Head and chain

The biggest time consuming part of the engine rebuild is missing ordering parts and then having to wait for them. Mind you it has given me time to do other jobs on the car plus time to double check things.

I replaced Nr 2 piston, so that's all four back in place and rotating nicely on the crankshaft. 

Cleaned up the surface towards the sump and put a little gasket paste on the joints between the rear oil seal housing and front seal housing.

Cleaned up the sump and then bolted it on with a new gasket. The sump is actually from an M42 engine as the M44 gasket won't fit. GKD offer shallower sumps for better ground clearance and I got a cut down M42, fits perfectly!

Replaced the head gasket, carefully lowered the head onto the block making sure the pistons were 90o off TDC and the camshafts were at TDC. I spent some frustrating time torqueing the head bolts down. First stage was 30 Nm and second and third stages to 90o each. The tool I used to check the degrees kept slipping so quite difficult to do on my own.

Once the head was on I turned the crankshaft back 90o so piston 1 was at TDC. Then got the timing chain on and the chain guides and chain tensioner. I then tried to turn the flywheel to see that everything rotated okay. Basically impossible and thought I'd done something wrong so took the chain off and started again - same results! So decided to get the crankshaft pulley on and turn that instead and it worked fine.

Chain sprockets on.

Still some small adjustments to make with the camshafts and sprockets.

Lower timing cover on and new gaskets

Crankshaft pulley on but not tightened to 330 Nm yet. At least the crank can be turned using it.

Changed water pump gasket ..

.. and in place

Upper timing chain on and new gasket behind the thermostat recess.

Thermostat bolted in place with in and outlet to the radiator.

Water pump pulley in place

New sump gasket and sump bolts torqued to 10Nm. Almost ready to put back in the car, just a few more things to bolt on, cylinder head cover, alternator, engine mounts etc. The rest can go on when it's in the car. If all goes well probably Tuesday with help from Neil.