Warner torques up the con-rods
After taking Christmas week off, and in my case making a quick dash down to Austin, Texas for something I needed,. we’re full bore back to work. Patrick has finished up one Jaguar E-type IRS and has another one pulled down and cleaned up in preparation for paint and a rebuild. I’m not worth much at the moment, having had some outpatient surgery done on the 24th, but Warner’s been taking up the slack for me in the engine room, and we shall also check in on Butch shortly.
A plastigage check on connecting rod bearing clearances
Regular readers of these missives will probably recognize the procedure illustrated here on the left: It’s a check for correct connecting rod bearing clearance, in this case on an MGA engine. They came in at a very favorable .002″ (two thousandths of an inch). Also, for the true cognoscenti, the splash of yellow paint on the camshaft identifies it as an APT VP 10 BK cam, which arrived here in the box seen in the top of the three drawer shop cart in the first picture.
This crowded scene is in fact a pretty good representation of the fact we’re full speed ahead with engines right now. We were stopped today on this MGA engine because I sent the oil pump off to New England Engine, the largest engine Warehouse Distributor in the Northeast, who had a customer who needed it more than we did, so Warner switched gears and started assembly of one of the MG TD engines in our queue.
An AC fuel pump kit with something less
Meanwhile, Butch has been laboring mightily with the red TR3 from Tax Man Motors in Missouri. Yesterday he finished his overhaul of the original AC mechanical fuel pump which the owner wisely insisted we rebuild. Who’d have known about the condition of the paper-thin pump diaphram until it failed ? Regrettably, after about 50 years of faithful service, the oil seal on the operating arm was on its last legs too, and it isn’t supplied in the overhaul kits.
Butch's handmade seal staked in place
So Butch whipped the Mc Master-Carr catalogue off the shelf and ordered in a sheet of nitrile rubber, which you can see on the right in the picture above and made one.
The worn out seal and its cupped washer are at the bottom of the blue paper shop towel, but he used one of our grade 8 SAE washers to locate it and staked it into the pump body with a cold chisel. Those are the four 90 degree hash marks.
Brand new Sports Car Services website for hand held devices
In an attempt to make the most of my temporary incapacity, I’ve been working with David Pound at David Pound Advertising Design on some website updates, beginning with a new homepage and other on-going revisions. Being on the Luddite end of the technology spectrum, I wasn’t aware that Smart Phones and the like have special needs, but David did. So I wrote the copy and provided the pictures while he did the engineering. Here’s a picture.
Since not a one of us have a smart phone, we’d be very interested to know what you think of it.
