Catch up and first drive around town

OK, so back to square one. Drove around town, got her up to normal running temperature, running a bit lumpy, but it feels like the rich mixture problem that this all started out with. But ticks over nicely. The basic mechanics seem sound. So far so good, just need to adjust mixture I think. Then should be fine. Not enough time to fine tune today, happy enough to tweak things from here.

But the full details are:

Had ordered head gasket, gasket set and valve on Friday from the ACCC spares guy. There was a question mark over the valve but that was resolved on the following Thursday and then I had a nerve wracking time waiting on Saturday to see if the parts arrived to try to put her together that day.

Spent all week valve grinding and preparing as much as possible. Cleaned up the pistons and block on Saturday morning:

Then the postman came. All systems go. Struggled to take my time, but kept things under control. Ground in the new valve to match up with valve seat and then put all the valves back in. Cleaned out guides and valve stems with WD40 and then 10W fork oil. Fitted new stem seals. Old ones were like plastic!!

New head ready to go:

Greased CH gasket, slipped it over the block. slid head over. So far so good. Slid in the push rods making sure they were located properly. That felt a bit hit and miss! Turned the engine over by hand to be sure they behaved as expected!! Slackened back the rockers and tapped that down.

Then somehow tightening the head down felt really scary, kind of point of no (well ...very little) return. Cue Stu across the road again, borrowed his torque wrench and he talked me through it. Helped me keep track of the tightening sequence.

That was done, then started setting valve clearances, swapped tasks around, connected up water hoses, throttle linkages, choke etc.etc... finished off clearances.

Step back - think...tempted to just start it up...

On advice from dad, oiled the rocker, push rods and valve springs manually from a milk bottle of old oil!!

Check compression... all pots lower than before, but about what they should be according to the manual. Decoked, so lower compression not surprising. All fine.

Water.. topped up the rad and in the last 1/4.... GUSH... water shooting out of somewhere, and not just a leak.. pouring out.. oooops, forgot all about the bypass pipe... It's a really awkward short length of pipe between the head and block bypass pipes. Tried and tried to get it back in place, it was connected OK at the block side, but not the head. Couldn't get it in place.

Impatience got the better of me at that point!! I just HAD to see if she would start. Put in spark plugs and connected up HT leads Switched on ignition, pulled out choke. Went round to engine bay, remembered to re-prime the carb and added a couple of squirts of fuel. Pushed the starter switch and....... Brrruuummmmm! She's running.. OK water flying everywhere, switch off quick. Back to the water issue.

Took off the bypass pipe completely, loosened off the clips and tried again. (Happier now though as car had started pretty easily) Connected the pipe to the head first. Too short and inflexible to fit it onto the block. Getting a little frustrated at this point. Boiling water did the trick, made it soft enough. Got it fitted. Nipped up clips..  Topped up rad again. All good..

Started her up again and left her to run a bit, just nice to hear the engine going again. By which time too late to do anything else. Had a nice night out, over the road, and talked cars most of the night! Stu was very happy to hear that I had her running.

So to this morning, small job just to make sure the oil feed up to the rocker was working. Took it apart again and worked it though - it's fine. The rest of the day spent with the kids on the bikes, they deserved some attention after so much time with me just under the bonnet or in the garage, Then when got home it was TIPPING down.

Had to wait for the opportunity but it came.. Sun came out around 5.00pm. Took cover off, deep breath, started her up and off we go. Gentle drive around the crescent behind the house to start with. That went fine, no new problems. So another slightly longer one through town. Up to normal temp, choke off, as mentioned at the start, a bit lumpy. Feels rich hence square one. That is where I was the day BEFORE she blew a valve!! (oh damn and no thermostat, have to put that back in!!)

Not quite uber happy yet, will be nervous for quite a while. Also hesitate to say all is fine, because it seems every time I say "All is fine" the something else goes wrong.

But the list of jobs done in the first 2 months of ownership is now quite long, and not trivial. Could do with a peaceful period of drving now. Please?!!!!!

Having said that it only really cost me time. £100 to replace a valve and rebuild/refit a cylinder head. That'll get you an oil and spark plug change on a modern car!! Half of that cost was tools, which of course I have for next time.  (and there will be a next time!!)

Love it.. (just.....)