so removing those doesn't really help much.

I get the feeling that someone may well have flushed the worst out when the core plugs were changed, given that aside from rusty coloured water for the first minute or so nothing really came out.  I was expecting to have to keep unplugging the drain tap.



I hadn't noticed the "40" stencilled into the side of the block before.  Anyone know if that means anything?

In answer to the question of what state the bores are in, about like this.





This camera really doesn't enjoy stuff like this.

Looks good to me, no wear lip I can feel, and you can just about still see cross hatching in the right light in person .  Nothing ringing any alarm bells for me anyway.  Not that I really expected there to be.  The engine seemed to be running okay and didn't have excessive amounts of blowby or smoke, so really wasn't looking for any issues there.

[Gibbo2286]

I hadn't noticed the "40" stencilled into the side of the block before. Anyone know if that means anything?
It's possibly marked by some engineering company to note the block's been re-bored, check the piston tops for a +40 mark.

[Zelandeth]

I hadn't noticed the "40" stencilled into the side of the block before. Anyone know if that means anything?
It's possibly marked by some engineering company to note the block's been re-bored, check the piston tops for a +40 mark.

I did wonder about that, but surely just changing the liners would have been the course during a rebuild rather than boring things out wouldn't it?

Guess I can measure the bore and find the answer to that question!

[Gibbo2286]

Re-boring was the usual practice +10 +20 +30 etc. until the specified limit was reached then sleeved back to standard.

[Zelandeth]

Re-boring was the usual practice +10 +20 +30 etc. until the specified limit was reached then sleeved back to standard.

Fair enough! I've never actually dealt with any work like that beyond having a head skimmed where necessary.

Sure enough, the manual does show 40 thou as the maximum permitted rebore size.

[Zelandeth]

This lot is (finally) back together and ready to go back onto the car.



I do now have all the consumables I need in stock so hopefully should be back together in the next few days. Based on how long everything seems to be taking me lately, that means a month or so most likely.

Definitely think dealing with the manifold to head join outside the car is the right call, getting a few of the fasteners in is awkward enough even off the car (there's very little clearance around them to get a wrench onto), would be an absolute pig of a job in situ. Whole assembly isn't unreasonably heavy anyway. I just need to make sure I have a pair of bolts on hand to drop into place once it's plonked into place as the block is at an angle and there are no dowels to hold things in position.

Not been much going on with the pinball project lately as I've mostly been fine tuning the software side of things. A couple of small finishing touches I'd been waiting for from Marco Specialities over in the US turned up this morning.

This machine has clearly only ever been set up with two coin chutes. At some point it had lost the blanking plate for the left hand slot, and a random one from another country had been wedged in place to fill the gap.

It's the red one nearest the camera below labelled "1 SPEL 25ct" so clearly not a match to our "New pence" tags.



This has now been replaced with the proper blanking plate.



If you had wondered what was meant to be in the big diamond shaped cutout below the coin slots you've now also had that answered - that maker's logo.

That blanking plate is designed so that it can be illuminated, though this machine has never had a lamp holder there - I will probably add that simply because it will look nicer lit up like the coin chutes next to it.

I've finally caved and ordered a proper chime unit for it. More than I ideally wanted to spend on that aspect, but given I seem to be regularly playing a few EM tables now it just needs them. Synthesised chimes/bells just sound really conspicuously naff, and it really will add to the realism.

Having little details like this ticked off is making it feel a lot more finished. Guess I really need to start getting some of the paint touched in.

[CitroJim]

The head's looking very good Zel

[Zelandeth]

Well the next couple of weeks are going to be interesting here. We're picking up this ball of derp tomorrow evening.

I know it's really close to Tes' passing, but it's as much for Star's benefit as ours. She's never NOT been around other dogs, and has very clearly been pining after Tes. She's so quiet for her, it's like all the bounce has gone. We also know that the longer we leave it, the more trouble we're likely to have issues integrating another dog.

Plus side is that she has had puppies, so that vastly improves the odds of her maternal instincts just taking over and saving a lot of trouble with the whole introduction phase. Plus we're a lot more experienced than when we brought Tes home back in 2014 - and are a lot less naive than we were back then! On the plus side, while she's terrified of *people* she's always been absolutely perfect with other dogs.

There is a bit of finger crossing involved, but that's always going to be the case no matter how prepared you think you are.

So you're going to have to put up with a bunch of puppy photos over the next few days.

[CitroJim]

Ahhh! Cute

[Zelandeth]

Well suffice to say this has sliiiiiiiiightly hindered my productivity recently, and will do for at least the next few weeks.

This bundle of fluff came home with us on Friday.

So far has been very chill. Engaged, curious, nosey, but very calm. Really not phased by noises around the house or anything.

Star so far is exactly as we had hoped, very interested but not seeming at all phased by the presence of a puppy. They've greeted each other and licked noses through the gate a few times, but it will probably be a couple of weeks before they're freely mixing though.

Next few weeks though he will be occupying pretty much all of my time, so I might be a little quiet for a while!

[Hell Razor5543]

Hello Furball. Welcome to Zels' Family (and to the Forum).

[Zelandeth]

Up to something? Oh absolutely.

Looks entirely stable to me...

[Hell Razor5543]

Looks entirely ADORABLE to me...

[Zelandeth]

Leaf? What leaf?