Zel's Fleet Blog...Rover, Renault, Peugeot, Trabant, Invacar & Sinclair C5

[Zelandeth]

I'm disappointed your local engineering shop wouldn't help with the heads, although my local company told me to bring my axle in for repair, then denied all knowledge of my visit and phone calls..

It seems to be a running theme around here about 75% of the time I try to engage professionals for anything, be it a plumber to service our boiler or a machine shop to face a manifold which I think I was trying to do last time.

-- -- --

Following a recommendation on another forum, the heads have been dropped off with Headline MK to be cleaned, checked over and if needed skimmed. Seemed efficient, polite and a refreshingly old-school sort of place. Figure this just makes the most sense as it means that I know for sure that the heads are both properly flat before I put things back together, and they have far better equipment to check that than I do! If they're good, they'll also get the job of inspecting and doing any rework needed on the Renault's head when that comes off. Given the response I've had from a lot of so called professionals around here, getting an immediate cheerful "Yeah, that'll be no bother" was kind of refreshing.

Given I have suspicions about the quality of the workmanship when the heads were fitted last time (the gasket residue isn't from the gasket I've just removed!) Getting them checked to ensure they're actually flat just seemed a smart move.

Otherwise I've been running around like a headless chicken for 95% of the day today. Only thing I did was take ten minutes to see whether it's worth spending any time on cleaning the valve covers up a bit as they're quite oxidised in a fair few places. The before and after of a really quick skim over suggests that yes, the end result in the engine bay will be worth it and will make things look far less scruffy.



We don't need a blinding mirror like finish here, just looking tidy is sufficient.

[Dick]

That's a bit of good news. Finding reliable tradesmen seems to be getting harder every day..

[Zelandeth]

New toy arrived in the post this morning. Was suspiciously cheap on eBay so was half expecting it never to turn up, but it did and was still sealed new in the box with all the cables etc.



Which showed us to have two error codes. Which I annoyingly failed to take full note of. One was for an open circuit or ground fault to the intake throttle flap motor - expected as I unplugged it when initially poking around. Second one was complaining about an implausible needle lift sensor signal. That seems rather more plausible as our issue. I'll pull the covers off and make sure we don't have a loose connection or something daft like that to the injecton loom shortly.

Cleared the codes then went for a half hour or so drive, and came back with none stored.



The word "none" there is the important bit. Ignore the ECM disabled message and P1570 - that's basically saying that the immobiliser is blocking the engine start, which always seems to happen when you plug a code reader in to this - cycling the ignition once after unplugging it returns normal service. Does exactly the same with a Foxwell scanner.

Possible the sensor was just being sticky I guess, car hadn't been driven in a couple of weeks, but it does have me looking slightly suspiciously at whichever injector has that built in on this engine - assuming 1 or 4. I'm not about to go replacing them though given that this is about to be sold. Potential fault will be disclosed and the new keeper can roll the dice on whether it comes back again, with the price adjusted accordingly.

I do believe that we have found where the water dripping onto the centre console in the P6 was coming from.



Lack of any rubber seals around the antenna and a disintegrated plastic spacer meaning there was zero tension on it I think would equal a leak.



Rather home made looking plastic grommet through the roof probably not helping.



So that's going to be subject to some attention shortly. The threads in the antenna base are stripped as well, so I may well replace the whole thing.

Did discover that apparently the underside of the gutters/door shuts apparently weren't cleaned up and painted along with the rest of the car.



Yeah, that will be wanting some attention sooner than later.

[Dick]

Put a bit of silicone on seals for the antenna.. belt and braces?

[Zelandeth]

Put a bit of silicone on seals for the antenna.. belt and braces?

Way ahead of you. Replacing that is a ways down the to do list, so hoping that will keep the water out for the time being.

-- -- --

Occasional distraction time as there's nothing much going on car wise as I'm waiting on the heads coming back for the P6 before I can do too much more.

Some of you may remember me picking this contraption a few months ago.



Progress on its revival was abruptly halted by the power supply losing interest in supplying power. Which I have finally decided to have a look in to.

Took a bit of time to figure out how to get it out but I soon had it on the desk. At which point I said some very unpleasant things about some IBM engineers.

The power supply has a plastic structural case - which has an RF shield RIVETED on to it.

Swearing and violence ensued.



Revealing a pretty busy unit which isn't exactly the easiest to work on I've come across.



Little daughter boards sticking out of it all over the place, and so far no useful documentation. The most common issue apparently is this STR81159 regulator though, so swapping that and a basic re-capping session will be our first port of call.



As seems to be a common theme for me, I can't easily just swap this unit for something off the shelf because we have a couple of awkward rails. We need +5V, +12V, -12V those are simple enough, but there's also a HT rail supplied for the plasma display. Which so far I've seen listed as anywhere between 100V and 600V. Obviously I need to do a bit more digging to find out what that rail actually needs to be. On the plus side I can reverse engineer that at least as this uses exactly the same panel as several Toshiba portables I own and have in working condition so I can just measure that. The other one which annoyingly isn't present on modern off-the-shelf PC supplies is -5V.

So if we can revive the original supply that's likely to be the least hassle in terms of having to fabricobble something together to supply all that lot. If we need to at least there's plenty of space to work with compared to the last project!

[Zelandeth]

Had a call early on this afternoon to say the P6's heads were ready for collection.



That looks a bit better.



Certainly a lot better than I was ever going to manage by hand. £54 each after the VAT, which was a lot less than I had expected. Seem to remember it cost me more than that last time I had a head skimmed, and that was 20 odd years ago.

They'll definitely be getting the job when I get the head pulled from the Renault then.

Hopefully will be able to start getting it put back together tomorrow. I had to resist the temptation to start today as it's a job I'd really rather not run out of time or steam halfway through, making the mistakes which then inevitably happen when I start rushing.

[Luxobarge]

Oooh, metal porn!

[Dick]

Love the fact you collected them in the rover

[Zelandeth]

Busy day. I now hurt in places I didn't know I had.

Starting point. Well...actually a few days ago, but I forgot to get a photo before I started.



First up the heads were built up with the new valves. These had already been lapped in ready to fit a few days back.



Briefly interrupted...well actually interrupted for the best part of half an hour, when I couldn't find one of the valve keepers. Which I had carefully bagged up with each valve's hardware. Of course it turned out to be sitting right in front of me didn't it?



Sneaky little sod.

Checked the torque values in the manual before starting to put anything in the car.



Right hand head fitted to the engine and torqued down.



Joined shortly after by the left hand one.



Rocker shafts refitted.



Exhaust manifolds reconnected with new gaskets. Yes, the rearmost bolt on the right hand bank was precisely as much of a pain in the tail to put back in as it was to get out.





Nearside was actually a bit of a faff as the exhaust had sagged a bit while it had been disconnected and holding its own weight for the last couple of weeks, so I had to use a jack to help lift it up to get the first bolts in. If I had a helper I could have probably got them to help lift it, but working by myself I had to improvise a bit.

Then got out the old oil gun and gave all of the cam followers and camshaft itself a thorough dousing in fresh oil as it's all been open to the elements for the last couple of weeks.





Then the valley cover/intake manifold gasket was refitted and the inlet manifold went back on.



At which point, after I'd refitted most of the coolant lines, I realised I'd forgotten something kind of important. These clamps which hold down the ends of the valley cover, which are meant to go on before the manifold.





Oops.

You *can* get them in with the manifold already in place it turns out, but really shouldn't. It's really awkward, especially the front one which is wedged right under one of the coolant lines.

Oil can came out again to give all the valves and rocker shafts etc a good oiling.



A lot of swearing ensued reassembling the Rube Goldberg nonsense of a throttle linkage/kickdown cable nonsense. Why they couldn't just have used a cable I've no idea.



Starting to look a lot more like an engine again.



Things to follow tomorrow:

[] Fathom out exactly how the spring clip that holds the throttle linkage together is meant to go back together.

[] Change engine oil & filter.

[] Refill coolant.

[] Change spark plugs.

[] Refit HT leads.

[] Retrieve the dipstick support bracket from where I dropped it under the car just before wrapping up this afternoon and refit it.

Then cross my fingers that it will actually run again after all of this...ideally on all eight cylinders!

Feels like a reasonable amount of work to get done in an afternoon though.

Definitely will be adding an electric ratchet to my toolbox soon though, that would have saved me a fair amount of time and definitely arm pain. Especially for things like the exhaust manifolds which were slightly too tight to spin up by hand but have quite long threads on this engine. Just a time saver it would be nice to have.

Hopefully we'll be up and running tomorrow. Hopefully!

[Dick]

Well done mate, great to see its coming back together!! after stripped out a sd1 vitesse engine the first thing I bought was a air fed ratchet...