I completed a few minor jobs this month. I’ve painted the dynamo, its brackets and the crank pulley. I have also managed to re-paint the rocker covers after scratching them when trying to fit an alternator. The other job I have started on is the engine bay wiring loom. You can see this in the picture below.
Today has not been very productive as I was trying to fit an alternator to my car. However after spending the best part of the day I admit defeat. The problem was caused by the alternator body having a larger diameter than the dynamo so it causes the alternator to hit the rocker cover. If I was to use a slightly longer fan belt or make a different bracket the alternator would fit without any problems but the fan belt would then hit the steering column. After a day of trying different brackets, and fan belts I’ve given in and decided that I’ll keep my car original and fit the dynamo to the car. The only other bad thing to happen is I managed to repeatedly scratch my rocker covers trying to fit the alternator so these need to be removed and painted again.
Went to collect my inlet manifold from the machine shop today only to find I have a very expensive piece of scrap metal. Once it had been skimmed a crack between the water and air channel was noticed (see photo below). I can’t blame the guy for not seeing it before he started machining as I never noticed the crack either. Although this is not good news I’m happy I’ve found the problem now and not after I had been running my newly rebuilt engine. This also explains why cylinder no. 5 had all the rust damage and needed a liner fitting. I had originally assumed that water had got in from the car standing around for so long.
After several calls I found a company called Newark Engines that had an early v6 inlet manifold with the oval ports that they were willing to sell to me for £37 including postage. When this turned up it was in near perfect condition, and they had even taken the trouble to clean it up in a blasting cabinet so it was ready to fit.
Finally I’ve had the time to rebuilding the engine. This has been a relatively simple task and I did not encounter any major problems during the rebuild. The picture below shows the engine ready to be painted. You can see more pictures of the rebuild in the Gallery section of the web site.
I’ve done very little else to the car due to the engine still being at the machine shop and I’ve also been busy with my new house. However I got the engine back from the machine shop today so it will be ready to reassemble when I return to the UK next time. In the meantime all I have done is spray the new radiator brackets in stone chip paint followed by two coats of black chassis paint. I have also painted the radiator in heat resistant black enamel. The picture below shows the radiator fitted back on the car.
