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Fred Boothby
United Kingdom
355 Posts |
 Posted - 18/11/2018 : 16:19:02
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| For a quiet Sundays entertainment I decided to strip down what appeared to be a relatively unmolested 'M' type engine. It was the devil's own job removing the cylinder head , and after a lot of tapping , levering and swearing , the reason became apparent. ' The evil that men do lives after them'. Someone had replaced a front stud with a length of corroded mild steel studding of as yet unknown thread and this had rusted well into the head. Certainly not a factory modification . I have seen some impressive bodgery in my time , but I feel this one wins a prize. Beat that ! |
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Cooperman
United Kingdom
752 Posts |
Posted - 18/11/2018 : 18:52:20
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My first car in about 1960 was a 1936 Talbot Ten Tourer, which had a 'tuned' Hillman Minx engine, part of which was having an alloy head. When I tried to remove said head it wouldn't, it had been bad enough undoing the nuts with open ended spanners, I couldn't afford ring spanners or a socket set. The studs had 'welded' themselves to the alloy head. I brought a tool made by Pickavant which fitted over the studs and you were supposed to be able to release the head. Having done all this, it took about three evenings, I tried to release the head with the help of an old chisel of my dad's. Sadly a corner of the head did come off, so the rest had to come off with a cold chisel. I have forgotten how difficult was to do jobs with just hand tools and simple spanners.
John Cooper M 628
Edited spellings |
Edited by - Cooperman on 18/11/2018 18:55:02 |
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Mikeenty
United Kingdom
195 Posts |
Posted - 18/11/2018 : 19:49:26
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| It was in the 1970’s that the British motor industry hit an all time low. it didn’t matter what tools or equipment you had, some jobs were unimaginable. Take the Triumph Stag. A V8 with ally heads on an iron block, retained with a row of bolts and another row of studs. The bolts were at 90 to the block, the studs were not, so the head could not be lifted without removing both bolts and the studs. The studs had screwdriver slots to facilitate their removal.. No chance! The head gaskets always blew up the centre bolts and studs making their removal involve a hacksaw brade and hours of effort. The heads could be skimmed but only 0.005!, so further skimming involved new heads or thinning the valv heads to make room in the chamber.. Nightmare time. Makes a MMM head look easy, oh what have i said.... Grabs coat and hat and runs... |
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DickMorbey
United Kingdom
3672 Posts |
Posted - 18/11/2018 : 20:39:33
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In 1975 we bought a new VW Mk 1Golf. Lovely little car which we ran for some years. They were prone to a cylinder head gasket oil leak which caused problems within the alternator. (Does that sound familiar?!)
The alloy cylinder head was held on to the cast iron block with hexagon head allen setscrews. One of them are stubbornly seized into the head. The only expedient was to use a junior hacksaw blade to cut through the setscrew within the thickness of the head gasket. Amazingly this was successful and all that we then had to do was drill out the seized setscrew from the head and reassemble!
Dick Morbey
PA-PB 0743
Frieth, Oxon, UK |
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Ian Grace
USA
651 Posts |
Posted - 18/11/2018 : 22:57:31
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During the Falklands, I was rummaging around Ascension Island and came across two Austin Sevens - a Chummy and a thirties tourer. Obtaining spares on Ascension was a huge problem and there were many seemingly abandoned cars in various states of disassembly awaiting the next ship - or the one after that. One of the Sevens had an interesting make-do. The distributor cap was actually a block of cork. Someone has scooped it out, drilled five holes in it and stuffed the wires through it, splaying out the ends. Its a wonder it ever ran. Nothing on Ascension ever gets thrown away, so i have every expectation that both cars are still there.
Incidentally, I had a friend there who worked for Cable & Wireless. He had been waiting for about 18 months for his beloved MGB to be shipped from England. Finally the big day arrived as the freighter hoved into sight over the horizon. There is no facility for large ships to dock on Ascension - all freight has to be craned onto a flat-topped lighter which then ferries the goods to the dockside.
There was the MGB! It was carefully craned onto the lighter and it started to motor in. At that point, a series of huge waves appeared from the northwest (it happens every ten lunar months - don't ask why). Over went the lighter and the B sank into the deep, never to be seen again. |
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George Eagle
United Kingdom
3228 Posts |
Posted - 19/11/2018 : 09:56:06
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My story relates to when I bought PB0631 which had been “rebuilt”.
On driving the car I found the handling to be very poor with evidence of 4 wheel steering caused by the back axle moving. When I investigated I quickly found the cause. The rear trunnion rollers were just flats and held in place on each side by two old style one penny coins which had quickly worn thin! What an appalling and potentially dangerous bodge.
Needless to say I ended up stripping the car down and completely rebuilding it.
George
Ex PB0631 |
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Nick Feakes
USA
3340 Posts |
Posted - 19/11/2018 : 13:27:52
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George's story reminds me of a similar event. Back in the sixties, my brother-in-law took me to pick up a Mk2 Jaguar he had just bought (he was driving a Mk6 Bentley without any brakes!). I drove it home and it behaved in a very strange manner when cornering, it would not turn at first and then turned at about double the demanded rate. When we got it back to his house and opened the boot, the reason became clear. The rear part of the frame that had once held the front of the back axle cart spring hangers had rusted away, so the owner had removed the rear springs altogether, secured a very thick piece of steel cable round the axle where the spring had been attached on one side, cut a hole in the boot floor, run the cable across the boot over the top of a bottle jack and down through another hole in the boot floor on the other side and then secured in the same manner to the rear axle on that side. A lump of wood between the bottom of the bottle jack and the boot floor and extending the jack completed the modification. He had prevented the rear axle from falling off the car but there was nothing locating it side to side. Oh the joys of motoring before MOTs
Nick |
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Oz34
United Kingdom
2495 Posts |
Posted - 19/11/2018 : 14:56:12
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My horror was with the Riley RMC Roadster I owned briefly before the P.
It had been involved in a NSF shunt. The Chrome hub caps covered almost the whole face of the wheels. It weighed something like 2 1/2 tons and the roll over bar was the fold flat windscreen.
Having been driving it for a while at 70 and more, I became aware of a slight "click" from the NSF which got faster as I did and vice versa. The only thing I could think of was a brake shoe picking up on the drum and snapping back, so I removed the hub cap to start my investigation.
The wheel web had a circumferential crack about 2/3 of the way round and two cracks joining stud holes to that crack.....
Happy days,
Dave |
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sullivan
USA
423 Posts |
Posted - 19/11/2018 : 17:38:58
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Back in about 1972 Dad decided it was time to sell our Mustard Yellow Ford Country Squire Station Wagon.
A gent came out and looked it over, started it up looked under the bonnet etc. He closed the bonnet and asked to go for a drive. My dad and I jumped in with he and his son, off we went.
Arriving at the freeway he quickly accelerated to 70 mph. Suddenly a tremendous bang! as the bonnet flew open shattering the front window and folding over the top of the car. Quickly rolling down the window he put out his head and pulled to the roadside.
Dad saying many previous unheard words....took off his belt and secured the bonnet to the front bumper.
Back at our house the gent told dad, "I'm going to pass on the car" More previously unheard words issued forth....
Brian W Sullivan |
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paul55
Luxembourg
728 Posts |
Posted - 19/11/2018 : 18:20:38
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As a follow up to Brian's post above, my very first MG (and where I got the bug from). The owner of a 1966 BRG MK11 Midget 1098cc, was taking me for a test drive, it had a newly rebuilt engine so he said, but he wouldn't let me drive! Just heading along the newly opened Leeds inner ring road heading towards the University from the old Yorkshire Post building. The driver decided to show me how fast it would go, dropped it into third and booted it..after a second or two and as we hit the tunnel, the bonnet flew off...it went very high! It fluttered back to earth like a large green leaf and just missed a following car, we managed to pull over and collect the bonnet, and clip it back on. Just held on by gravity and the release pointy thing at the front. The driver explained that he had removed the bonnet to ease the engine removal, and replacement but had forgotten to refit the screws that held the bonnet to the two hinges on the scuttle. But it did go like hell, needless to say there was a decent discount for the chipped bonnet. Did I buy it, you bet I did..I wonder if EAK 323D is still around? My first car and I treasured it.
Paul.
Should have mentioned the MGA Coupe that I wanted to buy before I tried the Midget, the dealer even brought it around to our house. I loved it, no surprise there. But my Dad refused to let me buy it, probably because the floors were none existent, it could have been the one Fred Flintstone used to drive, but without the music and the dinosaur in the back. |
Edited by - paul55 on 19/11/2018 18:47:56 |
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Ray White
United Kingdom
42 Posts |
Posted - 14/12/2018 : 18:04:56
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These tales of woe remind me of when I bought my 1930 Austin Swallow saloon. The engine seemed to run quite sweetly but strangely, the clutch pedal had been removed. When I got the car home and fitted a clutch pedal I found the car would not pull. It would go along at walking pace but that was all. I soon discovered there was very low compression on all four cylinders. On removing the head the cause became clear. The previous owner had fitted new standard pistons to completely worn out bores. The solution was to have the block sleeved to fit the new pistons.
R. White |
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