Engine rebuild

[silverfrost]

Bjorn,

Sorry to see you have had this drama mate gutted for you , will be intrested to see whats gone wrong with the engine as the rest of the guys have said its probably more chance of it been somthings not been right rather than a mechanical error! But best not to blame the mechanic first,

Hopefully the work was covered by warranty and it gets repaired this time to a good standard,

keep us posted and hope it all works out ok,

Regards danny

[yeti]

The engine wasn't even hot. I had driven about 1 mile from home when it happened. I guess I'll know more next week.

B

[talon]

Sorry to hear the news mate - hopefully it is something simple

[rydning]

This is realy to bad...And our season is pretty short here..

Did you do any work to the head like changing the valveguidens ? And did you messure the play of the valves to see how much wear the valveguidens had if you didnt change this?

I broke the turbo on my 05 BMW530DA trailing my Lotus on the way to the track last weekend...endet up driving the Esprit 500km home...

Have you taken of the head to investigate?Check if the timing belt is correct first,Then look for brooken valve springs and if the valve is secied in the guidens.

[GavinT]

wondering if you had any news on the source of the problem..

[yeti]

Hi Gavin,

I have been promised some progress next week. Preliminary diagnosis is a sticking exhaust valve on no. 1 cylinder. On holiday now, but I will update when I have any news - keep your fingers crossed

Bjorn

[yeti]

Latest news!

The engine is out and the diagnosis so far is that inletvalve no. 2 on cylinder 1 has seized. A camera was used to determine that the piston is undamaged. Hopefully the head will be off this week and a more complete examination performed. Maybe, just maybe, I'll have the car on the road by the end of August. Keep your fingers crossed.

According to my mechanic this should be a guarantee job - phew

B

[yeti]

Picture time:

Here is the offending article. As you can see from the top of the stem of the valve it is looking a little rough. That is where it got stuck.

In the picture below you can see a small mark on the top righthand side of the piston where it tried to push the valve back into the valve guide.

And here is where the new valve will go when the valve guide has been honed. Hopefully next week

[silverfrost]

Well found bjorn,

Glad it did not end up been to serious could of been a lot worse, good luck with the rebuild and hope shes back on the road soon,

Regards danny

[yeti]

Just found out that my mechanic has started assembling the engine

Maybe it will be on the road next week - keep fingers crossed.

I'm overhauling the front brake calipers and the steering rack as well. Will post pictures soon.

Bjorn

[Simon350S]

Its all looking very good.

Word of warning though, you may want to resize your images before the moderators delete them! You'll find info on what acceptable in the 'Forum Info and Help' bit

Keep it up

[yeti]

Done.

Edited August 19, 2009 by Yeti

[yeti]

Endless wait for parts. . . . . .

We wanted to change the camwheel due to wear in the center because of the seized valve. A replacement was ordered, explicitly stating that the camwheels were of the round tooth variety. This is supposedly not normal for the 1987 Esprit, but we have seen that other engine details on my engine differs from the "norm". Looks like the engine is a bit of a hybrid between old and new. Shame they didn't fit the new cam housings while they were at it.

Anyway, the camwheel that arrived had the wrong toothing of course - Arrgh! New style camwheels aren't in stock so delivery time is at least 10 more days.

So what can a man do when he wants to air his wheels?

He goes and buys himself som fun

So this is what is parked in my garage at the mo:

http://www.kyosho.com/eng/products/rc/deta...oduct_id=101465

All fun and games!

Bjorn

Edited September 13, 2009 by Yeti

[yeti]

Engine in the car

Starting up

No compression on no 3 and 4

Engine out of car

B

Edited October 13, 2009 by Yeti

[GavinT]

WOW Bjorn. This is turning into a never ending saga.

Without wishing to offend, but does your engine guy know what he is doing? Just can't believe you are having all these problems on a freshly rebuilt engine.

[yeti]

He definately konows what he is doing. It was just bad luck. It turns out that a few of the shims had moved inside the valve followers when the cams were put on. That gave 1mm more lift on several of the valves.

Easliy sorted and now the engine (still in the car by the way) will be ready at the end of the week

Hope we don't get snow before the week-end. -2,5C this morning, brrrrrrr...

Bjorn

Edited October 14, 2009 by Yeti

[Simon350S]

Nice one dudes.

Glad you finally got her up and running

Happy days mate.

Enjoy her

[GavinT]

Great news.

[yeti]

The engine is running smoothly - Yippeee

If all goes to plan I'll pick her up tomorrow - Guess who'll be on the road this weekend

Bjorn

[yeti]

Look who was out in the sunshine this weekend:

She runs beautifully, pulling cleanly from low revs and no misfires or rattles. Shame winter is coming.

Bjorn

Edited October 20, 2009 by Yeti

[yeti]

This winter I had planned to change the clutch hose to a braided type and also overhaul the rear brakes since the rear right hand brakes locked during hard braking. I finished all that about 3 weeks ago and thought that I could sit back an wait for summer. Not so lucky.

The car has been on stands all winter so to test to see if the clutched worked ok I started the engine and ran it through the gears. Thats when i discovered that 4th and 5th gear have a rather nasty rumble.

So, now the gearbox is coming out.

Hopefully there will be time enough to do a gearbox service before the snow melts. Any thoughts on where to buy parts apart from Harry Martens?

Bjorn

[lotus4s]

Bjorn,

Are you sure there's a problem with the box? I assume you know your gearbox is going to sound strange on jackstands with no load on it.

[yeti]

When I think about it I thought I heard a slight singing of the gears (4th and 5th) last summer when on the road. Nothing major.

When I ran it on the stands, there was a marked difference between 1-2-3 and 4-5 in rumble/noise. My mechanic also agreed that the bearings would need changing - maybe not 100% necessary just now, but since the car is already jacked up and there is time before summer, we concluded that it was probably smart to do it now.

The plan is to have the box out this evening. Hopefull I won't use more than 4-5 hours to get it out. Since the car is stored in my mechanics garage I have all the equipment I need

Bjorn

[yeti]

The gearbox is out. Suprisingly easy actually

Pictures to come.

Bjorn