The $640.90 Mistake

I got our engine, head, and piston sleeves back from the machine shop. On Saturday, I was in the process of putting it all back together. After checking my crank and bearing clearances, I started with the piston sleeves. I noticed that the Payen kit came with 2 sets of figure eight gaskets, and I assumed that each pair of sleeves got two. Well, after checking the height above the block, I realized that it really should only have 1 gasket, not two.

I went and got the bearing race driver we used last time to remove the piston sleeves. Unfortunately, in my haste, I put it together wrong, and used the slant side down, which forced the lip to crack on the two piston sleeves I attempted to drive out.

Doh. Otherwise perfectly good 87mm piston sleeves destroyed by a handful of hammer blows.

Moss is sending me a new complete set. Hopefully I'll be back on track for next Saturday.

Man! We've all been there, though, so you're in good company!

Glad the damage was reversible...

Mickey

ain't nothing money can't fix!!
how often have I said that--
emmett

Sucks, don't it?

Hang in 'ere!

"High Priced Automotive Education - Self Paced" you can now add to your resume. I already have that on mine.

Sorry to hear of this --
-- though it does make me feel better about the little part of my fuel gauge (one of the coils) that I destroyed on Saturday. Couldn't <span style="font-style: italic">possibly</span> be as big a financial setback as a whole set of pistons and jugs. Yikes!

Ouch! ---funny how that's the same sound I make when I either hurt myself while
working on the car or, break something that's expensive to replace.

Thanks for sharing. Hopefully we won't make that $640.90 mistake. There's so many more though to make.

Knowing me ,there would have been a hole in the wall perfect size for that hammer to fit through.

This brings up another point... I noticed that my figure eight "gaskets" don't have any plastic on them, like the book says they should have. In place of the plastic, I used wellseal (also as per the book).

Does this sound right? Should I use blue silicon instead?

Save the 2 remaining sleeves. You should be able to recover at least part of the cost when the next member wipes out one of his.

BobH

rlandrum said:

This brings up another point... I noticed that my figure eight "gaskets" don't have any plastic on them, like the book says they should have. In place of the plastic, I used wellseal (also as per the book).

Does this sound right? Should I use blue silicon instead?

Click to expand...

In Roger William's book 'How to Restore a Triumph TR2 ,TR3 & 3A' he does mention that a thin layer of WellSeal applied to the shoulder in the block and on either side of the Fo8 is a good idea to help get a good seal between the piston liners and the block.

Sorry to hear, but please continue to hang in there. That frame is
looking real good!

I used to use Permatex non-hardening on VW jugs and never had any leaks so Wellseal should work equally well on the FO8s.

Did you also set the liners to stand proud of the block per spec? They make different thickness FO8s or you can lap the top of the liners a bit if you need to shave off a couple of thou's.

Peter: I was in the process of checking my liners when I destroyed them, so no, I haven't yet got them to spec.

Rob,

Before sealing them, fit them dry with the FO8 gaskets and measure each one @ 3 points around the outside of the liner. You shouldn't have to use much force to push them down all the way.

BFH is really only needed when you have to remove stubborn rusted in ones. And you're done with that.

-PK