The rise and fall...and rise again.. 1976 Scimitar SE6A

Well I shot my self in the foot with that last post...

The Scimitar has been off the road since mid Feb...after it did this to its O/E timing gear..

No time or resource to sort out for a while so it had to sit in sulky shame until about two weeks ago..
I wanted to find out how much damage had been done to valves etc so slipped a small USB camera into the plug holes to inspect..

The picture above shows valve impact on piston..so off with the heads..again...now then  in an ideal world I would have bought some exchange re-con unleaded heads but that wasn't viable in shed world...with the heads off I noticed a glaring error I hadn't spotted last year..the inlet ports were O shaped not the D shape they should have been for the year of the car...then fate took over and I executed plan B.1 which involved a pair of second hand heads off ebay for £60 quid - they were the right D port ones and didn't have bent valves, so even though they were well used ,they stood me my best chance of getting   mobile again

First job was to remove the old timing gear vomit from the sump and give it  a good clean...Jizer hot water and  dishwasher tablet did the trick..

Then the second hand heads got the treatment ..new core plugs and valve stem seals fitted, a new set of  un-bent push rods from Burton and a set of roller rockers from America ($70) -they are for a Chevy V8 so you get 4 spares for that price! but they fit and work better than the well worn standard ones I had..-now I just needed a big shiny steel wheel to replace the O/E tofu one- again from Burton ...where I also got all the gaskets etc

So a few late nights in the shed and it started to look like engine again..the valves even opened and closed at the right time..something I checked several times...I put the dizzy in to double check it was going to fire No1 at the right time ..

 Passed inspection from the 6 year old

Washed and road tested -engine makes a "different" noise with the steel gear and a bit of a "singer sewing machine" noise with the new roller rockers..but it goes in fact it goes really well and touch wood should pass its MOT on Wednesday...now whether it can hold itself together for a full 12 months without catching fire or spitting bits of engine into the sump remains to be seen,but that's the joy of owning sheds....
Some of you may have noticed a 1972 Triumph 2000 skulking about in the shed ..this turned up a few weeks ago the famous Basildon Banger ..

This car will be suitably  prepared for the 2016 CT RBRR  and driven by "Teamshed" marking 20 years since our first RBRR ...watch this space