Enterpryse Posted November 8, 2003 Posted November 8, 2003 I'm about to plant the engine into the chassis and need to know what to do with the crankcase breather (C/W non return valve). The top just pulls out You can see the part just about No 3 cylinder in this pici, below, of the block (before re-work). Thanks in andvance Stuart Quote
Blatman Posted November 8, 2003 Posted November 8, 2003 Leave it where it is. Put a bit of hose on it and run it to a catch tank when the engine's in......... I notice you have a 205 block. Nice one. There should be a row of numbers by the hole for the dizzy, where that rotten bit of J-Cloth is....... Tell me what they say, and I'll let you in to a secret........ Quote
Enterpryse Posted November 8, 2003 Author Posted November 8, 2003 3323 then 8K6 but then my memory is a bit wobbly - recovering from dropping the engine in. BTW the motor seems to slope up from the front, is this normal. I'll post a pici later. Stuart Quote
Blatman Posted November 9, 2003 Posted November 9, 2003 Most Westfields slope down towards the front, but I've been fooled by SDV peculiarities before....... The numbers are (so I was told) individual quality scores for the bores. I was also told that a full set of 2's is as good as it gets......You appear to have a perfect (at the time of selection) No.3 bore, the rest are all good. Of course, if any honing or a re-bore has been carried out, they mean absolutely nothing, except to show how good the block was when it was new....... Where's Chris Elworthy? Quote
Enterpryse Posted November 9, 2003 Author Posted November 9, 2003 Ahh, thats interesting. The bores still showed the honing marks well I stripped it and only a teeney lip at the top too (95K on the clock but who really knows). Look, I have a mini problem with the gearbox mount, I didn't drill the holes in the chassis plate before putting the engine in. To be honest I could see how to get them in the right place without the gearbox being in place anyway. So the problem is How can I mark and drill the holes now its in place? I figured I could lift the whole of the front up and climb underneath but would need to transfer the marks from the top to the underside to get them in the right place. I really don't want to lift the engine out again after marking them to drill from the top. Any ideas? Thanks Stuart Quote
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted November 9, 2003 Posted November 9, 2003 Stuart. I have a feeling about that "non-return valve" you mentioned. My Pinto has one too and I looked for info on it in an old Granada Haynes manual. It's a valve that's used only on the carburetted model - where it is plumbed into the manifold on the vacuum side. On the injection models there is no valve. Our engines, to all intents and purposes, are like the injection models because they have no facility for connecting the breather into the inlet manifold - therefore no valve is needed and it might even be undesirable. If you blow through the breather as the engine has to, there's a slight resistance to airflow due to the valve. This means that the crankcase breathing system has to overcome this resistance in order to release gasses into the atmosphere (or catch-tank). I have removed the cam cover breather on my Pinto because the catchtank was filling too quickly and the cam cover is, I strongly suspect, the culprit. Vulcan Engineering tells me that there's no real need for a cam cover breather anyway. That makes sense because there's no source of gasses in the cam cover so why vent it? IMHO there can be no blowby through the valve guides because the valves are always closed when there's any significant pressure in the cylinders. There can only be valve guide "suck-by" on a closed throttle. So, the upshot is that my oil filler cap drips oil because the whole system is pressurised to the degree that the non-return valve causes it to be. I haven't yet got around to eliminating the valve but I'm confident that, when I do, there will be no more oil filler cap dripping. BTW, try to route the tube from the crank breather as steeply upwards as possible out of the crankcase so that any oil can drain back down the tube into the sump rather than being lost into the cathc tank. Quote
Andrew Posted November 9, 2003 Posted November 9, 2003 Enterpryse, It's a while since I drilled my g/box mounts, but if I remember I did something like this; Jack up the gearbox a little, slide a piece of card between the mount and chassis, lower gearbox. From above, mark the two holes to be drilled onto the card. (easier said than done! If you mark the two edges of the gearbox mounting plate onto the underside of the card, with some markings to position it laterally, you should be able to remove it and reposition it on the underside of the mounting plate and drill the two holes. Hope that makes some sense. Re the breather, as the M.O.T.C.omnibus says, I think the Sierra breather valve needs to be changed for a cortina or possibly Capri type valve, to eliminate crankcase pressurisation. There's a section on Dave Andrew's website about it. Good luck with the build, Andrew Quote
Enterpryse Posted November 9, 2003 Author Posted November 9, 2003 Thanks Andrew, will use this method tomorrow night subject to local pass out. Stuart Quote
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