A bit of foolishness for a Monday afternoon.
This is the car I dragged home from Harden earlier in the year. Shabby, run-down but not totally trashed car with a rattly big end.
A mixture of curiosity and watching too many Matt Berry Starlet videos lead me to pull the sump off.
I had already pulled apart the locked-up original motor from the road car - the nuts had come off the rod cap on #2 rod. The cap, both nuts and one intact rod bolt were sitting in the bottom of the sump. The other rod bolt was still intact, in place in the rod.
This triggered my curiosity on this car’s motor.
This one had just spun #4 bearing. The cap was still in place and tight.
Here’s what I could find of the bearings…
Hmmm…
The rod is not great, but the crank seems to have survived - based on the highly scientific fingernail test.
So… I went and grabbed the big end bearing from one of the other rods from the road car motor.
And slapped them in.
Science!
I actually looked up the torque spec for the bolts, but I couldn’t get the used bolts to the spec - they were just stretching…
Cleaned the sump out, and used the finest quality gasket maker I had on hand … which is windscreen sealant. ?
Slapped it back together with the rattle gun, and then made the appalling discovery that I didn’t have any cheap crappy oil in stock - there’s usually a container that’s come out of the boot of some crap box, but I must have used it.
I can now reliably inform everyone that cheap crap oil from Woolworths costs $18.50… it used to be $7 back in 1994!?
Anyhow, it now runs and doesn’t rattle.
I honestly have no idea why I bothered, especially seeing as the stretched rod bolts mean that I will never trust it… but there you go.
I then degreased the engine bay - been a long time since I have had something with half and inch of oil soaked grime all over the motor and gearbox.
Future plans are …. non existent. It is the spare shell and panels for El Wifeo’s rally car, so it won’t be sold. It might be the car that gets the rough-and-ready +T setup, but then I don’t know what I will use it for - and don’t want to risk the panels thrashing it around a khanacross or something.
