2.2 engine replacement project

[mrscalex]

After all your time and effort there surely can't be anything to go wrong. Hoping so, anyway.

I hope not. But I'm not a professional! I checked the car thoroughly and apart from the rear end I reworked the entire car anyway. Guessing if anything it would be brakes or emissions as those are difficult to be certain of yourself.

Soooo looking forward to taking this out and putting a few miles on it.

 

[mrscalex]

FAIL

Imbalanced handbrake. Hopefully that will be a quick job to sort out tomorrow night and it will be back in Friday for the retest. Rear brakes were about the only thing I never had apart and serviced

Oh. Dodgy wiper as well!

 

[the Nefyn cat]

Not much wrong there, then. Hope it's an easy fix.

 

[t-tony]

Can't fail a car on parking brake imbalance ! Where do these muppets get these ideas ?

Tony.

 

[the Nefyn cat]

Be calm, it's probably one of these not-so-literate young people. The amount of gibberish I see written these days mutter mutter grumble etc.

 

[t-tony]

Thing is with parking brake they don't operate when wheels are turning so don't need to be in balance. You can have, for example, one locking and the other a low reading and still pass.

Tony.

 

[mrscalex]

It's a garage I've used for years and I normally deal with the older guys.

On this occasion I did indeed have a young lad who didn't seem too sure of himself. And seemed a bit surprised when I said I'd take it away and do it myself.

Won't do any harm to strip it all down and clean it. Probably just some surface rust on the drum. Just hope I don't need to change the handbrake cables if they are damaged stretched. Can't really be ar*ed to spend any more time under cars at the moment. My body is wrecked!

 

[t-tony]

It's a garage I've used for years and I normally deal with the older guys.

On this occasion I did indeed have a young lad who didn't seem too sure of himself. And seemed a bit surprised when I said I'd take it away and do it myself.

Won't do any harm to strip it all down and clean it. Probably just some surface rust on the drum. Just hope I don't need to change the handbrake cables if they are damaged stretched. Can't really be ar*ed to spend any more time under cars at the moment. My body is wrecked!

To be honest mate I would just de adjust every thing and start again. Adjust the shoes up to the drums first the re- adjust the cables.

Tony.

 

[mrscalex]

To be honest mate I would just de adjust every thing and start again. Adjust the shoes up to the drums first the re- adjust the cables.

Tony.

Yes, will certainly retension cables as well. Just don't want to end up changing them.

 

[t-tony]

Yes, will certainly retension cables as well. Just don't want to end up changing them.

Before you do anything Rob, check the cable adjusters and note how much thread is showing past the lock nuts on each cable. If they are roughly even that would point to shoes adjustment being out OR the shoe expander not working on the side with the lower reading. Did they give you the actual readings or say which was less efficient?

Tony.

 

[mrscalex]

Before you do anything Rob, check the cable adjusters and note how much thread is showing past the lock nuts on each cable. If they are roughly even that would point to shoes adjustment being out OR the shoe expander not working on the side with the lower reading. Did they give you the actual readings or say which was less efficient?

Tony.

No they didn't. And I forgot to ask. I was thrown by the fact I didn't get to speak to my usual man. I might give him a call tomorrow.

 

[mrscalex]

Just realised I forgot to post the outcome!

It failed on the handbrake.

Assessment revealed a seized handbrake cable caused by water ingress at an outer cable break.

I stripped the brakes off Wed but I could see removing the old cable was going to be nasty. Access is difficult and I could see it was well seized at the hub end.

This morning it took me 2 hours to get it out. The lever end came out with moderate persuasion after gently bending the heat shield out the way.

There was no way the hub end was coming off by pulling it - even with mole grips. So I removed the support plate from the wheel side and after cutting off the eyelet and removing the cable I got access to the other side of the mounting collar and drifted it out easily.

Lunch time now. And then we'll put it all back together between showers this afternoon.

The outer cable break.

Support bracket after removal with eyelet cut off and placed back for illustration.

And the lever end needs someone moving the lever up and down to get a glancing alignment to get the thread barrel through.

 

[mrscalex]

I only clocked off at 10pm. That bl**dy cable was an 8 hour job. Though I dare say I could do it in half the time if I did it again. I know it's bread and butter stuff for a garage and only a 1 possibly 2 hour job but that's on a lift and it's a complete mare crawling around under axle stands. Anyway no point comparing what I do with a pro!

Not impressed with the Pagid cable. It needed a broader flat section on the lever end done with the dremmel to fit through the flat plate. And needed 2.5mm taken off all round the hub end barrel with an angle grinder.

The rear brake assembly was just about the only part of the car that didn't receive attention during the engine swap. I took a flyer on it and came a cropper. Oh well, now I have a clean sweep through the car.

Last urgent job before running it properly is to replace the thermostat and water pump. It's slow to warm up and that would have been done sooner rather than later anyway.

Other than that it's pretty much all refitting a few bits of trim not yet back on. I have a blue roof for it and need to finish the 108s.

 

[mrscalex]

Taken back to the MOT garage this morning for them to retest and sort the exhaust. They're obviously not open today and don't know exactly when they'll do it but I'll pick it up Tue or Wed evening when I'm back from Swansea.

I changed the discs with a nearly new pair from the breaker while I was at it. And obviously everything got cleaned and greased properly. The brakes are sharper now and the handbrake has a nice feel to it.

I took some more photos of the engine bay this morning.

 

[the Nefyn cat]

Soon be time to take it out and get it DIRTY.

 

[mrscalex]

Soon be time to take it out and get it DIRTY.

I'm no show car freak. So I'll happily get it dirty

 

[the Nefyn cat]

Good news, too many garage queens around here.

 

[mrscalex]

** We have a pass! **



Plus a £200 bill for wheel alignment and refitting the exhaust I'm not so chuffed with.

Will tax it tonight. Then go for a decent run

 

[mrscalex]

Driving really nicely. But tipping it down tonight so didn't go far.

And in fairness it was £160 for the work. The £200 included the £40 MOT.

£75 exhaust. £85 alignment. And they did sort the exhaust nicely that just defeated me. Now have that lovely 2.2 roar.

We compared it to a recording James made of the 2.2 breaker exhaust. We put it on the Bluetooth on the 3GT with Harmon Kardon and cranked the volume. It scared the cr*p out of both of us. Quite amazing what an iPhone can record. And the noise a little 2.2 can make!

 

[andyglym]

Just taken 1 hour to read through this thread, crikey, that's some effort mate, great job