Engine assembly questions.

[Peter Lawson]

Hi Steve, thanks for that tip. Will remember that! Very useful.

Endfloat is correct I think. I did the lapping trick until I got it to the correct figure when tight. I'll see if I can measure it in the engine now with the dial gauge to check though.

Looks like I'll be home today with a cold so I will see if I can film what's happening and show the amount of backlash later on when it's light.

There is definitely a lot of backlash but what worried me more is it seems inconsistent all the way around. More in some places than others.

A pain to have to take all that apart again but much easier to get it right now with the engine half assembled on the bench than in the car!

Simon

Hi Simon,

With reference to your use of a silicone base gasket, I'm helping Stephen Barker rebuild his engine with such a gasket from the Seven Workshop after successfully fitting one to my Ruby (no more leaks). Bear in mind that when the block is tightened down on to this it squashes about 1mm so you can't get an accurate valve clearance until this is done because you are effectively altering the distance between your cam followers and camshaft lobes.
After assembling the block and pistons I too noticed a slight noise from the timing gears when turning the engine over by hand using the flywheel. It seemed to occur only when the pistons were reaching TDC. I then held my hand on the camshaft gear to create some drag and the noise lessened considerably so I assumed this was a bit of backlash. However when copious amounts of oil were squirted over the gears it all but disappeared.

Good luck, Peter.