and now i am embarrassed
Thanks em!
Couple of better photos of the exhaust.
edit: And some more;
It’s been a fun week, managed to get the engine into the bay a bit easier than when we took it out, mostly thanks to having nothing bolted to it.
However bolting it down was another story, took a couple of days for that job alone, the new steadies were just too fresh/ un-squashed and getting the engine down enough was troublesome. It’s all in now and everything can finally go back together, very close now!
Well it was more than a slight issue with the thrust washer. A kind chap lent me a standard and the thickest one you could get and there was 24thou of play….the tolerance is 3-6…
So rather than start buying parts to rectify the problem I took the engine back to the builders (morspeed) and he turned the engine around in 3 working days, turns out the primary gear bush was seriously worn making it 20thou shorter than it should be, and that landed me right within tolerance. A new C washer would have helped further probably putting me back to a standard sized thrust washer. Good times.
Also the flywheel is all together and bolted up too, so the engine is complete!
Here’s a couple photos to wet appetites, I’m liking the look of the ultralight flywheel, its a shame it gets covered up!
Well here is the engine as it stands now, with gearbox and transfer case on, just have a little issue with a missing primary gear thrust washer! I have picked up a few today, so the engine some be ready for the end of this week. Not long.
Went over to the car today and uncovered it for the first time in what feels like forever, its a little dirty but other than that, just like i left it.
I had a few hours to do what i wanted, and that was to finish mounting up the amplifier for the sound system, wire all the speakers up and get the power leads to the battery and the phono’s to the dashboard.
All went well, and i’ve tucked all the cables underneath carpets and trim, the amp mounts nicely on the back of the rear seats so is majoritevly out of view, but I tried to keep the cables as tidy as possible.
Note how i have two red ‘power’ leads coming from the amp, as my car is not metal I can’t source a ground off of the body, I have had to lead another cable to the front of the car and to the battery, fortunately I purchased two amplifier fitting kits as i needed the phono leads anyway and now I have plenty of spares.
Getting the wires up to the dash was a little tricker, as to increase strength in the car there is a nice thick piece of fibreglass, spanning the width of the car at where the base of the dashboard would be, its only fibreglass so i cut some appropriately sized holes and fed the wires through. The itchiness is the worse bit!
Dashboard currently looks like this;
(this was after I hoovered the mess the fibreglass had left. Only thing now is to wire the ISO plug for the stereo in and plug the amp leads onto the battery and we should have sound =D
Also today I started on the exhaust manifolds, I may not have mentioned but the old manifold had cracked / was badly welded to the original exhaust system and was blowing A LOT. I grabbed the manifold off the mini, something that i dont think was much more over a year or so old, albeit looking worse for wear. Originally it was black but that has since faded and turned white and / or rusty. I’ve just started to sand down the exhaust and you can see the difference here;
After sanding one, I couldn’t leave the other and here is the finished article, ready for some more black paint.
Kinda makes me wish I could clear-coat them, or get a real stainless system!
Oh and just as a teaser for Edd.
So finally after a bit of a fiasco (shop move, lost numbers) I managed to get my engine back, and surprisingly it was all built up, pistons in, centre main strap, timed up with my cam, head on, followers, tappets set, and a rocker cover on top! More than I had asked for and making it a nice ‘easy’ drop onto the gearbox. (I say easy because i’m not doing this part haha)
Here it is the day I got it back, hopefully update soon when its complete with the ‘box;
Also finished off what I had started with the dash, took the old radio out (weirdly it is bolted in at the front and is removed from the rear of the dashboard, so the whole thing HAD to come off. I’ve cut the fibreglass to accomodate a DIN cage, and my stereo will be going in here 
I’ve also added a little light that will come on with the headlights, it warns ‘FASTEN BELTS’. Should go well when the Gauges light up underneath that!
Just had a quick play in photoshop, what do you guys make of this?
Got down to the Midas tonight and removed the engine after collecting the crane earlier this week, made it a lot easier than trying to do it by hand, although not sure i would have even attempted it!
Had the help of a friend to assist with his hands, eyes, and ideas on how to get the engine up through the tiny gap.
In the end we had to take off the bell/clutch housing to get it out, and it was still very tight, it could have possibly been a little easier with the pulley or near side engine mount removed, but we got by and its out!
Tons of photos in the gallery thanks to my friends girlfriend, who also assisted in the clean ups with baby wipe handouts.
Today we finally managed to get the exhaust manifold off, as it was being very stubborn having been welded to the joining Y piece, an angle grinder was purchased and it was chopped off as high up as possible so it could be easily removed.
I am going to be using the manifold from my mini anyway as it is under a year old and in much better condition/fit!
The engine is now also fully stripped of its ancillaries, restraining steady bars, engine mounts and gearbox selector. All that is left is to disconnect the drive shafts and the speedo cable and we can hoist that baby out of there.
Though the gap is very tight and it looks like I will have to take the clutch bell housing off when it is partially out / hanging in the air!
Press the read more to find out what I’ve struggled with while taking out the engine.