Engine

Pics say it all.  If you look hard, you'll find that a freeze plug is missing. There was a hornet inside. A hornets nest in the inside of the car, and two hornets inside the carburetor. Not sure how those two got there, but thankful, all hornets were dead during discovery. In the background you'll notice an empty bag of Special Kitty cat litter. Apparently our engine stand took some abuse after holding up my mustang's 5.0 liter engine. The GT6's engine tipped over and fell onto the pavement. The block appears to be fine, but took a chuck out of our cement floor. Oil went everywhere! I remember pulling the dipstick the day I bought it, noticing the clarity of the new oil... ...well I dont know where that went because black oil quickly spread everywhere. I only had one bag left, and it was 11pm. Luckily, there was a Walmart nearby. Noticing that I was purchasing 4 more bags, the cashier asked me how many cats I had. I naturally answered without even realizing that she assumed this stuff was for the cats!

Torn apart, the piston rings were pretty much confetti. But the cylinder walls looked great. Must of happened when the car was moved, after sitting for so long. The crank shaft had to be milled though. The intake was sand blasted and painted. I couldnt find anyone that would hot tank the engine, so I took a hose to it and sprayed from every angle (after using a brush of course). Orange fluid came out for a good hour... ...later I started to actually see through the stuff that was coming out. You should seen the driveway!!!

Now my car is much faster! ...In other words, easier to push

Well we ran into a big problem. We had the crankshaft turned and were told that wed need .020 rod bearings and .010 main bearings. We fit them and everything seem fined, but before they could even be torqued to spec, all four main caps broke. We were actually measuring clearances with plastigauge. When removed the edge of the bearings were all smashed like the crank was too big. The bottom of the bearings were completely untouched, as the plastigauge was never smashed at all. The shop we used was actually a 3rd party. They ship it off to somewhere else to have it done. So naturally they werent at all helpful. I sent it back to find out what was wrong, and to get specs. They kept that thing for months and when I finally called them back, all that could tell me was what they told me before, .010 mains, .020 rods. Not what the original specs they thought they should be, or why such a thing would even happen. At one point I had to bring the block itself for them to look at it, an no matter what they claimed it was the bearings, assuming that I was using original bearings, instead of the .010 ones I bought for it. So Im out a numbers matching engine, and out $120.

It just bothers me because the only reason I do business with them was because they kept telling me they can do stuff, when they NEVER could, and of course, once youve got a problem, you keep returning for repairs. Thats how they do business. I havent found a single automotive shop that I have never had a negative experience except two. One was because they were actually trying to be legal. You wouldnt think they would do any good considering that its a repurposed gas station, but Id probably go back. I mean ever dealership Ive had experienced with has something wrong with it, so I guess you cant judge a book by its cover. And the second shop was actually a radiator rebuild shop, and honestly I havent run the car yet, so I cant verify that its good.

Anyway, I was on britishcarforum.com explaining page after page about my horrific experience when someone notice an ad on triumphspitfire.com. Someone a few towns away was getting rid of a "rolling" chassis with engine for FREE. Deal was I had to take everything. Eventually I also swapped hoods with the guy. Reason for his generosity, well other than needing the room, keeping these cool cars on the road. And I agree, thats whats important. I made sure to give away parts I didnt need for the very same reason.

Since we couldn't find anyone in the HUGE metroplex of DFW that would clean an engine, and with all the experience Ive had in my past wiyh "professionals," we decided to try electrosis on the head and block. It took all the rust and gunk right off.

Painted with POR!% silver, then red.

Block during electrolosis

Early engine with a 2" crank instead of the 2.3"

Again, POR15 silver and then with red. Despite winning $1000 from Duplicolor for my mustangs engine bay, I had decided not to use their products this time around. Its possible that its just their clear coat, but the high heat yellows the clear, making my silver head appear bronze, and my blue block appear torquoise, and of course it doesnt do it evenly.

Pistons all cleaned up and shiny. We were told that the engine had about 20,000 miles on it. Im thinking, yeah right, whatever, free engine. These odometers only have 5 digits on em. But after tearing it apart everything looked great for the most part. Since we already bought everything in order to rebuild the old block, we went ahead and used the parts here. While the original engines piston rings were confetti, these were still nice, but we replaced them anyway.

The cool thing is the original engine came with original carburetors. The ones I had were 70's emissions ones

Brand new clutch kit

All tied up and ready to go!

The car is all about bees. Found a nest under the drivers dash, two in the carbs. I dont even know how they got in.

The beginings of a "frame off" restoration.

The sway bar mount broke off, so we took the one off the donor frame and welded it on

The area where the bumper bolts to was rusted and twisted. A new part costs $130, and theyre only available for MKIIIs so my husband made our own

Everything cleaned up and POR15ed

Victoria British was having a sale so pretty much everything's suspension related is brand new. What you see here painted is original. They were all POR15ed, and then resprayed  rattle can black because the black POR15 we have will turn brown in the sunlight, and since I plan to have the hood up often for shows, I wanted to make sure they all stayed pretty. Also notice that the left  A arm at the top is bent, but in the bottom pic, it is not. Not sure how on earth that happened, but I cant remember how bad life was before we got a hydraulic shop press