Ian's S4s refurb

[Chillidoggy]

Finished off the red wrinkle paint this morning. Overall, the results were pretty good, again, heat is the key to a decent job. There was some bleed through from the paint, but very little. I peeled the pinstriping off while the paint was just dry, let it harden a bit, then used some brake cleaner and a rag to clean up the edges of the flutes and the logos.

I’ve also finished off cleaning up the throttle bodies, and the inlet fannymould, did a quick trial fit and it all looks good thus far. Next up is a return to cleaning the engine block and the main bearing girdle, followed by the myriads of nuts, bolts and washers to get ready for assembly.

 

[C8RKH]

Is that some sort of mechanical thing that sits under the bonnet thingy!  Not sure cos it looks really shiny and I suspected those things would be all greasy and oily!

 

On a serious note, re the red wrinkle paint, which looks uber cool - when you say heat is the key, please explain to a numpty what you mean. I'm still only on this manual and am struggling to finish it as it has lots of jargonese in it....

[Chillidoggy]

Basically, the piece you want to spray has to be hot, needs heating up with the heat gun first off, hot enough so you can’t touch it. As soon as you’ve made a pass with the aerosol, you have to get the heat gun back on the piece, moving it back and forth so the paint doesn’t get a chance to run. Same process again to add layers, I did about three or four, playing the heat gun on its highest setting over it until it had wrinkled up nicely. Bit of a pain, but OK once you get the hang of it.
 

Anyway, on earth did you get hold of Sparky’s bible? His entire knowledge base is contained between the front and back cover.

[Sparky]

It was the AA Book Of The Car, circa 1968, but close enough and fair cop.  I actually have no idea what I'm doing, and blag it most of the time.

[eeyoreish]

BA's loss...

[Chillidoggy]

I’m going to fess up, I had the same 1968 AA Book of the Car!

[Sparky]

No wonder we get on so well.

[Chillidoggy]

I also confess that around the same time period, I bought this fine album, in big, black vinyl...……………….

It's fair to say that my mum wasn't that impressed.

 

[Jacques]

Ha ha! Nice. I had a few albums from the IoM TT, which I used to play rather loud on the stereo. That Guzzi V8 sounds really nice, when on full throttle and volume turned up to 8'o'clock.

Kind regards,

jacques

[tomcattom]

On 17/03/2020 at 18:42, Chillidoggy said:

On to more mundane things, the wife masked up the bits that need to be painted red. I bought some car pinstriping to mask off the flutes, which worked well. I worked out that heat is the key to a decent finish, so got the hot air gun out before spraying, then quickly back with the hot air again, and so on.

Seeing that picture has got me thinking that the inverse colour scheme actually looks quite smart too!

[sailorbob]

@tomcattom When I saw that picture I thought the same thing and it had a kind of retro look about it.

[Giniw]

Yes, typical 70s cam cover look, which is not so surprising for a 70s engine ^^

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Giniw

[tomcattom]

5 hours ago, sailorbob said:

@tomcattom When I saw that picture I thought the same thing and it had a kind of retro look about it.

Its really tempting me to do that when the time comes to drop the engine out of mine. Would like to get it driving again before that happens though 🙃

[pete]

7 hours ago, Jacques said:

Ha ha! Nice. I had a few albums from the IoM TT, which I used to play rather loud on the stereo. That Guzzi V8 sounds really nice, when on full throttle and volume turned up to 8'o'clock.

Kind regards,

jacques

Me too, had the Honda 50 as it came into Ramsey hairpin, it had to come down through 16 gears and as it accelerated away back up through the 16 gears

[Chillidoggy]

I’d never thought of doing them like that, but as a bit of a traditionalist, I stuck to the original design. One thing I will say is whatever you decide to, do, don’t underestimate the time and effort it takes to mask off the required areas. And it’ll be even more tedious with a colour reversal. I could of course have simply sanded back the red paint to reveal the bare alloy logos and flutes, but I wanted to keep the nice shiny silver finish from the vapour blasting.

[tomcattom]

On mine all of the red engine bits are crinkle finish except for the chargecooler, which isn't. Is that standard or has someone been at mine with the paint before and taken the easy route.

[Chillidoggy]

17 minutes ago, tomcattom said:

On mine all of the red engine bits are crinkle finish except for the chargecooler, which isn't. Is that standard or has someone been at mine with the paint before and taken the easy route.

Yes, the charge cooler should be the same red wrinkle finish as the rest. 

[tomcattom]

1 hour ago, Chillidoggy said:

Yes, the charge cooler should be the same red wrinkle finish as the rest. 

Eurgh, something else to put on the ever growing list.

[Chillidoggy]

At least you’ll have plenty of time on your hands, what with all this self-isolation malarkey!

[Jacques]

If you can get the materials, that is. I've been waiting for Lotus parts from the UK for close to 12 moths now. I guess that they got cought up in the brexit turmoil, or some other realistic situation. Pretty boring.

Kind regards,

jacques

[Chillidoggy]

Started on renewing some core plugs today, the large one in the inlet manifold coolant passage was just starting to leak due to rusting, so I'm pleased I caught that. The inlet manifold vacuum gallery end plugs came out reasonably easy, and that was another worthwhile job, because there was all kinds of thick, black gunge in them. I stuck it in washing powder solution, and used my new pipe cleaning brushes to hook all the crap out. The wife wasn't pleased due to the mess I left in the sink, but as we're self-isolating, she's got nothing better to do.

I retired to the garage to avoid any further unpleasantness.

[Chillidoggy]

I’ve now got to the end of engine parts cleaning. There’s still no sign of any cylinder head and rotating bits being returned, or indeed main bearings, which have been made, but there’s a hold up with the shipping. Thought I’d start on whatever sub-assembly I could, starting with the throttle bodies.

 

[Chillidoggy]

The good news - I received a call yesterday to say the gearbox is back together, complete with new seals, gaskets and LSD. The bad news - I can't go out to collect it. But as Connaught Competition Engines is shut for now, and as all my engine bits are there, with no sign of me getting them back yet, it matters not.

Meanwhile, I'm searching for other work that I can do while the engine and gearbox are out. Thing is, there's not much I haven't already replaced, so I'm scratching, and in danger of inventing work.

[pete]

thats your forte surely.🙃

[Sparky]

You could rearrange Shan's cleaning station...