Yet another project....The uncrashed spitfire

Finally managed to get the camshaft i wanted, again it had to be made especially for me and cost unsurprisingly more cause of it But its very very nice, brand new cold chilled blank small journal Kent TH5 profile camshaft.

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Rest of the engine has stalled yet again grrrrrrrrrrrr, was supposed to collect yesterday but another faulty part has stopped the machine work. The new small end bearings which were ordered as heavy duty race bearings appear to come from a different vehicle and would require my rods to be modified to fit. Which im not doing!! The machineshop guy refuses aswell as it will weaken the small ends. So we are hunting now for some better small end bearings for it so the engine can be finished.
 
Well not much happening this week at all, ordered new small end bushes, hopefully these ones fit, they should do they are new old stock. Got my new cam followers ordered, decided to go with stock rather than lightened for the reasons that the engine aint really reving high enough to make benefits of them and for the added strength should i decide to add the supercharger.
New flywheel bolts ordered, quite a steal really, spitfire arp flywheel bolts 56quid, chevy small block flywheel bolts arp 10 quid.
New conrod bolts ordered, ford yb cosworth exactly the same but stronger
Gonna go through the parts manuals tomorrow night make sure i have everything ordered up to finish the engine minus the pushrods of course which will need to be measured when its built and custom ordered.
 
Just caught up on this thread. Sound's like you've got it sorted out, should sound pretty good once you've got it going. I hope I don't have the problems you've had! Its all jolly good fun though isn't it. One day the cars will run again ;)
 
Should be good to go, hopefully get the engine back this weekend, got the new small bushes this morning, pretty damn obvious now i have them that the old ones are wrong! They are so much smaller im worried these will be too loose. But i dont have a rod here so will take them up tomorrow to the machine shop and fingers crossed.
As my machine shop guy says, when you are pushing an old engine like this to the limits you will always come accross problems like this, lets just hope thats the last one, then the joys of building it up.
 
Just back from the machine shop deliving the new canleys small ends, canleys supplied vandervell vp which fitted perfectly as opposed to jugsaws something or other and canleys cost half as much! grrrr.

On inspection the difference was clear to see, the jigsaw ones were 20thou bigger than the perfect sized canley ones, hmmm i wander why they didnt fit!

Engine will be finished tomorrow.
 
Can you tell im bored due to the lack of engine, my updates have doubled lol.

Seems my internet based engine rebuild and crituiqe of parts which are sub standard has annoyed a few suppliers keep getting phone calls asking why im posting that their parts dont fit etc, narked me at first but at the end of the day if your selling a part that wont work i believe people should know about it, and i dont post without having evidence. Luckily enough i do my research before fitting any part and most of that on the internet.
 
Mattius said:
Seems my internet based engine rebuild and crituiqe of parts which are sub standard has annoyed a few suppliers keep getting phone calls asking why im posting that their parts dont fit etc,
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Is that from posting it on here or on another forum? I agree though, if their parts are genuinely substandard or don't fit then people are allowed to know. If it's unfounded because you're a hamfisted noob then fine but if it's a genuine comment then they can get stuffed :confused:

I sent some inner sills back to the Anglia club because they were banana shaped and didn't fit on the car. Don't know if I got a duff batch but they didn't even resemble anything that would go on the car, didn't line up with the middle or outer sill or floor at all. They got really defensive about it and were quite rude at first, but fair play to them they took them back.
 
Its not like you've been particularly rude in this thread. But really if their tolerances aren't up to 1970s levels they really should go home and think of another line of work.

Everyone has no end of trouble getting some bit or other to fit because the supplier is making them the wrong size or quality. I had a headlight ring rust in 6 months. CHROME IS AN ANTI CORROSION COATING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

We are quite fortunate with mgs that the panels mostly come from the original pressing machines. They still often don't fit though, I believe they needed fettling at the the factory as they were built so most cars aren't quite the shape they should be.
 
It is a genuine falt with the parts as confirmed by both me and the machine shop guy who is an expert, the bearings were 20thou too big by both of our measurements. It was on another forum the guy read about it but to be fair to him he has given an appologie all be it being very rude and abnoxious about the way he did it.

Chrome itself isnt really the rust inhibiting coating, its the zinc or copper plating underneath which does that, chrome is just for the shine, but your right any modern part should have been treated right.

Anyway been a busy few weeks with e-mails, i had a couple of big name magazines get in touch with me after someone gave them a photo of my wreck. Now they both want to do articles on me. Not 100% confirmed yet but it looks as if my car will be in practical classics next month just as a photo with the story following a couple of months later in a page article. Then next month march issue i think of Classics Monthly should have a 2 or 3 page story all about me from accident to restoration. Quite exciting really.
I originally refused when they got in contact, but then after thinking it really gives me a chance to thank a lot of people so should be all good.
 
Mattius said:
Can you tell im bored due to the lack of engine, my updates have doubled lol.

Seems my internet based engine rebuild and crituiqe of parts which are sub standard has annoyed a few suppliers keep getting phone calls asking why im posting that their parts dont fit etc, narked me at first but at the end of the day if your selling a part that wont work i believe people should know about it, and i dont post without having evidence. Luckily enough i do my research before fitting any part and most of that on the internet.
Click to expand...

Yup nuts to them. Shouldn't have mis-supplied you in the first place!
 
picked the lot up this morning, just waiting on the rods coming back and im sorted.

Very nicely worked crank

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Skimmed and bored block, note no recessed gasket anymore

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Lightened flywheel

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Everyting all nice and shiny and all perfectly balanced. Came in well under budget aswell, so i decided to treat myself to a set of these:

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Alloy roller rockers, very nice. and another bargain from the states.
 
well fitted the cam bearings, Engine doesn normally run with these but adding them seeing as im gonna be pushing it fairly hard. you fairly have to muller them in, but they do go.

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Lined up oil holes.

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Old cam used as a drift

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Finally we are all in

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From the other side

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New cam in

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Block after degreasing

New cam fits in very tight though and although it spins its not free and easy, how do you loosen it up?
 
As long as you can turn it by hand it'll be fine. You've got to bed the engine in with cheap oil for 500 miles and this is when the bearings wear themselves to the right size. The crank will probably be the same and the whole engine will feel quite tight. It'll loosen right up across the first 2000 miles.
 
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