What should have been a straight swap of two bangers has turned into a complete nightmare. The plan was to strip both 'A's apart, pull the engines and drop 'em back in. Eeerr.. yeh, that will be simple. Just before I dropped the good engine in the new car, I thought I would take the flywheel and clutch off the back as there seemed to be a rattle coming from that area. Thinking that it was a bit of old Bendix starter because they have a hadit of self destructing. I've been through 4 of them already! As the flywheel came off my heart sank as there was a chunk of my crank sitting in the bell housing... ...no wait! Theres a chunk missing from the back of the block! There was no way I could put it back in the car as it seemed like I had been lucky (?) with what had happened as it could have been alot worse. To think I had been running it like this for nearly 2 years! The engine that came out was meant to have been rebuilt but was a total unkown to me. The reason why it was getting pulled so I could check it out at another time. The plan now was to give it a quick check over with a plan to use it. Cue my mate on the right of the picture pulling the sump off the engine. We pulled the sump and aload of rust fulls from the sump and into the engine. Great. On top of that it was also seized were it had been sitting dry. Luckly it did free up. At the end of the day I now have two stripped cars and two stripped engines, where there should have two complete cars. Why did I think it was the crank? Well, if you read the the old stories it was common for the crank flanges to break. Hopefully all is not lost as its the rear main oil seal groove that has broken, not the rear main itself. Looks like that stage 2 rebuild will be happening sooner than first thought.
sounds like a typical "quick job" to me you know the simple one that ends up costing money and time you havn't got....I feel for you, I have a continuing problem with the front end of my A, repacked and adjusted the bearings checked the brakes, the joints and have re greased them and the trunions....still have abit of movement and now the steering has tightened up but I can find no reason why....It's been on and off the road now for weeks. lets have some pics of the roadster!!! and just love the engine trolly..Tesco's or Asda???
Trunnions!!! There's a word to cheer you up Clark!? The break looks fresh in your photo? When do you think it came off? There's no oil seeped through - had it lost any?
I suspect the reason it broke off is because the crankshaft endplay is WAY excessive. The ONLY solution is new babbitt.
Now is a good time to rid yourself of those boat anchors and put a real motor in there. It's spelled H-E-M-I
You just gotta hope the weather hold up now You don't want it to piss down with all thoes bits lying around Hope you get it sorted soon
Good job you pulled it & found it.........now get busy & sort its not long till the reliability run. ;-) Kev.
A picture before it all went wrong. Tesco trolly, the better choice because of the flatter base! Thats the interesting thing, it looks fresh but is a very old break. Its a miracle the piece that broke off hasn't been smashed to pieces. It never lost a single drop of oil from the break.
Sorry to here the bad luck. On a lighter note, your engine dolly just set off a lightbulb in my head. Thank you. Your post as bad as everything came out for you, helped me. Good luck with the fix. You've got two relly nice rides. I'm like some of the above, AV8 is the way now, you see the light?
It broke at the rear main seal? Possible some piece of debris was in the groove when the engine had been last rebuilt and this caused a fracture when the mains caps tightened? My first thought, however, was end play but I would expect oil seepage or loss with that. What does the back side of the flywheel look like?
The end float was one of the first checks and there was none. As you have said there could have been something between the block and seal that has caused it to break when everything was tightened up. The piece that broke is extremely thin, which was either a fault in the casting or it has been machined wrong. I can't remember how the engine is modified for the modern oil seal, but I think its the crank rather than the block that is modified. Back of the flywheel is fine. Clean with no marks. For those that are taken with the engine stand!
The fact that the fragment wasn't destroyed and doesn't appear mangled in the photo says that this failure happened at low engine speed. Perhaps at startup? Not sure if that is any help. Tesco is the name of a grocery store? Cripes! I thought you referring to an obscure maker of banger speed parts. Nice engine mount. I'm off to the local Safeway to get one.
That sux man, That's murphy for you, (I think it's an aussie term?? basically every thing that can go wrong will go wrong!!) Can't wait to see the new engine, I'm counting down the weeks till I can start playin with my banger...... Outback
Change of plan there again. Gonna put the engine back in and run that that sucker. It hasn't given any problems and at the end of the day its only part of the oil seal flange!
Thats what I was thinking. If its been like that for a while and hasn't caused any problems, put it back in and run it 'til it breaks...
well that officially sucks... but on the bright side....I love your garage! - front yard pictures of cars torn apart is great! Piss off the neighbors much?
Think you might be able to epoxy that back on? With no end play thrust force, it might stay in place.
No, mate, Murphy is universal...origins unknown, but the stories surounding its supposed origin, are always interesting and, well, full of Murphy-esque happenings! Google '"Murphy's Laws" Origin' & you'll get pages of hits - here's but one: http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-true.html
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