Mechanical Moz

Thanks. A quick Google of YLU101430 brings up images that look a lot like the EU2 bracket I have installed, although dimensionally it could be different. I'll have to check the part number of the EU2 bracket, the bottom arm is all the same I think. It just seems that the alternator is sitting too high & away from the block to clear the primary, although the EU2 alternator had lots of clearance on the same brackets. I guess the EU3 alternator is larger and therefore perhaps they changed the bracket to reposition it.

Did the upper bracket change from EU2 to EU3? I'm replacing my EU2 VVC engine with an EU3 one, I used the alternator brackets from the EU2 engine as the EU3 one came with an AC compressor. On the bench the EU3 alternator fitted OK but in the car the number 1 primary from the Powerspeed exhaust fouls the alternator. If the EU3 bracket is different is it a standard Rover part I can find at a breakers as I can't find anything on the Caterham parts site?

Thanks, your reply did get through but I will email back to you.

After double checking to confirm my balls up I had another go with the spare block. I kept a keen eye on the witness marks at either end of the block as suggested by Oily and he was spot on. Once they disappeared I had 3 to 4 thou protrusion, more on one side than the other but this was easily corrected. So now I have 4.5 to 5 thou all over, happy days. Ground the webs off using my old block as a template, the newer one had a much bigger web between cylinders 3 & 4. Made one hell of a mess of the garage though, I'll be finding aluminium chips for years. On to cleaning, does anyone have a recommendation for cleaning the rust staining out of the inside? I suspect this engine had been sitting a while with water in it as the outside of the liners were rusted. I've had a quote of £100 to vapour blast the block and bearing ladder but is there an effective method I can try at home? I've read various things about vinegar, paint stripper, Coca-Cola etc so does anyone have any tales of success or failure. This is one of the most frustrating things about messing up the old block, it was clean as a whistle after a quick degrease with the paraffin gun and a jet wash rinse.

I have that thermostat arrangement, albeit with an aftermarket stat housing. Warms up quickly, never had overheating problems and never had an airlock or problems refilling the system. 1) Radiator bypass goes from stat housing to submarine, the submarine has two 16mm outlets. 2) I do have a heater and an uprated ali rad.

First job in rebuilding my engine was correcting the liner heights. Thankfully they were all level with each other but were all flush with the block deck. Read a few threads on here and followed the method of flatting with P180 wet and dry and a big square ali block. The threads seemed to suggest 1-2hrs of flatting to remove the necessary 4-5 thou, I did two 15 minute stints and have ended up with the liners 12-15 thou proud. Obviously I should have measured more frequently, just thought with an expected 1-2 hours of work checking after 30 minutes would be fine. I was actually expecting to find I'd removed much less than I'd hoped by that stage. Fortunately (if you could call it that) I have another block but that needs a lot of cleaning up and the external web grinding off, then that needs flatting as the original liners are also flush. Neither engine had suffered head gasket failure and looked like they both still had the originals.

Had the problem where the tail and indicator bulbs flash alternately, the kind of thing you often see when following a French car. The earth wire between the lamp unit and its connector was corroded along its entire length, I replaced the wire along with the earth pin in both sides of the connector. The other side looked just as bad but hadn't started misbehaving yet.

Rover 76-89 factory manual says 40 lb/ft for "emmissions control engine" (the one with air injection into the cylinder head), which is probably why Minimania have that value in their chart as I think it was an American market engine. The factory manual states 50lb/ft for all other 850/1000/1100/1275 engines. Tighten in sequence to 50% torque, then in sequence again to full torque. If you'd like a link to these manuals let me know and I'll BM you one, they are a bit more technical than the Haynes ones.

I read somewhere about using wetted bread, haven't tried it myself though.

Is there any reason why a blanking grommet couldn't be used to plug a hole in the top plate? Nothing to work loose and at less than £3 for 100 you could fit a new one every time the oil was checked. http://www.screwfix.com/p/tower-pvc-grommet-closed-pack-of-100/18603

You can get a submarine with two outlets, one for connecting the expansion tank and one for the remote thermostat bypass. You can see it in this pic, engine removed for clarity.

BM sent about the engine.

Check the lip of the groove on the spindle where the clip sits. Mine have worn here to a chamfer rather than a square edge so the clip can ride up out of the groove. One of the winter jobs is to pull the drive cable out and rotate the spindles so that the clip now fits in a part of the groove that isn't worn. I don't know how many times the wiper arms must have been on and off to cause the wear although the spindles are very soft.

Prior to it's recent demise my 17 year old VVC would produce some noticeable oil smoke on cold starting. I made the assumption this was caused by worn/old valve stem seals yet the oil consumption was still negligible, even on track.

It's just crud that's built up between the top of the liner and the head around the inside edge of the fire ring.

I took a look under the cam cover, the timing all looked OK but the followers for 3 & 4 inlets were stuck down. Took the head off and sure enough there are four bent inlet valves. The piston crowns look OK, is there likely to be any less obvious damage to the bottom end?

To no great surprise it didn't work. The engine won't even start, I did get it to run very briefly by cranking it for ages and holding the throttle wide open but it sounded really bad and absolutely reeks of fuel. Tried again only to be treated to a huge backfire through the inlet. Burnt injectors maybe? I'm now 100% certain I didn't take the exhaust pulley off when I changed the belts as the tool I made to hold the pulley only fitted the inlet. I'll take the head off if and when I decide I ever want to clap eyes on it again, right now I could just push it in a river.

Having looked through the engine manual I'm pretty sure it was the inlet pulley I took off to change the belt. I'm also pretty sure I used Loctite 243 and there's none on the exhaust pulley bolt. I definitely torqued up as per the manual. There's no visible damage to the piston crowns through the plug holes and the engine turns over OK by hand so the valves must still be in one piece, it's just whether or not they're bent. I'm tempted to put it back together, do a compression test and pray for a miracle.

I assume it's terminal? The bolt on the exhaust pulley has come loose (at 70mph in 5th) so I'm guessing the inlet valves for cylinders 3 & 4 will have met the pistons. I changed the belts 18 months ago, can't remember which rear pulley I took off though. Stupid car is only just back on the road after the gearbox went at Cadwell, now the engine has gone just before Anglesey.

I've just fitted a TTV Racing flywheel to my stock EU2 VVC engine. The difference isn't night and day (although only just back on the road, I hadn't driven the car for 3 months) but is getting more noticeable with more miles. Looking forward to seeing if I can notice the effect more on track at Anglesey. One thing to note is the clutch cover bolts were M7 on the Rover flywheel but M8 on the TTV one, I replaced the originals with M8x16 socket heads and a washer.

Is there a Rover recommended ACEA spec for the VVC? Edit: a quick Google suggests A2 from posts on MGF forums.

I did this a couple of weeks ago, having read various threads there seemed to be a split opinion on whether to separate the engine and gearbox in the car or remove them together. I went for the former, partly because I had to split them afterwards anyway. One of the pluses for this method is the gearbox can be lifted horizontally from the car so no oil escapes from the tail. If you go this way make sure to remove the starter before lifting the engine. I took the Apollo out still connected to the engine. If you have a mechanical oil pressure gauge it is handy to have something to block the connection to the filter head with. It will dribble a surprising amount of oil all over everything otherwise. I found a grease nipple that screwed in finger tight. Remove the reverse light switch through the hole in the right hand side of the transmission tunnel. With the engine lifted a few inches, remove the right hand engine mount from the block

Having had my gearbox (5 speed, 60k miles) jam in 4th at Cadwell, I've now got it out of the car and found that one of the blocker bars on the 3rd/4th synchro has a gouge in the top of it from the outer synchro ring. Flicking it back with a screwdriver has freed the selector but obviously I'm not putting it back in like that. So to a couple of questions. I see places selling heavy duty blocker bars, are they necessary? I get the impression they are less prone to breaking than the standard ones but are they more resistant to this type of failure? Long 1st or full set of Tracsport ratios? It's a 145bhp VVC K. I guess that's more a case of how much I can justify spending to myself. I'd like to put a fill hole in the lid and have seen a couple of posts where a threaded boss or nut has been welded on. Is that really necessary or would a hole with a blanking grommet in achieve the same? The lid has a small breather hole in anyway.

Recently fitted some poly bobbins to replace a pair of Halfords ones that lasted less than 2 years. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Classic-Mini-Polyflex-Exhaust-Bobbin-ORANGE-PAIR-GEX7251-mount-cotton-reel-MG-/191811497707?nav=SEARCH I think Minispares do black ones if the orange is not in keeping. There is a real problem with the quality of rubber components for classic cars at the moment, I've had steering rack boots that have split in just over a year and a vacuum pipe connector that hasn't lasted 8 months.

No worries, it was more to highlight that the correct torque for a fastener can vary by a lot depending on lubrication, material grade, surface coatings and the components being fastened together. Even when a replacing a fastener which may, on the face of it, appear to be the same.