Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

bjacko · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2026 7:12 am Post subject: Sun

Don't blink or you may miss the sun!!
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1938 Morris 8 Ser II Coupe Utility (Pickup)
1985 Rover SD1 VDP

Rick · Site Admin Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 22851 Location: UK

Grabbed the decent weather and ran up both the Buick (first time in months) and also the pickup, before then taking the Herald for a spin. We hope to take the latter to the Combermere meet in the morning.

RJ
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Rick - Admin
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Vintage Fly Guy · Joined: 27 Jun 2024 Posts: 197

Hope you took your brolly! Wink

MikeEdwards · Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2753 Location: South Cheshire

Vintage Fly Guy · Joined: 27 Jun 2024 Posts: 197

Rootes75 · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2026 3:14 pm Post subject:

Another Sunday morning stripping the Commer engine. After a lot of hard work we have all pistons freed, 4 of them completely out but Pistons 3 and 4 still in. The reason being is that the crankshaft has a large central counterbalance that the con rods wont pass by so it needs to be rotated.

Next issue we found was that it will rotate only slightly, its not seized but we found the camshaft is seized so we need to take the front end off to disconnect the timing chain before we can rotate it enough to withdraw the con rods.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

MikeEdwards · Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2753 Location: South Cheshire

Rootes75 · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2026 11:41 pm Post subject:

Had the day off work and as it was dry for once we took the big Hillman to a local pub car meet.

Not many about, maybe a dozen or so but it was nice to be out driving again.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

consul 57 · Joined: 09 Nov 2017 Posts: 606 Location: somerset

Rootes75 · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2026 12:06 pm Post subject:

It was at Eli's, we went cause I had the day off work and it was half term. We are usually busy with clubs when they have the evening do.

It was nice to get out and it was about 15 or so miles each way so the car got a good run.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

MikeEdwards · Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2753 Location: South Cheshire

Over the last few days I've removed the engine loom from the Sports Hatch to see if I can sort the charging issue. I found that four cables - alternator sense, oil pressure, coolant temperature and coil positive - had joins in them, with heat shrink tube over them. I've replaced those with new cable with no joins, re-taped the loom and re-fitted it today, a short test showed the voltage staying where it should, but it's early days yet to suggest that it might be fixed.

I can't think why those joins are there, but there's only me who has worked on it so maybe I thought that was a good thing to do at the time. They're all colours that I have had full reels of for years, so it wasn't because I hadn't got enough cable.
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1976 Vauxhall HP Firenza, 1976 Vauxhall Sportshatch (x2), 1986 Audi coupe quattro, 2000 Audi TT

Rootes75 · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2026 11:29 am Post subject:

Continued the engine strip down on our Commer. Managed to get the starting dog and pulley off along with the timing chain cover.

With it off we soaked and cleared the rust and build up from the chain and freed that fully. But in trying to turn her over we can now see that the cam shaft is definately seized. We have left it soaking again and will have another look at it next weekend.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

Rootes75 · Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2026 1:57 pm Post subject:

Another couple hours on the engine...we have freed it off enough to get the remaining two pistons out. That's a pretty good achievement in our eyes.

On rotation though the camshaft still hits a couple of really stiff points. Now the pistons are out we can see up in that the pistons that we're really corroded in place the cam followers are completely seized. That's all of them for pistons 5 and 6.
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Various Rootes Vehicles.

MikeEdwards · Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2753 Location: South Cheshire

I finally bought a Power File the other day, and it's given me a bit of an impetus to do some more grinding of welds on the project car. Some that were quite tricky to access with the many different tools I already had have been done quite easily with the new toy. I saw battery ones in Lidl, but as I don't have any of their battery stuff it worked out a little bit more expensive than just buying a mains one from B&Q. I'm surprised they hadn't got mains ones in at half the price I paid, that's usually how it works.

Swapped the bolt holding the crank sensor into the modern. The original bolt was going tight long before it was holding the sensor in place and I was a bit concerned I was about to damage the thread in the block. I put it back in with a spacer last week but it still wasn't quite right, so I visited a local specialist who kindly gave me a replacement bolt. That seemed to be doing the same thing, so I put a bigger spacer on it and it's now firmly held. Still need to find where the oil is leaking from, so I cleaned up one side of the block to see if it comes back.
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1976 Vauxhall HP Firenza, 1976 Vauxhall Sportshatch (x2), 1986 Audi coupe quattro, 2000 Audi TT