Engine build P2

The engine build continues with the hussey copper head gasket being annealed and coated with wellseal to ensure a good seal.

With the gasket in place the cylinder head was bolted and torqued down the chain guides, chain, chain tension, and the cam went in.

I then set about rebuilding the oil pump, I cleaned it all and then installed all new parts to ensure the pump is as new. The pump was installed followed by a new light solid mass crank pulley. (managed to get it in the oven to help it to fit, was still quite tight but its on, the other half wasn't happy as I squeezed the pulley in while the dinner was in the oven...)

Engine build P1

Today I took some time to relax and start on the assembly process of the engine as I have a nice pile of new parts.
The first thing I started to do is to clean all the components, even where new as I wanted to be sure everything was clean and without any contaminates.

With the parts clean I started to gap the rings, which I found did not need too much work but in general opening by about 0.10 mm.

Before fitting the rings I installed the gudgeon pin and spring clips then laid out all the parts in order ready for assembly which certainly looked like a camera moment

I like taking the time to gap the rings but always hate fitting them due to the risk of snapping a ring but I am relieved that they all fitted without any issues.

A photo of a ring top ring in place gapped correctly for my needs

Here is a piston fully build ready to go into the engine

With the piston and rings all in place I decided that I would get them all built up and then using a piston ring compressor installed the pistons into the block

The lower half of the engine bearings were installed and then placed together

Then lastly for the day I decided to put the cylinder in place but it is not fitted as I will need to lift it off and apply the copper gasket correctly

Engine balanced

Recently all of the engine components took a trip to auto sprint for some balancing to ensure the best running and performance.

The parts sent were, pistons, con rods, lightened flywheel, sprung plate, crank, crank pulley

The results found that the difference between the lightest and heavyset con rod was 30g which is a huge difference consider they are stock and would have been fitted by BMW without any balancing. The clutch masters flywheel was also out of balance and was drilled to bring it back into balance.

The crank pulley was perfectly in balance as was the pistons.

On the picture you can see the drilled balancing on the flywheel and the grinding which has taken place on the crank and the sides / bottom of the con rods.

I hope to be able to clean everything and start building the engine very soon