I
bought YGC 975G from a local car dealer for £300. I simply
had to have it for that money because it was fitted with a 2-litre
Pinto. I arranged delivery for the following day and it
was duly delivered on a low loader which I assumed was so that
the delivery guy could get back to the dealer. Hmm, perhaps
not!
The engine lasted about 3 miles before the bottom end starting
knocking! Oh well I could always put another Pinto in;
after all there are plenty in breakers. Anyway, to cut
a long story short, the engine had been "bodged" in
on a standard crossflow gearbox so I decided to put a crossflow
back in.
This was also a good opportunity to paint the engine bay the
same colour as the rest of the car. It was certainly in need
of it.
The car was originally "Olympic Blue" but had
been sprayed "Pearl Grey Metallic".
The Crossflow
I already had a fairly tuned crossflow that just needed re-building
so I set about getting the crankshaft reground. It turned
out that I needed a new piston as well but that was only £20.
One advantage of using oversize 1300cc pistons.
The
spec is as follows:-
- 1600
fitted with +90 thou 1300cc GT pistons
- BLF22
camshaft (0.415" lift)
- 1.625"
inlet and 1.375" exhaust valves
- lightened
flywheel
- balanced
bottom end
- A
pair of Weber 45 DCOE's
- K
& N filters with trumpets
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After
about 700 miles of running in, the engine started losing power
and running roughly. Oil was also blowing out through
the exhaust gasket.
I checked the compression and found that cylinders one and
two were practically zero. It then dawned on me that
I had not de-glazed the cylinder bores. This meant that
instead of bedding in, the rings had just "polished up"
and allowed the oil to be blown past. Time for another
strip down.
part 2 The
Plan
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