Inside a newly-acquired engine

[Tony Griffiths]

Your comments, please, on the inside of this engine and its contents. It's been a "while" since I had one apart and your expert eyes would be appreciated. I don't know how many miles it's run, but the sump had a layer of gooey sediment - and I didn't want to start it until I'd checked for such things.  If you click on each picture, there's a higher resolution copy - and click again for a close-up.

[Zetomagneto]

Phoenix crank, lucky you! Oil residue doesn’t look particularly dirty. 1 conrod not central in piston, but as long as there is a gap no worries.
Picture of sump contents ?

[Tony Griffiths]

Thanks. Invoices show "new crank and rods". Are the rods Phoenix as well? Here's the sump...

[Steve Jones]

Phoenix crank, Austin rods, bores look good from what can be seen. I stripped my old hill climb engine last week and it looked just like this inside although the sump only had a thin film of residue in the bottom. Worth running a magnet through the sump contents and I'd check the big ends for signs of wear or breaking up.

Phoenix rods look like this.

   


Steve

[Charles P]

The sludge is only worth worrying about if it returns under controlled conditions. You don't know how this has been stored or used.

C

[Alan]

Rods appear to be Austin originals. No worries about that if it’s for a road engine. Is that silvery debris in the sump? If so I’d have a look at the big ends.

[Zetomagneto]

Is the sludge ferrous, could be iron dust from the rings/bores.
If your not sure about the engine I would happily take it off your hands!
To be honest I would whip the caps off, if all looks good put it back together and use.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Hi Tony,

good to see there are some nice surprises as well.

Almost all the Phoenix shafts I have used, have "Phoenix" cast onto the side of the webs - JB cranks are machined on the sides and some later ones look identical to Phoenix except this feature.

Solid skirt pistons - JP I suspect, look for a machine dimple in the top to confirm. There were issues with these seizing in the past - this may have been resolved.

The camshaft appears to have a had a fresh grind as well.

[Tony Griffiths]

Thank you - most helpful.

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Thank you - most helpful. I'll do as you suggest.

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Thank you - most helpful. I'll check further.

[Tony Griffiths]

Just checked the sump oil with a very powerful magnet from a hard drive, and it picked up nothing at all. Hovering it over the sump gunge and it collected quite a lot - so it appears that anything harmful has settled out? I strongly suspect that the car has been standing for some time.