Junkies!
The wonders of Android phones -I was replying while stood at the roadside, waiting for my "van buddy" to pick me up in our Post Office van.
O.K, the water pump/pulley problem seems to have sorted itself. We'd initially thought the new engine's crankshaft didn't have a woodroffe key to locate the pulley, as the old one did. We wondered if it was a tapered shaft instead. After taking advice from various FaceBook friends though it turned out it's further down the shaft than we realised & was just hidden inside the oil seal on the timing chain casing. Mr Loon had tried tapping the pulley onto the shaft last night but it wouldn't drive fully home. Inspection in the daylight today showed he'd been hammering it against the end of the woodroffe key. Line the slot in the pulley up with the keyway & hey presto, it fits.
Another long day at work for me today, pounding the mean streets of downtown Basingstoke in the rain, so it was gone 4.o.clock this afternoon before I got to the workshop & already getting dark. First job was to fit the 4 flex plate to flywheel bolts. Easy enough & meant I could remove the safety clamps I'd made that held the torque converter in place inside the bellhousing, (Mr Kapri had warned me in capital letters that if it moved before re-fitting *quote* all kinds of s--t will happen).
Then the last of the gearbox to engine bolts -easy? Nope -took me an hour to fit the last one, with my arm wedged down the side of the gearbox tunnel & using a stubby ratchet that could only move a fraction of a turn at a time. I love cars.
Flywheel cover fitted, crankshaft pulley bolted up tight, then timing chain cover & water pump housing bolted up. They've got a mixture of old & new bolts at the moment but hopefully I can swap them over one at a time later.
By this time it was pitch black & pouring with rain yet again, so I had to call it a night.
I'd been concerned the crank pulley wouldn't sit far enough back to line up with the water pump & alternator pulleys if the crankshaft proved to be longer than the old engine. Seems to be about right.
The black chassis paint has reacted badly with the cold & wet & turned itself into wrinkle finish paint. It looks bloomin' awful now & is still soft so has smeared & rubbed off wherever we've leant on it. Not pretty. I don't want to bodge things up just for the sake of one weekend trip & definitely don't want to risk buggering the new motor by rushing, (I really can't afford another). Not being defeatist, but if we can't get it all together in time, I'm quite happy to take my daily driver to Holland instead. It took weeks to get the carb set up properly last time, plus we need to set the timing, I've got to fit the new oil cooler, then there's no guarantee the electrics will still all work etc, etc, etc. Not even sure I can afford the engine oil, coolant, MOT & tax, plus petrol money & everything else anyway. I'll keep plugging away at it & see how we get on.