Triumph Spitfire Engine Rebuild #8

A few more hours at the garage. Most of my time was dedicated to painting various pieces-parts, but I did officially start engine re-assembly...even though it was just a few bolts.

A couple of odds and ends first, however. I finally found my other steering knuckle and got the bent bolt swapped out. I also went with the new flat washers that I bought for that purpose since they were a bit thicker.

There it is! Right where I left if, of course...as is usually the case.

With the new bolt, the crookedness of the knuckle disappeared, as I hoped it would. I also got the bolts lockwired together with not problem. Lockwiring isn't too bad, but you do have to put the wire under a good amount of tension, pulling it tight around the piece, before and during the twisting. This prevent a lot of slack when you're all done. A bit easier said than done, but it's okay with a bit of practice.

Starting the lockwire twisting with lockwire pliers.

After four tries, it's done. On the shelf for future use. Clamp bolts seem a bit long...might have gotten the wrong lengths?

I got the front seal in the timing cover put in. I got it started with my fingers and tapped it home with a rubber mallet.

Went in with no problem.

I also got a lot of stuff painted including the front and rear engine plates, oil pan and valve cover. Two coats of Rust-Oleum Engine Primer and two coats of Rust-Oleum Low Gloss Black Engine Paint.

Taping off the front engine plate.

Decided to go with a Signal Red valve cover using some of my chassis paint.

As for the motor, I went at it again with the brush hone. Turned out much better this time with the cross-hatch. After reading a long post on my favorite forum about one member's adventures at rebuilding his engine in-place, I discovered that a perfect cross-hatch is based on cylinder size, drill speed and repetition rate (how fast you move it in and out of the cylinder). So, given that, I ran the drill at 450 RPM and ended up with the picture you see below after about 45 seconds, at about 2 seconds for each repetition (in and out).

Ooooh, ahhhh. 

Got a lot of the pitting out as well, but I didn't want to cut any more.

After that, I had to wash the hole thing again so that sucked up some time and, with a kid's basketball game fast approaching, I essentially stopped for the day, outside of putting the coolant drain plug and oil galley bolts and plugs, all with new washers, in.

Water drain plug installed. That crankcase breather hole is laughing at me.

New oil galley bolt washers; copper in this case. Block is upside down here.

I still had a bit more time after that so I did an idiot check to make sure that I did indeed have a Mk2 flywheel for the new clutch that I got on Friday. I hastily cleaned up the flywheel of some of it's surface rust...

Before. Some cobwebs in there, too.

After. Still needs more work, of course.

 ...and it fit just fine. Lucky me!

Looks good!

That was about it. Doesn't seem like much, but that was about 6 hours of work. When you think about each part getting at least 4 coats of paint and having to wash the block, it adds up. Until next time...