LCR Build Thread (Kennard)

[Ash-Kennard]

Moment of truth

Got to the garage at about 1pm on Friday. left at 4.30pm :s

Got the car on the ramps for tracking after fitting the rear beam, ball joints and new suspension. Been driving with the band on the wheel pointing to 10 o'clock, very weird. It is also likely that the tracking was very much out of Alignment.

They had a really good hawkeye alignment system so I took full advantage of that. I asked for maximum caster, -2 camber and 0 toe.

After an hour and a half on the ramp the manager came over as a queue was starting to form.

Unfortunately, we were no where near the targets at this point because the guy doing the setup refused to believe the silver project camber adjusters could also alter camber. This was because they had only seen camber plate top mounts that are bolted to the chassis and set purely for camber adjustment.

Had to get off the ramp for about an hour to get the other 4 cars in the queue through.



(can see the vinyl on the front bumper de laminating, happened on the first sunny day unfortunately and then started to rip with stone chips and rain.)

Then back on the ramps, another mechanic came over, one I have dealt with before, he actually listened to what I was saying and set the top mounts with the slot facing about 45deg from the travel of vehicle direction. The set up plan was max caster by sliding the strut as far back as possible and then rotate the top mount to set the camber. Set the toe and readjusted slightly.

This is what we finished with in the end:



Been for a couple of drives now and the car feels better than it has ever done in the past, really pleased. Corners very hard and grips much better. Next step: Get bumpers sprayed and then Powerrrrrrrrrrr.

Cheers, Ash

 

[Ash-Kennard]

edit: by all accounts Kennard seems to have had fun at curborough, something about a head gasket and rac

The day was awesome, until it wasn't. The carnage to the car is much more serious than anyone would have expected.

Had a good night sleep at a friend's in Coventry, then rocked over to Curborough for 8.15,

One of the first there so had a good opportunity to chat to people. Prawn then turns up with his driveshaft giving him ****, so has to get another fitted ASAP. Somehow he manages it and we go for lunch ready for the afternoon session.



Set a PB and very pleased it was under 30s as apparently that was the target.

Extra stuff dumped from the car...




It gets to 4pm and I am on track leaving down the finish straight. Full throttle, changed up to third and sudden misfire, brakes and steering go solid. Somehow managed to get it the brakes to work in time to leave the track, coast to a stop in the paddock and turn the engine off.




I try to turn it over and no luck. A couple more attempts then under the bonnet to have a look. I then leave it to cool for about 30 mins.

Used this time to take the track numbers off the car.

Had a look with various members of club gti and we come to the conclusion that there is low compression in at least 2 of the cylinders, likely to be the head gasket. The coolant has completely drained even though I knew it was fine in the morning, as I had checked it. Someone then comes down from the timing area who says that they heard the misfire and saw lots of white smoke. Head gasket. Checked for mayo on the oil cap. There is a small amount. Head gasket.Then go to check the oil, and it is massively over filled. Alarm bells start ringing as we realise that the coolant has somehow drained into the engine.

It gets to the end of the day with a ridiculous mk 1 coming in first, I then proceed to borrow his tow bar and get pulled off track and towed on the road with a great volunteer with a road car, A few miles down the road to this place:



I then sit here from 6 untill 10.30. Where the RAC had contracted out a company to do their job. 1st trailer turns up at 7.45, awesome. He then tells me he can't take me home (150 miles) as they need drivers in the local area as they are short staffed on a Sunday. Fine. Wait until 10pm for the other driver in the local area who could take me home.

We get the car loaded up:






It turns out he was a miserable b*****d, and a big truck this size can't be driven quickly (56mph max). He then tells me in the most cuntish way that he could only take me to a service station off the m40 near the a34. Irritating.

I then get dropped off in the Lorry park, unload, lock the car, go get some food.

Sit in the car eating a pulled pork meat slice (I love you Ginsters!) and notice a red light now flashing next to the temp gauge:



45 minutes later I get a call from the next recovery vehicle who says he has been waiting for a call from the other driver to let him know I was here. It turns out as well that they meet in the Travelodge car park to transfer vehicles so The car was in the wrong place and he couldn't find my in the massive expanse of filled lorry park.

He finds me at about 1am. He starts to get the car on the ramps. after assuring me he wouldn't catch the splitter on the ramp. He catches the splitter on the ramp step, scuffing it massively and folding it under the bumper. Annoying:



and after a search for some wood and some very careful towing skills we got it on the ramp:




We leave only to find this chap is awesome. Lets me smoke in the cabin (because he does) Finally got to the garage I wanted to be dropped to and get the car off the ramp in the dark by torch light.

Go and speak to the garage in the morning, surprisingly, they did notice the car was there. I explained what had happened as honestly as I could. They said leave it with them and they would have a look.

I go back to see them Tuesday evening as they have had a quick look just a general exterior checkover and checked the coil packs and spark plugs...



Oh dear.

The spark plug has melted, dropped out the ceramic section straight through the piston and into the rod area, potentially bending it and there was evidence of lots of debris. Also, bits could have gotten to the turbo. To make things worse, the threads were welded together so he has had to strip the thread in the head. Although the head's integrity could also be at risk as valves could be bent and could crack the head. The garage want to take the head off to get a proper look. I think it is the right thing to do, only labour and then they can really access the damage. If it is just the head, rods and pistons I think the engine will need a heavily modded rebuild, if it is the lower end too, I may be looking for a new engine...

f**k.

If it is the modded rebuild route, then I will be happy in a way as this has just accelerated plans. Although by a year at least, which means I have not planned parts or a budget. Slightly worrying.

Cheers for reading about my sad week.

Finger crossed this all works out.

Cheers, Ash

 

[arb79]

Not good news mate but atleast you got home eventually!

Hope things work out for you.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Here are some decent photos of the day of the Leon before the " Incident"










Perhaps a send off for the Leon. We shall see.

Cheers, Ash

 

[traumapat]

Gutted for you.

 

[rainbird]

Any news on this yet mate? You must be absolutely dying to get it back on the road.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Making a come back

So, it has been a long time since I last posted here. I have mostly just been fixing all the images that disappeared in this build thread.

So after the events of Curborough, I had three viable options:

1. Bin the car, buy another.
2. Repair the car with the necessary repairs
3. Repair the car with all the options I would have completed during my power upgrade phase.

I have opted for option 3. Especially as this is the cheapest I would ever get the labour for a build as it was necessary for me to use a garage as I live in a flat and have nowhere to work on a car, and TBH the time to do so unaided and without tools due to career commitments. Whether this was the right option, who knows, I know my wallet isn't thanking me right now, but if I can get exactly what I want, I can't complain and the long term usage will be more enjoyable.

I was very fortunate that a month or so before LCR death, my GF and myself had purchased an 06 1.5L Suzuki Swift with the intention of her learning to drive in. I am currently using this for long distance commuting until I get the Leon back.

Back before the Leon died its deadly death, I was in contact with a local garage. One guy in there in particular was a VAG junkie. He built the first MK2 Golf with a TFSI engine at his previous place of employment and was a fountain of knowledge for me to pick at. I had been discussing power upgrades in the past with him such as TIP and manifold. But now it was necessary for me to really understand what is required to build a vehicle that could happily be used on track and on the road.

After he had checked the engine bay over properly, the assessment was made that a valve had dropped, bounced off the piston, taken out another valve and the spark plug, one valve went through the piston and the other jumped into the next cylinder, to make matters worse, all of the swarf had been sucked into the turbo and that was also dead.




So I chatted with friends, this forum, the various FB groups and this garage to build a list of upgrades that would deliver what I wanted. This took about a month to complete and order all of the bits.

Here is the list at this point in time (November):


So another month or so goes by and finally the LSD Diff that was being shipped from Canada arrived! The last piece that couldn't be order next day had arrived! Very exciting. The next morning I went to my local garage and was told that the one person I could trust to complete the work was leaving in a week, so they could throw the car together for me, or I take it somewhere else.

Irritating, but I wanted this build to be done right as I plan to keep the car for the foreseeable future. I work very much to the ethos of "Do it right, Do it once".

Fortunately, my trusted guy, who knew the project (Paul) was moving back to the company (The Phirm) that he build his MK2 with, but this time was going back as a partner as well as mechanic. Fortunately for me, he organised for the car to be built in the middle of January. So as well as moving all of his tools and equipment, he also moved the engine that had arrived for the Leon and sorted out a flatbed to move the Leon over as well with all the removed components in the boot/on the back seat.






Things were looking good and I had heard great things about the Phirm so I was pleased that they would be undertaking the work. I then met the original owner and other Partner (Tim) and their apprentice (Jamie). All really cool guys and exceptionally knowledgeable about any VAG vehicle.

I had a sit down with Tim and Paul and we went through the build plan. I explained that I wanted to be as involved as possible; I wanted to know this car inside out. It was agreed that I would be involved in each step and complete most of the work under the guidance of the team at the Phirm, mostly Tim. Estimated cost of the build was approximately £2K at this point, similar to the previous garage.

It was this day I brought all of the components I had bought over to them for storage ready for the build. Let’s just say we struggled for space, but made it work. It was effort enough getting the parts there! The plan now was to leave work early every Friday to complete the work.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 1

Day one comes around in January, the old engine has been removed and the turbo sent back to AET for recycling. The new engine was put in an engine stand and work was to begin.












The old sump was removed; all the easy to reach internals were cleaned including the oil pump and the mating surface to the new sump on the bottom end. The new baffled sump was then sealed and fitted.










Fancy


It was at this point Tim insisted we removed the head to check the condition of the top of the bottom end. Unfortunately, it was gutting to find that the cylinders were quite severely scored, but it was fortunate that Tim had the initiative to have a look; so many other garages would have just banged in the replacement engine I had supplied.

I then stripped the engine back and took the piston/rod assembly off the crank and out of the cylinders. The pistons were heavily worn, the piston rings were damaged and the scoring could not be removed through honing alone. The decision was made on the spot to strip the bottom end bare and send it off for boring to a 0.5mm larger diameter and then rehoning ready for upgraded Wossner pistons. This will allow me to run whatever I want in the future should I choose a change of set up later on. This is also a standard size as a recycled VW engine will go through this process, but with VAG pistons.














Unfortunately this was not picked up at the delivery of the engine (at the old garage) as the head was never removed and only and external inspection was conducted at delivery (I was not present). What is even worse is that it had been so long since the delivery of the engine that eBay and Paypal would not support my claim. Gutting, big expense and significantly slowed down the build. However, on the plus side, it will be awesome and a known condition when complete and I will no understand how a bottom end should be built and function.

We also made the agreement that we would also upgrade head components as it didn't make sense to have a perfect and known condition on the bottom end and an unknown stock condition in the head. Especially as the original concern was very much valve/head related. With this new understanding we agreed that the build should not exceed £5K including the additional components not previous thought to be required. Whether £5K will be stuck to is not certain, but it is too late to back out now. No point having half a car.

I also had a look at the Leon itself and was horrified to find that all the leather interior trim was rank with mould. Turns out my doors have been leaking (common) but because I had been using it every day, this had not been a problem in the past. The legends at the Phirm agreed to have the interior professionally cleaned before it is returned. I don't think any of us wanted to touch it TBH. It is so much worse now though.




I also took home the freshly cleaned inlet manifold from the new engine and painted it into a very pleasant matt black, this should not flake from residual heat in the engine bay as it is temperature rated paint for exhaust components. Although I believe there is a baking process for this paint to become fully durable, we shall see if it remains during the build. The thinking behind a black manifold was to increase the emissivity and therefore the rate at which heat would dissipate. Whether this work in practice is not yet fully understood.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 2

Because the head components were not delivered yet, work began on the gearbox rebuild to fit the Wavetrac differential. Gearbox was stripped. Everything removed and thoroughly cleaned. Tim explained that the differential cog is mated to the rest of the cogs, so any damage would require a need to replace all the cogs. Moments after saying this, he passed me the differential cog and (I think) pretended to drop it. He **** both of us up with that one! Fortunately, the cog remained in hands and all was good, scary moment though.










The standard differential bolts were then drilled out with the pillar drill and a few drill bits, cleaned and aligned with the uprated LSD differential. Brand new ARP stretch bolts were seated, pressed and torqued until perfect.








Before reassembly, Tim also explained that one of the biggest failures in this 02m box was a scenario where the selector forks accidentally lock onto 2 gears at once, creating a massive bang and bye-bye gearbox. The fix for which is to separate the forks from the fork handles and reattach them in a more robust fashion. This involved drilling them out, threading/tapping, inserting a bolt, torqueing, welding into place and then grinding. These are not coming off any time soon.







One of the most impressive attribute of the Phirm's work practice is that they will have a crack at anything and will fabricate a solution if possible and required. They have all the right tooling for it as well, more of a precision engineering workshop at one end than a garage!

Now the gearbox was reassembled ready for torquing as required.









Another failure of this model of the 02m gearbox is that the main bearing can work loose and the housing can then rotate. This causes additional wear, additional debris in the closed system and could potentially lead to the famous 02m gearbox wine. For this, spacers were sanded, positioned and squeezed into a location where a flush condition was clear and the chance of movement is removed when the bearing is compressed sufficiently.




Now all torqued up and ready for mating with the engine.




This has probably been the best day of the project so far as it was the first time that it positive progress had been made. We called it quits for the day here as it was getting pretty late in the day.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 3

The bottom end had been returned to the garage, pistons had arrived from Germany and piston rings were available.










The task for today was to sand the piston rings for each cylinder to the correct spacing. in this case my nominal spacing value was 0.45mm for the top rings and 0.53mm for the second rings. An arduous process but an essential one for building a race engine. I used 600 grit paper, sanding one edge of the ring whilst keeping the angle so when fitted in the piston there was no tapering to the gap (verified by closing and examining light through the slit). Each time positioning the ring in the cylinder and assuring concentricity by following it in with one of the new pistons and aligning the piston ring female sections with the top of the cylinder I could then remove the piston and measure the gap with a feeler gauge. Often followed by removing the piston ring from the cylinder to repeat the sanding process again. I put vast time into this activity and we are now sitting very close to the nominal, very slightly looser in each case as a looser engine is faster.







I did **** up one top ring and tried to increase the gap to the second ring gap specification only to realise that they are completely different, so a replacement ring was ordered and completed correctly.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 4

Time to strip, clean and rebuild the head!

Cam cover off was only loosely in place from the previous owner and the tappets were delivered in a tub of oil. It was a really strange one that someone had severely modified in the past for shows. Not sure I will use this one as I do have a std one available.

Removed all of the Cam clamps and stored in sequence. Cam tensioner removed and then Cams out. Following this the Spark plugs were removed as well.








Using the valve tool to compress the springs, I removed all the valves using a stick-like magnet and a pick for the collets.

With the valves, springs, spring ends, valve collets and seals all removed, I reassembled them beside the head.







It was now time to lap in the new valves! Tim showed me how to do 1 of the inlet valves, from then on I had 19 more to do. with an abrasive paste applied to the seal surface and oil applied to the valve stem, each valve was worked into the sealing surface, cleaned, checked for any dark marks and repeated until a perfectly matched surface was clear. Each valve was then numbered and positioned in the box they had arrived in for later. This took hours, but will be worth it when revving to 8K. The head was then cleaned in the solvent bath.










The seal surface was then sanded with 120 grit paper on a block until it was perfectly clean with no dark regions, again to ensure an excellent sealing surface. Again, took hours of elbow grease. This was completed on both manifold surfaces as well as the bottom of the head,

The head was then again cleaned in the solvent bath (Thoroughly), dried and all bits put away for another day. The old valves, springs, collets etc all went in the bin.






Tools I need in my life

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 5

The intention today was to fit all the new seals, valves, springs, spring plates and collets. Seals were fitted, new supertech spring perches, valves and springs were also fitted in their previously numbered positions and then it was realised that, unfortunately, it was not clear we would be using the old collets, which had been binned the week before, by me.







I went through the bins with no luck of finding 40 half collets in a filled biffa metal bin. so we had to source them from another head. Fortunately, I happened to have a destroyed one in the boot of my Leon. Unfortunately, it meant stripping another head before work could continue.

The old head saw much less care and was dumped on the work top after some photos of the original damage. Severe to say the least.








Original Exhaust manifold was removed at this point and to my surprise was in perfect nick! One for eBay I imagine.






With the Cams now out of the way, tappets removed and the valve tool in position I removed all of the collets. The ones where the valve heads had sheared were a complete bitch to remove. I was then taught the "beat them out technique" which involves a socket and a hammer beating the spring perch until the collet fell out of place. The old head was then binned as it would never function again.

Finally all the required collets were collected, springs were compressed with the valve tool (MUCH stiffer springs) and the collets were positioned on the valve with a small amount of Lithium based grease. The was a fiddly job on the inlet side, no room to work, but ended up using a flathead screw driver and the Lithium grease to hold the collet to the flathead and then carefully position them between the valve tool stem supports. By the 5th valve I was dropping them straight on, this is certainly a job that involves the practice makes perfect methodology. I finished this MUCH faster than I was expecting, which was nice.






The plan now was to fit the tappets, cams, cam tensioner and cam cover. This didn't happen though as the tensioner belt was not new and we weren't certain on the original orientation and didn't want to risk running it backwards so another was ordered.

This gave some time to check the fitment of the Relentless pro 4 manifold and ensure we would be ordering the correct gasket for this.




Some attention was then paid to the bottom end again where I again pulled out the 120 grit and block to obtain a good sealing surface ready for mating with the head. This was a big effort. The sandpaper was constantly tearing on the bottom end and it took several hours to remove all the dark regions. Although Tim and myself are very happy with how it is now looking.

The bottom end was then cleaned in the solvent bath including all the channels/crevasses.




This was all we had time for today so the bottom end was put back on the engine stand and covered with a plastic seat cover. The same went for the head, covered and stored until next week.

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 6

As we knew there was limited time today, because the guys were off to a surprise birthday party for the Editor of the Performance VW magazine :s , we decided there was time to finish the head build.

Each of the cam clamps were cleaned in sequence in the solvent bath and cleaned.

The tappets were installed from their oil tank the previous owner had stored them in. They were a good fit location wise and just loose enough to rotate as expected. The excess oil was then cleaned out and blasted dry with a compressed air line.




The Cams were then cleaned on the frictionally relevant surfaces and put to the side for later.

Tim then pointed at some of the cam running surfaces and showed me some burring that had to be gently removed with more 600 grip paper until perfectly smooth.

The cams and tensioner were then positioned in their install position and a small amount of oil was applied to all the running surfaces except for the seal end. The cam clamps were then positioned and gently torqued up evenly to prevent the cam shaft from deforming. Once all torqued up, the cog was turned until one was lined up with the alignment point. Unfortunately one of the cams needs rotating by one tooth on the cog, this requires disassembly of one side to complete. Once again time had caught the better of us and it was time to call it quits for the day.







So to date I have now handed over £3.5K so far, mostly on parts like pistons, valves, springs, gaskets and all the other little things that needed replacement.

The build is really going to start moving now all of the meticulous and long winded jobs are complete.

This is the exciting next bit


Next steps are:

Adjust cam alignment, cam cover on.
Fit piston rings to pistons.
Fit pistons to rods.
Fit piston/rod assembly to the cylinder and crank.
Mate head to bottom end.
Build up bottom end again with the new sump.
Transfer all parts from the old engine over.
Mate gearbox, flywheel and clutch to the freshly built engine.
Fit all to the Leon.
Fabricate the exhaust in places.
Fit water meth kit.
Fit updated fuelling changes and sparks.
Mapping with United Motorsport.

I hope you are enjoying the read so far, much more to come.

Cheers, Ash

Apologies for the several posts but:

 

[Kibby]

well that killed two hours..

well worth the read!

Shame this had to be done but it makes for a fantastic thread

good luck buddy hope it comes together as you want it !

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Thank you Kibby, I'm glad you are enjoying the content so far. I hope it works out too! I plan to start updating this thread more regularly, so hopefully it won't take you 2 hours next time.

Day 7 and a bit

I arrived at the Phirm after finishing work early at about 1pm, cleared a work space, got the head out of storage and started the cam timing realignment.

I compressed the chain tensioner spring with the tool (Need one of these) lined up the inlet cam to to alignment point, marked how many teeth to rotate the other cam (1) and removed all of the cam clamps. For some reason I couldn't get the loose cam to pop out of its seated position at one end, Tim came over and gave the timing wheel a smack and sure enough, out it came. Realigned the loose cam by rotating it through a tooth length, some motor oil on the topside of the cam runners and cam clamps back on. Torqued evenly through to 15Nm. Cycled the system through and all good. Win.









The seal clamps could now be added. Sealant onto the interference surface, positioned and torqued up to 15Nm. The seals were then pushed into the correct seating position until they were set to the same depth all round. Wheel on and torqued up. Done.




Next is to fit the manifolds. Starting with the exhaust manifold (Relentless Pro4 with the coating), gasket on, positioned and then noticed a clash to one of the heat shield bolts. A bit annoying, so I dug around until I found a smaller headed bolt with the correct thread pitch (also replacing the other to match), the thread length was too long, so I cut them down, smoothed them off and ran a nut down to clean up the threads. There was also a spacer missing from the perpendicular through bolt, so I cut a small length of tube until the sizing was correct.








Fitted the heat shield with the newly found bolts and spacers, refitted the manifold, still hitting the bolt head! Two options are now available, one is to take material off the manifold the other is to take material off the head boss. The heat shield needs to remain in the system as the boost pipe mounts to it, although this could be worked around, but also I do not want my electrical components to melt because the shielding is removed...

I opted to remove material from the head boss. This is because the manifold tubing is a small wall thickness so will only give me so much clearance, but also it could hinder the performance of the manifold potentially creating a "hot spot". One largely irritating aspect to this is that there is a significantly higher risk of any swarf getting into the internals of the head. To protect the head, I fitted the Cam cover I do not intend to use that came with the engine and stuffed the manifold ports with blue roll.



I started by taking 4mm off from the boss with a file, still hits, then upped it to 7mm. I have clearance, however the heat shield is now clashing with manifold in another area. I then bent the heat shield and refitted. I now had a clash to the bolt head again as the heat shield had been holding off the manifold from seating properly on the previous attempts. I decided to take a lot more material off of the boss, somewhere in the region of 11-12mm total. Finally I had proper bolt head clearance, but it was still clashing on the heat shield.




Several hours later, after using a vice, hammer, chisel, adjustable spanner, a hydraulic press, G clamp and tubs worth of elbow grease I was still clashing to the manifold, but only slightly. This manifold had to be wrong! A direct fit component should not require this much aggro. I then got pissed off and went home about 8pm.



I got home and contacted the seller of the Manifold to question its integrity and the fitment process.

Turns out it is designed to fit onto the engine without the heat shield and could be fitted by skipping the bolt that I had been having so many problems with. However, I know that the manifold would still have clashed on the heat shield bolt's boss without the heat shield, so head modification was still necessary. The reason for the geometry is that the K03/K03s upgrade builds don't need the boost pipe mounts, and people run without the temperature protection. This is not for me. Fortunately, I already knew that it was possible to keep both bolts and the heat shield, but was told that severe bending would be required.

I went back this morning with a fresh perspective and a better attitude after my long week at work followed by an infuriating problem. I had spent some time thinking about bending angles and how they would deviate when a bolt is tightened. I also had the thought that perhaps I could remove some material from the heat shield itself.

Starting with the bending, because I was putting a lot more thought into what I was doing, I realised that it was the act of tightening the heat shield bolts that was pulling the heat shield away from the head and towards the manifold, I then started concentrating on the angle of the heat shield where the bolts contacted. Big improvement. I had now managed to make the heat shield touch the head. Finally. But it was still having a clash to the manifold from the heat shield profile. Removed once more and beat the clash region. Hurray! we have a gap, not a big one, but it was excellent news. Very pleased. Went to the shop and picked up a vanilla coke to celebrate.





I also had a little sit down and looked though some magazines and found Nick and his car in one of them!





I then went to fit the manifold with a test run using some random nuts (not the copper ones) and found that this seated the manifold deeper into the head and my gap was again removed and was now a clash condition to the heat shield again. I had a slight eureka moment when I measured the wall thickness of the heat shield and found it was 2mm deep, if I could remove even 1mm that would give me my clearance back. I marked up the clash, removed the manifold and used an airline driven skurfing pad grinder style tool. This worked amazingly well. 30 minutes later, due to conservative usage, the manifold fitted with no clashes. Probably a good 8 hours spend on this frustrating job.






Very pleased with my efforts I put everything away, cleaned up the unholy amount of aluminium and steel filings and went home to enjoy my weekend.

Thank you for reading, more updates next week, hopefully without a frustrating problem holding up proceedings.

Cheers, Ash

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 8

Arrived about 1pm this week, brought the head down and began fitting the copper nuts to attach the exhaust manifold. What a bitch that job is! very awkward to rotate some of the nuts. Eventually manage it though after bringing out pretty much every 12mm spanner of different species I could find.



I was terrified that bolting it down would create another clash condition between the manifold and heat shield. Fortunately when tightened this was not the case and all went to plan (for once).







Then came to fitting the inlet manifold. Gasket on, manifold positioned, where are the nuts and bolts? In the boot of the Leon under half the engine bay that was removed at the previous garage. Great. Dug through it found a load of nuts and bolts in a cup, spot on.

Went to fit them and it turns out I am one short. Dove back into the Leon's boot and pulled everything out to no avail. I will now source some more (shiny) bolts and washers this week (couldn't find any in the store), not the end of the world as the ones I had found looked very shabby.

Because I had pulled out the boot contents it was the perfect opportunity to get through any unnecessary components. Mostly fixings and old spark plugs. I also came across the Cam cover, so I cleaned it up ready to be fitted. Weirdly though, no matter how hard I scrubbed at it in the solvent bath it just never looked clean, so I have taken it away to paint with some crackle paint.

Because the Phirm were having a photo shoot on Monday, and the guys were dealing with other customers I then attacked the Leon's interior which had become very mouldy over winter with apparently leaking door seals. Steering wheel, gearstick, seatbelts, floor mats, carpets, seats, door cards, headliner and dash all needed lots of attention. I think it came out quite well.

Before:





After:






Not that most of this really matters as the front seats, wheels and gearstick will be changing soon anyways and the rear seats will go when it is cage o'clock.

The guys have agreed to fix the leaking doors this week so a repeat of this cleaning exercise is not necessary as I would prefer to spend my limited time building the engine.

Tim was then available to crack on with more important work with me so the piston/ con-rod assembly began.



All the rods had been cleaned before, so only required minor attention. Tim then showed me how to assemble the first one, keeping the position of the front of the piston and the front of the rod consistent throughout each assembly for assembly ease later to the bottom end. C-clip in one end of the piston, lubrication of the gudgeon pin contact surfaces in the piston then slide the gudgeon pin through the piston and rod until it contacted the C-clip fixing. The C-clip at the other end of the gudgeon pin could then be positioned and located. Once in place a pick was used to pull the C-clip as far outwards as possible to seat it as firmly as possible.








Pretty:



It was now time to fit the piston rings onto the pistons. Because I had adjusted the spacing of the gap to marry to each cylinder, each cylinder's piston rings were labelled and kept in separate bags to keep them from being mixed up. The Rods were then also labelled to remove any confusion later.




The oil control rings were set to line the blue section with the same hole on each piston. at the front edge.



The Second ring gap was set to line up with the milled pocket on the piston of the gudgeon pin surface (~1/3 of the way round from the oil control ring blue section).



The Top ring was then positioned to the same pint on the other side of the piston (so again ~1/3 of the way round from the oil control ring blue section, but in the opposite direction to the second ring).



Inspected them all and rotated whatever needed to be rotated. Done.





We then called it quits for the day ready for an engine assembly next week.

Things are finally moving!

Cheers, Ash.

 

[rainbird]

Great to see this coming together at last mate, has been a long time coming and I bet you can't wait to get back behind the wheel!

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Cheers dude, I really CANNOT wait. Running it in will be so hard!

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Day 9

Hello,

Not too much progress today, (2 weeks ago) but still important steps forward.

First things first, Prepare the crank.

Crank had already been cleaned at this point, but there was evidence of some small scoring marks on the journal surfaces, so taking some 1200 grit to it until it is perfectly smooth was the way to go. With cleaning again afterwards, of course.







Also cleaned the bottom end, ready to drop the crank in to keep it safe.



Crank prepared, time to get the piston/rod assemblies out to play.









All good, removed them again now everything was checked.

Found all of the sharp edges on the top edge of the cylinders and sanded them until they were a slight radii. This should avoid snapped piston rings upon fitment.

Cleaned the cylinders and lubricated





Using this bad boy, all the pistons were fitted after lubricating the lower end of each piston.







Checking the head gasket fits the oversized bores. All good.



Now to strip all the auxiliary components from the old engine. What a ****ing mess I made of this. I wish someone had told me that the engine was still full of oil and flooded coolant!





All the bits...



These were then all cleaned as they were all covered with oil.

That was it for today. Still, moving forward is nice.

Cheers, Ash

 

[Ash-Kennard]

Cam cover colouring in

After the efforts from the last trip, I took home the freshly cleaned Cam cover for some colourtastic treatment.

Masking up (I used rubber, double sided take and a wadding punch for all of the bosses, electrical taps for anything else):







First coat (Vertical)
Second coat (Horizontal)
Third coat (Diagonal):




Cured:




Masking removed:




The colour wasn't coming through very well on the phone, so I added some contrast. Suddenly gone from Burgundy to Red.







Hopefully it looks as good as I imagine attached to the rest of the engine. Also, hopefully I won't damage it before the car is reassembled fully.

I LOVE the texture, ****ing awesome.

Cheers, Ash