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...