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Ok this is good news to me. I will beg to differ on the colour seen on the scope. To me it definitely looks like the colour of rust, both when wet and when dry, that being said, There are valves directly above it which if rusted could have dripped an iron oxide residue onto the piston tops. The Pistons being alloy is good news to me, I had not fully looked into it, so glad you called me on it, I had just assumed, cheap engine, cheap iron pistons.
The car is a project and will not really be used in anger for anything for some time to come. It needs the interior stripping out. The subframes are going to come off and all bushings replaced, everything repainted and where needed everything replaced. Given the extent I plan to go to on the body and suspension of the car I want to make sure the Engine is in reasonable condition before I carry on.
As I said my view differs from many here on that, so whatever works for you, as an apprentice late 60s we would drain the engine and refill with a proper flushing oil similar to paraffin in consistency and just run engine under a light load then drain and replace oil and filter, nowadays the tin of Wynns, which until it causes me a problem I am unlikely to change from.
A quick poke with a magnet would appear to confirm it is an iron block. This obviously doesn’t answer the question of what the pistons are made from. The head is alloy as confirmed by the same magnet check but also years of warped heads from over heating witnessed on this forum
Same here. Wife's (girfriend/fiance,wife) Singer Chamois 1968. No.4 spark plug and thermostat being awful to get to. Then worn /perished heater hose running the lenght of the car throught the sills. Job I hated the most - valve clearance shimming. Cam shaft off job and with such soft alloy head/caps despite using a low force accurate torque wrench getting the gaps correct was a real challenge/pain.
Funny one engine flush, isn't it? Back when I was in college in London in the '60s learning my trade, my pals and I spent many happy hours up at Santa Pod watching the Drag Racing. Wynns is a very big name and sponsor so it was a brand we rapidly became familiar with and held in high regard. I remember pouring their treacly thick oil treatment - Wynns Charge? - into some of the old bangers we ran around in to cut down on oil consumption and then applying the wynns sticker proudly to the front wing just in front of the door! Then later, after my dalliance with racing, the first workshop I worked in, and then later became foreman, had a big display of Wynns products in the front accessory shop. Our boss would always upsell services by recommending flushing oil and "improvers" to the customers. Never aware of it doing any harm and it was a nice wee earner for the shop. I think we shifted quite a lot of product because the DIY brigade would always be in on Saturdays buying the products. The salesman would hold workshop demonstrations of product from time to time and the boss always let us attend - it added a nice wee extra 10 minutes or so to the morning tea break. The one which really stuck in my mind and I remember to this day was the demo of their radiator stop leak product. He took an old galvanized fire bucket and punched a few holes in it with a 6" nail. "so what's going to happen if I pour water in here"? "It's going to leak" we all yelled back at him, and it did. Then, with plenty of water still in the bucket, he poured a tin of their Stop Leak in and stirred it about. The leak stopped immediately. He held the bucket up and let us inspect it. You could see the water in the holes but it wasn't comming out! Now the clever bit he said and emptied the bucket before refilling it with fresh water whereupon it started leaking again. "So what's so clever about that" we all yelled. "The clever bit is that the product is fibrous and blocks the holes by having the fibres laying across it. When you clear the system out there's practically no residue left to block up other parts of the system and you can't say that of most other leak sealers" We used to sell quite a lot of the stuff and never had any complaints so I recon it probably worked. I've toiled over whether flushing is good or not. If the engine has frequent oil changes as recommended I don't recon it's needed. It definitely shifts crud out of old or neglected engines but I worry about its aggressive action loosening dirt from corners in lumps which might then go on to cause problems. When you strip small horticultural engines - Briggs and Stratton being a common one people will know - these engines have no filters and run basic SAE low detergent oils. If you change their oil at least once a year (I like to do one at the beginning of the season and then again mid summer. It's cheap oil and they only hold a couple of pints or so so why wouldn't you?) then they last for years. When you strip an old one down, and I've done many, you find the moving parts are nice and clean but there's hard sludge tucked away in all the corners. It just stays there and doesn't seem to play any part in harming the engine. So my theory is that it's better to let deposits like that just stay where they are or, if you must, be very slowly dissolved by an oil's detergent package rather than trying to shift it quickly and risking lumps breaking away and traveling around in the oil. Anyway, by our age Mike, we've become set in our ways and know what works for us.
Yup, keep revs within moderate limits and don't load the engine heavily at least until the coolant is fully up to temp. Remember though that the oil will take much longer. I really like that the modern VAG products allow you to bring up the oil temperature on the wee screen between the rev counter and speedo. I'm sure you mike and others on here will know but it's worth reminding everyone that, interestingly, the oil takes at least twice as long as the coolant to come up to temp from a cold start. I think this is very important on turboed engines and I never lean heavily on the throttle until the oil temp is up there. It's quite interesting keeping an eye on it on long journeys, especially when climbing long hills on the motorway - for instance climbing Shap - where it can rise noticeably due to the turbo working hard I'm sure. I think it's common now to find these small turboed units have auxilliary electric coolant pumps which maintain coolant circulation through the turbo after you shut the engine off - most now seem to have water cooled turbos - Probably a good idea but it's worth always letting a turboed engine tick over for a while after you stop moving if it's been working hard - so after climbing steep hills or stopping in a motorway service area - Why? because as soon as you turn the engine off the oil flow to the turbo bearings stops. The turbo casing and impellor spindle get blisteringly hot and if the oil doesn't flow it can be burnt onto the bearings and turbo spindle. Even just letting it idle for a couple of minutes is worth it as the turbo will be flowing cold air on it's intake side so cooling the casing and the engine oil circulating through the spindle bearings will cool them down too. One reason why turning your stop start off on longer journeys might be a good idea?
Bit like the long time argument as to whether you should fill an oil filter before fitting. I always try to get as much oil in as I can so as to cut down on the time the engine runs with no pressure in the system but many argue that you're putting oil into the engine side of the filter so if there's any contamination in the new oil then it's going straight into the engine. I suppose you just make your choice and live with the outcome?As I said my view differs from many here on that, so whatever works for you, as an apprentice late 60s we would drain the engine and refill with a proper flushing oil similar to paraffin in consistency and just run engine under a light load then drain and replace oil and filter, nowadays the tin of Wynns, which until it causes me a problem I am unlikely to change from.
Oh yes, first job I ever did on one was the thermostat and having worked mostly on BMC stuff with the occasional Ford or Rootes product thrown in for variety, I couldn't believe how difficult it was. All the other men had found an excuse not to be around when that job card was issued, one guy even volunteered to clean out the steam cleaner bay!
We had a bodyshop drill through a panel to rivet a trim clip on and wondered why water was leaking out on a Hillman Imp
Most of the workshops I worked in would automatically send heads off for a light skim regardless of whether they needed it or not. I think to reduce the possibility of the new gasket failing - head face would definitely be flat and "super clean" - however when I started building engines at home I bought an engineers straight edge and, after carefully cleaning the face, used it to check the head for flatness and warpage. Very seldom has it been necessary to get a head faced and never had gasket problems.
We are reading from the same Hymn Sheet
Alloy pistons.
I think if you take your time and lots of photos as you go along it should be fine. I always found rebuilding engines quite satisfying. Apart from trying to keep original (if it is) engine numbers etc. is there any chance you could obtain the same type of engine and rebuild that, so to keep one spare that, all be it not perfect but as parts get harder to obtain a useful back up?
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