Thursday, December 13, 2012

Engine Rebuilding - The Real Fun Begins

Gary my Machinist
The first order of business was to find the right machine shop and, as I found later, the right machinist. Every machine shop in Portland and on the West Coast will say they can do the work on your BMC A Series engine. And most are telling the truth to some extent. We are talking about an inline 4 cylinder engine with all of the specifications readily available online and most shops have modern machining equipment that can do the work. I started with a  few recommendations from local car owners and shops, then I interviewed three highly recommended machine shops. In the end, I was most impressed with  Gary, at the NAPA machine shop on SE 9th and Morrison. When I walked into his shop, I saw an A Series1275 exactly like mine,  a few MGA and MGB engines, plus a Jaguar engine and some, whose lineage I was not sure of but were obviously British, in various states of machining and rebuild in an immaculate, organized machine shop. Immaculate and organized is not what you usually see in a machine shop. I thought I was in the right place. A few minutes into our "interview", I realized that I was the one being interviewed. Gary knew everything about my engine. He said, if (yes if) my core engine was acceptable to him to begin with, and I would agree to buy the parts he recommended, he "might" agree to do the machine work. One major issue was that I wanted to do the rebuild myself.  He was, at first, not too amenable to me building the engine. After all, he was going to do all the hard and expert work on the cleaning and machining. Gary really cared about the outcome of his work and knew how valuable his experience and knowledge would be in the actual putting of the parts together. Once I explained to him the history of the car, how my father and I had done this together before, and the fact that I really needed to do the assembly myself, he signed up. Though probably still with some skepticism. I am glad he accepted me as a customer. I knew I was working with one of the best British engine guys I could find. One who would challenge me from a quality standpoint and make me fully justify the what and why of any decisions I made on the engine rebuild. I learned a ton from Gary. Just look at the pictures of the engine he machined and prepped for me. "It is a thing of Beauty" was what he said when I was picking it up. That is not to say we did not have our disagreements though. Gary likes to build a stock engine and he does it well. A well built stock A series engine will run 150,000 to 200,000 miles with the right maintenance. Still we found our common ground on the modifications I was planning. Between the .060 inch rebore, the non stock 9.75:1 compression pistons,  the APT "swept head with oversized 1.4" intake valves, a fast street cam from Delta Cams, and the harder than hell steel EN40B crank. I can remember Gary saying, somewhat discussed with me , "So you got me bronze valve guides when I told you to buy cast iron guides." We discussed the implications of this decision too as we had on other places we departed on philosophy, and we agreed the decision was mine and he whole heartily let me know the best way to proceed even if it was not his best and recommended method. Gary was a true partner who I was able to talk through the options and consequences  with.  Once he was finished, I took it all home in pieces to begin the actual rebuild. For the rest of this post, I will simply post pictures with captions that show the progress. Double click on any picture for a closer view.

Cleaned, Bored and Ready to go.









APT "Swept Head" New Valves/Guides. Completely Rebuilt
  

Painted APT Head



EN40B Crank and New Tri-Metal Bearings


Measuring Crankshaft Endfloat. This needs to be .020 inches. Looks right on.


Main Bearings installed


Balanced Cooper S Rods with new pistons

Installing 9.75:1 High Compression Pistons

Rod Endcaps Installed


Delta KB Fast Road Camshaft

Balanced Flywheel


4 Degree Advance on the Camshaft from 108 to 104 degrees
 

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Phase I

Phase I: 

Phase I consists of Body work and paint, all new suspension, and an engine rebuild. I chose British Auto Works out of North Plains, OR to do the body work, paint and suspension rebuild. Bill at BAW was receptive to letting me do as much as I could myself on the project, acknowledging that it could require some additional coordinating who was doing what and when. But after a some planning and agreement on what Phase I was, it was time for him to pick up the body shell and suspension parts and start phase I.


Loaded and ready to go to be stripped
 There was a light rain falling on the Saturday morning they showed up to take her away. I couldn't help but think the weather was probably very similar to February 7th, 1966 when the Austin Healey was built the first time at the Abindon-on-Thames factory in England. The plan is to paint it the original Riviera Blue color. Easier said than done, as this color was not one the the most popular of the time making it difficult to identify a current paint code that closely matched the original factory color. After some trial and error. I think we have a pretty good match.
BAW will also be installing the new suspension parts so the car will be on all four wheels when I get her back.


Original Factory Specs
 I started the engine tear down and rebuild while the body work and paint were being done. I found a rebuildable 1275cc engine and bought it. There were three engine sizes available for the Sprites over the years. The 1275 is the largest the most durable. I almost forgot to mention the engine also came with a Weber DCOE 45 side draft carburetor. You are supposed to be saying "ooo" to yourself right now. These are very simple four cylinder engines. But do not let that fool you, The BMC A Series engine has a long legacy of racing. It is very receptive to modifications. They were used for many years as the stock engine in the Formula Junior series in Europe, powering the entry level class for Formula I drivers. Steve Mcqueen raced a Sprite at Sebring in 1962.








I plan on building a slightly modified engine. But first, I had to disassemble it and get it to the machine shop.

 
There were a few surprises when I took the engine apart. You always hope to find nothing really bad. These engines had a lot of different OEM parts and modifications available through the years. Most have been rebuilt many times and you are never sure what you have until you take them apart.The good surprises were Cooper S rods and an EN40B nitrated crankshaft.

EN40B crankshaft






 

Well, everything is apart and it's off to the machine shop. The next post will show the engine going back together.

Off to the machine shop



Saturday, November 24, 2012

How Did This Even Happen?

My 1966 Austin Healey Sprite, is finally being restored. I bought the little sports car in 1976 as a junior in high school never knowing what I was getting into. I  drove it until it was no longer economically feasible to be depended upon as a daily driver. More so for a twenty something kid needing to show up for work on time and hoping to make it all the way home from dates with Lori, at least most of the time. That car has seen me though many adventures. Boy is she fun. Some of you have enjoyed the wind in your hair because of her. With 4.5 inches ground clearance you feel the road. With the top down you feel the wind. Driving on the old Columbia Gorge Highway curves. There is nothing like it. She was also the catalyst for my father and I to spend some great time together while I was a teenager. He, teaching me how to rebuild the engine and work on just about everything else (and asking me why I ever decided on a British car anyway). Me, learning how incredibly smart my father was and how cool engineering is in making things work. He taught me the value of a one thousandth of an inch measurement. How cool is that? That was an education that has helped me throughout the years, and will be put to the test now.
I parked her in 1982 with hopes of a future restoration. Little did I know just how long that would take. Here it is 2012. I have, over the years, religiously garaged her and slowly performed the tear down to basically a frame with a rear axle and wheels so I could pick up the front end and move it from one place to another in the garage. At the same time, I collected a rather impressive array of original factory manuals, restoration parts and the original factory specs from the Abingdon Factory archives. I have attended almost every British Field Meet at PIR, sometimes dragging my wife or daughter or George Pouch along with me. I think I know every part, nut and bolt on the car and have notes, books, pictures and Internet links for those I can't remember. I always had the best of intentions to move forward on the project, however the pragmatist in me never allowed me to start the project without a reasonable chance of successfully completing it. It was never a difficult choice to buy, furnish or remodel our homes, pay for tuition, take a vacation, or fund our retirement before turning to the car project. Yet at some point, I knew it was move forward or give up the project and in so doing, the car. One poignant moment a few years ago, I approached my wife Lori, and told her that I was just going to sell the Austin having given up on ever being capable of carving out the time or money to restore it. I had expected her to say something like, "Well, it's about time you came to your senses." or "Craigslist or ebay, when do we start?". She surprised me when she said that we should wait a few years and see what happens. So, while this project may appear to be mine, without Lori's support it could never happen. My daughter too has helped make this project a reality. First by very successfully graduating from college in a timely 4 years and second by finding a good job upon graduation. Both mental financial milestones that allowed me go to the family funding committee and get permission to fund Phase I.