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What to check before pulling engine?

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Popeye

Popeye

Obi Wan
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Hello all, long time lurker, minimalist poster here:

I am about to embark on my restoration of a TR4A. The car is in good shape, and I plan to follow the methods outlined in Rodger William's book. Namely:

I plan to fix the doors (clean them up, remove a few dents), fix the sheet metal, and fix the tub (rust in the floors and in the footwell area - no visible rust anywhere else, yet... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif)

Next step is the frame.

Third step is the engine.

Finally the brakes, tranny, etc.


Question to the group: Before I pull the engine, should I check anything? The engine runs, albeit a little rough. (To start it I need to fill the floats with fuel and modulate the throttle.)

Really, my question is how to evaluate the engine condition? I plan to do at minimum some exploratory work, i.e. clean the cooling passages, take the head off, and check other things I do not know of yet.

But what should I check with the engine still runnable? Compression test? Blow-down test?


Thoughts?

Many thanks in advance - and I hope this is not a repeat post.

Mike

P.S. I bought the car this past December, and since have obtained and studied the Rodger Williams book as well as the workshop manual.
 
Mike,
Are you happy with the performance of the motor?
Does it burn oil?
Does it smoke?
When was the last rebuild (how many miles on motor)
Now is the time to rebuild the motor if needed. You don't want to get the car all cleaned up and then have to pull the motor.

Bill
 
Hi Mike,

You are on the right track researching with those books.

One good check of engine condition is a compression test. Run this on each cylinder and see how each shapes up and how well each compares to the others. If compression is low in one or more cyl., or there is significant variation from one to the other, I'd be tempted to rebuild. A more sophisticated version is a leak-down test. This uses compressed air and can reveal if rings are worn, or if valves are a problem, etc. If not experienced doing one, I'd suggest taking it to a mechanic.

Depending on the mileage on the engine and what work you might know of having been done on the engine in the past, a rebuild might be in order. Do you know if it's been setup for unleaded fuel?

The first restoration I ever did I focused on the body and interior first, then worried about the engine, frame, etc. Any more, I think I would square away the basics and mechanicals first, then tackle the cosmetic projects. For example, the frame should be confirmed to be good and usable very early on. If it needs replacing, that would be a major problem if the body were all freshly painted. Bill is right about having to pull or re-pull the engine after everything is prettied up, too. Of course, ideally everything would be happening concurrently and the car would come back together nicely within a matter of weeks, rather than the years so many restorations seem to take! The better plan you make in advance, the easier it all will be.

Keep us posted about your progress and what you find!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif
 
Thanks for the advice!

Bill, I can't comment on how well it runs. I bought the car in the current configuration: the engine runs long enough to drain the float bowl... not long enough to determine truly how well it runs, burns oil, etc. She starts right up, but does not run particularly smoothly (due to poor timing, old plugs, out of tune carbs, lack of an exhaust, etc!).

The car has 85k miles, and the last time it was registered was about 1982 (?). Thus I assume it is not converted to run on unleaded fuel.

Bottom line, it sounds like I'll do a compression test while the battery, starter are connected, but likely will do a "full" rebuild once I get to the engine part of the project.

(I put "full" in quotes because the word "full" is rather non-descriptive, and I find the longer I read this bboard, plus the Triumphs email list, the more I learn, and the better I can define "full"!!)

…and now I am full of it. ha.

Thanks,
Mike
 
take the rockers off the shaft to see condition (typical worn out parts).check for shaft wobble in the distributor.check oil pressure with an accurate gauge routed from one of the main oil gallery plugs.
rob
 
Walk back into house, put left hand behind back and check wallet. No matter what you do from here, you'll be back to that spot.
 
Don't know too much yet, but I'm afraid /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gif

Thanks,
mike

p.s. we need an icon of spewing gold coin...
 
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