The sad tale of my last engine rebuild.

[Jonny69]

I've recovered anough to be able to talk about this now so here's the story. I took my Anglia up to the NSRA Supernats at Old Warden at the end of July and decided at the end of the journey that the engine wouldn't make it to the Retro Rides Gathering and back. It was just too knackered and I had 3 clear weeks to do a quick rebuild. I had the final week off work so the idea was to get most of the bits in advance and just the uncertain stuff like rings and bearings could wait until the engine was stripped. I had the engine out and in bits with 2 weeks left, so I put in the order to Burton Power and sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. Good old Burton, never deliver anything on time and in the final week before RRG I rang them and it hadn't been dispatched

Drove over there instead and got it all, which takes us to 3pm August 12th, the Wednesday before RRG09

The important thing was I had everything I needed sat on the bench:



So I got cracked on at a fair old pace. I'd already honed the bores and cleaned the block so it just needed reassembling and fitting back in the car, which was outside gathering bird poo. Bottom end first, fitting the new shells then a good lick of oil before assembling:



The two moon shape ones are the thrust bearings. With the crank in one can put the pistons back in. New rings all round. I kept them in order so the balance stays in and also note that there's a front and a back to them, which is cast in the conrod. You need a ring compressor to put the pistons back in which clamps round the top of the piston. You oil it up and slide it in like this:



Then tap it down into the bore with a mallet:



The cam gear goes on with the chain and tensioner. Note my flash vernier timing gear:



Lashings of oil on that lot before the timing cover goes on.

Down on the sump these engines are notorious for leaking so I degreased and applied silicone to both surfaces as well as using the gaskets:





Don't forget to put the oil pickup pipe on before you bolt the sump pan on because it's a pain to get back off. Guess how I know that?

Back up at the top I replaced the valve stem seals, since the head was off:



These are much nicer than the old plastic ones. They're hard rubber with a spring at the top. They slide on with the valve springs off, like so:



There's the head decoked. Note how I labelled the valves so they went back in the same holes, same with:



As a random diversion I replaced the seal in the back of the gearbox. I really really really wanted to do this and since the picture is bang smack in the middle of everything else I clearly couldn't wait any longer to do it:



Back to the engine the flywheel went on next. That's at arm's length. I'm not Superman, it's just light :



Headgasket. Make sure the head and block surface are nice and clean and degreased:



Head went on, followed by the rocker gear:



Then all the ancilaries went on but I was in a serious hurry so I didn't photograph everything in detail.

Next thing I needed to sort was the exhaust. Where it goes under the crossmember it takes a right beating from speedbumps and it was worn a bit thin:



I didn't cut the flattened bit off but I did make up like a sump-guard type plate for it so it could take a battering:



*takes a breath*