ANOTHER new engine for the Pop

[Jonny69]

That's right folks we're up to engine number 4 in the Pop! Unfortunately the old one expired at Retro Rides Gathering '08 due to a bit of punishment that month. It was a combination of things, firstly it was the motorway miles that month (which killed the engine last time), some extra go faster goodies I'd put on that let the car do 80mph instead of 60mph (and I kept pushing it), a trip round the track at the Hotrod Hayride and finally some immature behaviour in the carpark at RRG08. It developed a bit of a knock which turned into a nasty knock and I decided to call the tow truck... Karma huh?

A chappie on Retro Rides is local to me and just bought a secret new project and it happened to be powered by an E93A sidevalve of some sort. It had an Aquaplane inlet and exhaust but a 'Y' stamped on the head, that meant it could be the smaller 900cc engine or the 1172cc with a Y head, basically unknown because I don't know how to read the block numbers. It turned over and had compression which meant the valves weren't stuck, but we didn't get it to start. I decided to take a risk with it because I need an engine to get me back on the road, so recommended Mart put the Aquaplane kit on eBay and I made an offer on the block.

I won't be building this one up like I have done in the past and I don't intend to strip it completely so I'm going to risk the bottom end, but I did want to take a look at the top end because it's a visual indicator of the general condition, and in case it was going to burn any oil. With the head off I can see it's dry in the bores with a little soot as expected. Exhaust ports are the same, no oily deposits and the valve stems feel reasonable clean. There's no rust around the valves which means the engine has been in the dry. Bores are shiny but no step at the top:



Unfortunately I sheared one stud so the easy outs will have to come out again:



It also looks like it was full of coolant when it was left and it's evaporated away over the years because the engine is full of crust which will need to be flushed out. It's a bit thin in places and I'm hoping it isn't going to leak or hasn't gone porous. This is what I scraped out the pipe alone:



Back up to the top a quick eyeball tells me that it's the 1172cc engine (which I wanted) and I think it's been rebored +30thou. I'll have to measure up to double check but it will be handy if it is because one problem I have with my other engine is it's not on the standard bore so I can't just steal the pistons out another engine when I break it. The 030 here should tell me it's +30thou or +0.75mm in new money:



So basically it looks like this block is useable. Without knowing the condition of the bottom end it could last 2000 miles or 20,000 miles, but this is just to get me out of trouble and I'm going to be a bit more sympathetic with this one on the motorway...

One thing I will have to do is block this hole up. The previous owner ran a heater off a tapping in the block waterway. This was not original and my heater runs off the top hose so I'll be plugging it with a plate, weld or I'll tap a bolt into it:



Next job is a quick measure up to double check everything and have a quick look at the valve train. Turning it over by hand it looks like it's got a standard cam which I'll leave in there because it's a lot of work to swap it over and it will help prolong the life of this engine.