Right, I think we are onto a winner.
Started the day by fitting up the engine cradle, this then bolts to the engine mounts and holds a everything steady. Next up was to get the starter motor in place so I could use it to spin the engine over and check for oil pressure and oil making its way to the rockers. This wasn't an issue and all went fine. Like for like engine means everything just goes back in as is.
Whilst at it I thought it'd be good to do a comp check... this is where things got a little odd. Compression was right down on 4 and 2.. (about 3 bar on each) I rotated everything over and found the inlet valve on 4 to be tight on the rocker. Adjusted it back to spec and comp jumped up a little. The other 2 were ok though still looking ropey (all low and the highest at about 6.5 bar) I'm not going to lie at this point I was very concerned, had I just picked up a duff engine.
In my head lack of comp could only really be a few things, more holes in the piston..... blown gasket, valves not seating or stuck piston rings. As it was already down I thought I may as well just crack on with what I had anyway. A bit of a run should highlight the issue. Slapped some ATF down the bores to help with the piston rings if it was them. Checked the dizzy drive gear to see it was out a tooth, so moved that around to spec. Fitted up my coil and the rest of the wiring. Sucked fuel through from tank to the carb top and poured some down the carb itself. Got to cranking it over and within a few turns she fired into life, and for an old hag that hasn't been ran for a while it sounded fantastic. Sprayed oil everywhere as I had the rocker off but still smooth, better than the old engine at least lol. I was shocked at how well it was running considering the previous results!
With no water pump hooked up I didn't run it for long, less than a minute at a guess. Out of curiosity I checked the comps again once. 10.5 to 11bar on all of them! 2 bar higher than my old engine. Ill take that
So next up is to drain the oil and fit the filter setup along with some fresh oil. I'm waiting on a water pump gasket, the old pump was knackered so I'm going to fit the "new" one from the old engine. Once that is done I will be able to refit the rad panel and get the system bled and working again. There's a few panels I need to refit but I want to clean them up a little first.
Once up and running I will make sure I set the timing properly (just in case it was det that contributed to the death of the last engine) maybe even a run on the dyno to make sure all is good. I'm hopeful that the better condition engine will have a few more ponies than the old engine had.
Cheers for reading






