Rebuilding

On Saturday, with the help of my Dad, the rebuilt engine went back into the car. We fully expected that rain would stop play and we wouldn't get much done but it turned out to be a great day and the whole thing was back together by the time it got dark.

The hardest part turned out to be tying to fit the new shiny polished stainless exhaust manifold I'd bought from Moss. After struggling with it for a while I realised it was just not made correctly. It has several problems that cause it to not even come close to fitting so that will be going back tomorrow. I still had the old one around so that's been refitted now. I now know why the old exhaust kept blowing at the manifold joint, the flange isn't flat so it won't seal correctly. Apparently that one wasn't made right either although it's better than the new one. Ten out of ten for bling but zero for engineering I'm afraid.

I haven't finished making the new airbox for the racecar but it's well on the way. I've fitted my old K&N bolt-on filters for now to get the car running. I managed to get the engine started earlier today but for some reason it's not getting any oil up to the cylinder head and rocker shaft. There's plenty of pressure at the bottom end but no oil at all at the top. I even removed the blanking bolt from the end of the oilway in the head with the engine running (and the rockers lubricated manually) and there's no oil at all. No idea what's going on there. The cylinder head was stripped down and cleaned as part of the rebuild so there shouldn't be anything lurking around in the oil passages to cause a blockage.

Anyway, that's the story so far. I have some time off work this week so I'm still hopeful of being able to sort this one out in time to get an MOT and do some running-in miles before the track day next week. Time is passing rather too quickly though. Oh, and we have lots of rain forecast for the rest of the week which may make it rather difficult to be working outside.