Hopefully this will be of interest to some of you - it’s a build thread for my very UK influenced Riley-Rod. So, starting from the beginning....I acquired these 260 blocks from good old eBay. 10EDD466-307F-4688-A393-43F6998CCC97 by equipe59 posted Jun 17, 2019 at 5:35 PM One was complete with crank, rods and pistons; the other was bare. Both had been in a shed for a while.
They’re heavy buggers, but once I’d lugged the more complete one onto the workbench I could see why they’d been put out of sight for so long. A89E93E3-A92C-42AE-9DAB-5BD37DD5E5CB by equipe59 posted Jun 17, 2019 at 5:26 PM The gudgeon pin had moved in the little end and scored a lovely, neat groove in the bore.
So, strip, clean, examine, take to engineering shop, new liner and other bores honed. While all that was being done, clean the rest up and root through the boxes of bits to see how much of an engine I actually had. Answer - about 80%!!!! Eventually the block was back. E57DD8EF-1E6E-4935-94E0-2EDD3DAF35E8 by equipe59 posted Jun 17, 2019 at 5:26 PM
At this point, I had no idea what I was going to do with the engine once I’d finished it. I knew nothing about building V8’s before I started, but through necessity was learning fast. I just like V8’s, and didn’t want to go down the ubiquitous Rover (Buick) 315 V8 route. And these Windsor’s were fitted to all the cool cars - Mustangs, Cobras, Tigers, Falcons etc. I’ve also got an Alpine, and started wondering if I could emulate Shelby and drop the V8 straight in there. Lots of measuring and thinking later, I decided I couldn’t and it’d ruin my very nice Alpine.
Did you have to use BOTH hands when lifting it up onto the workbench or just use the other hand to steady yourself?
Both hands? Noo - one had a glass of wine in it! Lots of oily bits back in and time to add some bling, headers, gearbox and the like. 88168444-C39B-4B42-ADD0-CE6814E18783 by equipe59 posted Jun 17, 2019 at 5:26 PM Although it wasn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Being a 5-bolt, I couldn’t find a bellhousing to mate that to a Tremec T5. So I got a 5-bolt to Toploader bellhousing and a T5 to 6-bolt adaptor plate and, er, adapted them to make it all fit. Except the input shaft was then too long so needed machining. Being idle, I couldn’t be arsed to strip the ‘box so I made a mount for an angle grinder, fixed it to the ‘box and ground the shaft down in situ. And it worked!
The Jalopy Journal
