[car_restoration] Saved From The Chavs! Cherry Red Restoration

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Phew! That's a relief!

 

It's just such a rough hole, it really looked like damage. But guess that's how it's cast!

 

1 problem down, 4 to go.

[welshpug 1,621]

Have you ever had the engine running yourself before?

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Yeah, I test drove it on the day I bought it, and then drove it back to Cambridge from near Southampton. It was a little lumpy at idle, but otherwise sounded all good to me.

 

You'd have thought if the oiling problem had existed then, it would have blown up on the motorway!

[EnglishRob 0]

I had a read through this earlier, the job you've done of it looks amazing, and the car parts hanging on the washing line and in the dishwasher were the icing on the cake.

 

Having just got a 205 which is in need of some TLC it was interesting to see exactly how much work is involved. I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew :-s

 

Hope you get it up and running soon, especially after all the hard work you've put in to it.

 

Rob

[DamirGTI 323]

To prevent this happening again - undo the dizzy signal cable (to disable ignition/fueling) , fill up the oil filter with oil till the middle and screw it on the block , fill the engine ..and get the engine turning via starter until you see that the oil pressure gauge needle starts to climb up from the rest spot . Not in one go but in few cycles so that you don't harm the starter .

 

When the needle starts moving up , when it climbs till the first dot/mark from the rest spot the engine will be sufficiently primed with oil for starting up safely (especially if it was freshly rebuild .. a cam pre-lube is good idea in this case also) , reconnect the signal cable and then start it up .

Takes a little longer (charge the battery) but it'll save you the engine .

 

I do this always after an engine rebuilds , head gasket jobs , fitting used engine .. even when doing regular oil changes !

 

If the car doesn't have an oil press. gauge , just take your time and spin it via starter for a while with the spark/fueling disabled before you on to start it up .

 

D

Edited August 26, 2013 by DamirGTI

[mmt 14]

I do the same on my engines. However I always take out the sparkplugs to make it easier for the starter motor to turn the engine. Also uses less battery and is easier on the starter motor itself.

[DamirGTI 323]

I do the same on my engines. However I always take out the sparkplugs to make it easier for the starter motor to turn the engine. Also uses less battery and is easier on the starter motor itself.

 

Ditto , forgotten about the spark plugs !

 

D

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Many thanks for your comments.

 

Damir & mmt - Yeah, that's awesome thanks. That's exactly the method my old man showed me when he was up this weekend, and exactly the method I will be using from now on.

 

Admins - Would it be worth turning Damir & mmt's startup method into a sticky somewhere prominent? It would have been really useful to me if I'd managed to find something like that before I destroyed my engine!

 

Ok, so after a very long bank holiday weekend, and some serious intensive care treatment from my father, the pug lives again! I will do a full explanation of the cause, effects and remedial action shortly, but first:

 

I want to play a little game. You see this little disaster wasn't all together my fault! Sure, I have to hold my hands up to not monitoring the oil pressure properly (especially as on later inspection, it appears that I connected the oil pressure wire to the temperature sensor, and vice versa!) which would have arguably prevented the problem. The root cause however, is more subtle. Therefore, the game is this. The below photograph shows the engine, after it was removed from the vehicle. It clearly shows the problem. So what is the problem, and why did the engine work perfectly after I purchased it, but trash itself in less the five minutes after I rebuilt it?

 

 

Sorry, but there's no prize for winning. Just the satisfaction that you're smarter than I am! I expect the pro's will get this in no time at all, but I will explain shortly in any case.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

Edited August 27, 2013 by SkyQuake

[Paul_13 212 1 Cars]

Is one of your remote oil cooler lines connected back into the oil breather?

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

No, but nice try!

[allye 530 3 Cars]

Well it must something to do with oil supply and the oil filter setup?

Edited August 27, 2013 by allye

[Daviewonder 533 3 Cars]

Remote filter pipes connected the wrong way round.

[welshpug 1,621]

oil filter plumbed in backwards.

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Aha! We have a winner! Welshpug is indeed correct, but was just marginally pipped to the post by Daviewonder!

 

It's quite clear that the pipes hadn't been disturbed for some time, and as the engine worked perfectly on the drive home, I can only assume that oil filters without non-return gates in them had been previously used. Upon reassembling the engine exactly as pictured, I fitted a new oil filter, which of course included the non return. The oil made it as far as the filter, and no further, thus resulting in the previously mentioned seizure!

[Mac Crash 78 1 Cars]

Keep the reflective tail board, they look good on cherry reds and gives the car a little distinction really neat thread, enjoyed it so far

[Daviewonder 533 3 Cars]

If only you bought a cheap oil filter! Good read so far, looking forward to seeing the finished article.

 

If you decide not to use the reflective panel I'd be interested in having it off you

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Righto, so I owe you guys a full explanation of exactly what happened with my mechanical failure, and an update as to where I now stand!

As above, I had to pull the camshaft out in order to clean up the galling and sort out the pillow block bearing. In order to do this, the cam belt and pulley had to be removed, and the dizzy dislodged from the other end. In doing this, I'd entered the territory of cam/crank position and ignition timing; well out of my comfort zone. I therefore played my ace, and summoned the old man out of deepest darkest devon, and out of retirement in order to help save my engine! Fortunately, the old man is the jedi master of car mechanics, having starting as a panel beater at the age of 14, and working all the way up to the post of senior lecturer of engine mechanics.

On the old git's arrival, I had removed the cam belt, shaft, pulley and dizzy, and it had already been noted that the pulley key was missing, and the oil was noticably absent underneath the rocker cover. We therefore first needed to find the extent of the damage, and then work out why the oil starvation had occurred.

Now just by looking at the cam followers, Dad was already pretty sure that there was valve damage and that the head was coming off. This he could tell just by looking at the rest position of the cam followers, something which I hadn't even noticed.

In order to verify this, we decided to put my cheapo USB inspection camera down the cylinder to look for any sign of a valve strike. It wouldn't go all the way in, so I wedged it into the plug threads, and turned the engine over several times by hand. We thought we could make something out, but we wern't quite sure. To be certain, Dad suggested that we compare it with the next cylindar along, so we repeated the procedure, again wedging the camera in the plug threads. On turning the engine over, it immediatly became stiffer, after a half turn, there was a dirty great 'THUNK,' as the engine ejected the camera at velocity, where it ricocheted off the bonnet and broke up into several pieces. Thus confirming that I had a total loss of compression on cylendar 3, and that I needed to purchase another usb inspection camera.

Biting the bullet, we removed the stretch bolts (which were tight!) and lifted off the head. There was a noticable valve strike mark, and the offending valve was bent over, stuck slightly open.

Just off topic briefly, the old git showed me a useful method of ensuring the cylinder liners don't inadvertantly move. He used large sockets and two head bolts to hold them in place. Useful trick! Oh, don't use the 22mm socket for this, as you'll need it for turning the crank bolt!

Second thing. Does anyone know why the pistons are labelled with 'DIST' (which I presume means distributor) and an arrow, which points away from the distributor?!

Ok, so back on track. Having found what we believed to be the extent of the damage, I went off and ordered a new head gasket, valve, stem seals (might as well do these at the same time) and at Dad's instruction, some grinding paste and a lapping stick. With that in hand, we still had an oil problem to find. We started by poking around in the oil channels in the head. While we did find plastic filter, we found no obstruction.

Working downwards, we refitted the starter motor, and used it to spin the engine over on the flywheel. This was to make sure that the oil pump was working, and that oil was being fed up the channels to the head correctly. After 20 seconds of continual running, we'd seen no oil.

I therefore drained the system, and removed the sump to get a good look at the oil pump. There was nothing wrong with the drive chain, but we did notice that there appeared to be nothing ensuring drive from the crankshaft to the oil chain sprocket. We couldn't find any evidence of a missing woodruff key, or grub screw, which we were a bit surprised about. In my confusion, I did the usual thing, which was to search the forum, were I discovered that this setup is entirely normal and the sprocket relies on the clamping force of the crankshaft pulley bolt to maintain drive. False herring.

Moving on, I removed the oil pump, and dissassembled it to look for damage. It all looked brand new, but there did appear to be 3/4 of a head gasket someone had removed stuck in the pickup strainer. I cleaned this out, and reassembled the pump, which was then refitted to the block. While the sump was off, we took the oppertunity to check for damage (from the oil starvation), and fortunately found nothing, it had managed to stay fairly lubricated.

Only after all this palava, did the old git notice the way in which my oil cooler pipes had been plumbed in, as discussed above. This was something of a surprise to me, as I had very carefully photographed the engine from all angles, before removing anything from it. I then put it all back together exactly as before (wrong), and proceeded to fit a shiny new oil filter (with the non-return valve), causing the oil starvation.

So people check your oil pipes to make sure they're correct! They should be connected like this:

Important lesson learned.

To test this and make sure we had found the problem, I switched the pipes around and refilled the oil, before spinning the crank over on the starter again. This time, after a few seconds a healthy spurt of oil made it's way up the block! Tah dah!

So, having found the source of the problem, all that was left to do was repair the damage. We got stuck into stripping down the head and removing the valves. I don't own a valve compressor, but fortunatly Dad knows a trick or two, and quickly knocked one up out of a piece of tube with a hole drilled into it, and a G-clamp!

In addition to replacing the damaged inlet valve, while the head was off I took the oppertunity to de-coke all of the valves, and replace the stem seals. There was quite a build up of crud on the valves, but it was removed with relative ease by spinning each valve in the power drill, and cleaning them with a sharp chisel, followed by fine sandpaper. Take care not to touch the valve mating face when you do this, as this has been carefully machined to match the seat in the head.

After refitting each valve they were 'lapped in.' This was a new process to me. For those that don't know, it's simply rotating the valve in contact with the liner, using a grinding paste to remove a small amount of material from both faces. This ensures that the valve has a good fit.

So, while this was a major disaster, and a load of hassle I didn't want to have to go through, at least I now have nice clean valves and new stem seals.

So, with the head all rebuilt, all that was left was to reattach it, and find out whether it worked. New gasket first:

So, with everything rebuilt, we started up, with me watching the oil pressure gauge like my life depended on it! It all seemed to be running nicely, but I popped the rocker cover to take a look just in case.

And there's oil, hurrah! If you compare this to the earlier photo, you can see there's a marked difference between the quantities of oil.

So, now I'll just run it for a while and see what happens! So that's about it for now. The only thing left to do is send a huge 'thankyou' to the old git for saving my engine!

Cheers,

Mike

[welshpug 1,621]

Dist means distribution, i.e timing belt, not distributor.

[welshpug 1,621]

Oil pump is not keyed on many engines, as long as timing pulley is keyed and crank bolt tight its not an issue.

[jackherer 543]

Courroie de distribution is French for timing belt. This question has come up many times over the years on this forum, it's safe to say that if you get it wrong and install the pistons with the 'dist' marking pointing to the ignition distributor you'll end up posting a thread asking why your 205 is so woefully underpowered and wont rev.

[ALEX 98 1 Cars]

Got the dist wrong myself, doesn't cause any problems and you probably would even notice, though a rolling road test would be down a couple of BHP I would guess.

Satisyfying rebuilding an engine isn't it! especially if it runs when you finish it. There's a tense moment when you first start it up after your first rebuild watching the oil pressure and making sure the light doesn't come on.

I bet your first born wouldn't get the same ammount of treatment! LOL

Edited August 30, 2013 by ALEX

[MikeC 10]

Must say a great thread. Got the oil feed question right myself Hopefully all stays good far ya. Decided to do my own arseways, and do the engine work first before bodywork, and in the process have added a year onto the project. Best of luck with the car, tis a credit to your patience.

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Ok, so first things first, the engine seems to be running nicely. I've done a fair bit of running with it, keeping my eyes glued to the oil pressure gauge, and listening out for any problems, and nothing so far! So, hopefully that's all sorted.

Time for a bit of a backtrack then. Before my little engine faux pas, I was starting to get my interior back in shape.

The red carpet was in a pretty tired state. Unfortunatly the car has been owned by a smoker at some stage, and there are fag burns in both the carpet and seats. The carpet was also badly faded on the LHS facing areas.

I quickly ruled out replacing the carpet (due to cost) and so started to look into other options. I researched dying, staining, treating, tinting and even spraying the carpet with a flexible vinyl paint, and none of these options seemed to be a good route to go down. I couldn't get a dedicated car carpet dye in the right colour, and all other fabric dyes were unlikely to be compatible with the nylon carpet. Finally I stumbled on a thread on here where someone had used a red permanent marker to recolour their door cards.

After some experimentation with the ink from pens, I finally settled on a process using Pinfair Alcohol based ink, which can be obtained from arty places and eBay. I gave the carpet a thorough wash, and then used (forced the girlfriend to use) nail brushes to apply the ink, working it into the very base of the carpet. At first it looked pretty awful, as it was difficult not to get dark patches where the ink was too thick, but actually this didn't matter. Once the booze had evaporated away, it left a uniform colour. It's pretty waterproof, and a definite improvement on what I had. You'll need a minimum of 4x 25ml bottles of ink to do the carpet, door cards and centre console if you want to have a go yourself.

This technique, combined with some plasticare and silicone spray converted my door cards from this:

... into this:

And my centre console from this:

... into this:

Happy with the results on the carpet, I turned my attention to the headlining and sunroof cover, which was looking a little on the grey side. This time I used Dylon hand dye (ignore all that junk about boiling clothes on the hob). I simply mixed the dye up in warm water, with the correct quantity of salt. I then used a paint roller to apply it to the headlining.

Again, this looks pretty ugly the first time it dries; as the water evaporates off leaving streaks of salt behind. But after rinsing the salt out (I used a hand pumpred pressure washer) the result was pretty good.

Next job was the rear quarter carpets. These were really pretty skanky, and beyond saving. I therefore sourced some new carpet, and used the old ones as templates.

I then stuck the new carpets onto the metalwork using a spray contact adhesive. Then the plastic trim went in on top.

Ok, that's all for now. This brings you up to date with where I was before I blew the motor. Another update coming soon with the progress since then!

[Davy 18 1 Cars]

Well done (to the the pair of you!) on the carpet transformation. Wee car's going to be lovely!

[Weser 30]

Wow its this little extra attention to detail that really adds. It looks amazing really coming along well! Fair play to you, great write up as well