Engine Fitted!

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I have been working on the car on and off over the past few weeks and have achieved a major milestone today.....

The Engine Has Been Fitted!! 

You will also notice that the car is a fully rolling chassis again after many months up on axle stands...

I had to remove the oil filter to get the engine past tube S but once the engine was in place I was able to refit it. I'm not sure if it will foul the steering mechanism though so I may still need a remote oil filter setup. I also had to remove the front pulley although as I did not have the appropriate socket to remove the pulley itself, I had to separate the sections of the pulley by removing the three through bolts. This allowed me to remove the front section which then gave me enough clearance to get the engine in place.

I used my kids' swing as a gantry and a block and tackle (aka. chain block) to winch the engine up and down. The engine installation itself (which I did singlehanded by the way) was a fairly straightforward job although I had the usual problems lining everything up to engage the clutch splines. I adopted the usual technique of just shaking it furiously until it all slid together...

All in all I am happy with the positioning of the engine. I can't see how I could have improved it retrospectively. Obviously the height of the engine is a concern but I certainly couldn't have mounted the engine any lower as ground clearance is minimal already. I expect that I will already need to look at sump modifications as things stand.

One final thing, anyone who doesn't believe that the Rover V8 engine is light can take it from me that it is. I stripped all the ancillaries from it before trying to install it to improve clearance but I can say that it was no more difficult to maneuver than any other engine I have worked with such as the A-series mini engine, Vauxhall OHC, Fiat Uno, Rover K-series etc etc. I hope to weigh the corners of the car soon and will let you know what the weight is as it stands. I know the weight of the chassis before the engine was installed so I should be able to tell what the engine weight is by the difference.

I'm off back to the garage to see if I can see over the carbs from the driver's seat...

 

Engine Donor

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Wow, doesn't time fly!!

I must apologise for the delay since my last posting. I can't believe it has been nearly three months! Anyway, the car has been making some progress although to be honest, not as much as it should have in the time elapsed. I have added quite a number of triangulation tubes to the chassis which took a bit longer than expected but should be well worth the effort. I have also completed the floor welding from the top (stitch welded 1 inch in 6) but have yet to seam weld the bottom. I have also been busy cleaning and linishing the remaining welds from anywhere that flat panels will be mounted later. I intend to leave most other welds just as they are unless they are particularly ugly.

That's it for the chassis. The other main item of progress recently is the procurement of a Rover V8 3.5litre engine from a tired old SD1. My original engine source never came good and I got fed up waiting for the engine to appears so when another source appeared I grabbed it with both hands. The donor is a 1977 SD1 which was on the road up until 4 years ago when it was put into storage iin anticipation of a full rebuild of the ailing bodyshell. However, the body went from bad to worse and the owner couldn't afford the parts required. I'm not surprised to be honest as the body is a basket case in my opinion. The engine has done 91K miles and I believe that to be genuine. The oil looked clean and the coolant was nice and blue. There was no gunge in the filler cap and the car started fairly easily once the carbs were primed with fuel. Unfortunately the exhaust was burst wide open so I couldn't easily ascertain that it was running perfectly but it idled at 700RPM happily with good oil pressure and seemed to be on all 8 cylinders so that's good enough for me. I'll do a compression check and might remove the heads for a look and a top-end rebuild if I feel it is justified. The engine cost me £175 complete with all ancillaries, carbs, electrics, clutch, flywheel. I got a few other bits including clutch slave cyl, master cyl, accelerator cable and pedal assembly and radiator expansion tank for another £25. I'm quite happy at that.

Here are a couple of pictures of the donor and engine prior to removal:

I hope to keep things moving now as I am keen to trial fit the engine asap.