top-end overhaul (pt2!!)

Just spent an hour and a half cleaning my spare lifters, turned out they were all stuck solid!!
They've just been sitting in the head I took off in december until today, had to stand on the head to pull one of them out thanks to the sludgy oil. They were all stained from the old oil, so I just gave them a little clean with some 1000 grit wet 'n' dry, and re-assembled with a smear of fresh oil, I can now squeeze against the spring just with my thumb, quite a difference from having to use a hammer to take them apart!! They are now sat in an old baby milk tin full of fresh oil waiting for me to swap the head back over.

Also managed to get the head cleaned up with the good old wire wheel in the drill, it still didn't look clean enough though so I ended up priming it, and gave it a coat of star silver(thanks to my brother for leaving a can lying around).

Hopefully I'll get some pics tommorow, and get all the mating surfaces cleaned up. Going to be re-lapping all the valves aswell when I get the gasket set, and I might even be attempting some light porting too.:thumb:

Sounds like some good work.
Is this head to go on the 1300 bottom end that you thought had worn rings?

Yeah its the one I took off it, the compression test results pointed to a problem with the valves, and the engine was running perfectly well with this head on so it's kinda a backward step but hopefully for the better. The main reason for the quick overhaul at christmas was to get the worn camshaft replaced with the piper.

Ah right.
Is Star Silver a good match colour for the cleaned and polished effect? Lol
I started trying a polish a few bits up, but then got bored and just sprayed them silver lol

Spraying bits silver is the easiest way to get them looking good imo, I was lucky to find a half used can sitting on the shelf, with money being as tight as it is at the mo I wasn't prepared to buy some! Painted the thermostat housing whilst I was at it, looks 15 times better than it did!

Just a little worried now 'cos the top-end of the engine's gonna be the best looking bit of the car when it's all back together!

And the flipping mot reminder turned up in the post this morning, so that's another ?40 I'll have to find.

MOT reminder :confused:

Yeah the local garage actually send their customers reminders for mot's and major services, A nice little touch that helps them stand out from the usual bodge merchants.

Ahhh right.
Never heard of that before.

nice touch that!

Some of the main dealers round here do it aswell, but only until your warranty runs out on a new car. The garage we use now is just an independent, family run business, they are allways busy and they even put up with me as a college trainee for a few months about 8 years ago.