The engine lives.....

Only for a brief amount of time, as no coolant system hooked up etc, but we just want to make sure the rebuilt engine we bought fired before we fitted it

An exciting moment to get to, but just need to crack on now so we can get it installed!

Engine time

We are almost at that time where a test fit of the engine is on the cards. This will be in order to make sure the brake pipes etc are all out of the way and also to allow a measurement to be taken to get the prop shaft ordered. 

This got us to thinking that it would be good to test start the engine to ensure there are no problems before the final install. 

I need to get a few bits sorted for this, one of them being the starter motor. On investigation, it appears that my engine has a staggered bolt pattern, so I can't get one of the mini high torque starters. It also means that the 153 tooth flywheel hat came with my gearbox package can't be used. 

Luckily for me, Brian at Roadcraft has agreed to swap the flywheel and clutch for the ones that will work with the staggered starter. That is, I need a 168 tooth flywheel and 11" clutch. 

Once we get all that sorted and the new bits have arrived, we can set to and see if she starts!

It did get me to thinking more about the engine age. Looking at the numbers stamped in the block, it seems that this engine was originally from a 1974 Camaro. 

Once the engine is in, I will get the age verification certificate sorted, and as long as my initial investigations are correct, the good news is that this should mean that the IVA emissions test should only consist of a visual smoke check (as long as I have interpreted the diagram in the IVA manual!)

Rear end done

It had taken a bit longer than I would have liked to get to this stage, but with the a house move and a new job to contend with, there hasn't been much time recently. 

However, I am glad to report that the rear end finally seems to be done!

There were a few teething problems along the way, but got there in the end. 

The suspension arms went on without any problem, and the shocks and springs all lined up without drama. The first problem that I encountered was when trying to fit the caliper carriers to the hub carriers. As you can see from the photo below, I could not get it to line up properly. 

I pondered this for about a week, trying to figure out what the issue could be. The XJ40 I have used as a donor had the older Girling calipers, but I wanted to upgrade to the ATE calipers, so I wondered if this could be causing an issue? However, I was told by a jag spares dealer that they should fit fine. 

Then, I had an epiphany! I suddenly thought that the issue may be that we hadn't torqued up the hub nuts. Looking in the Haynes manual I could not believe these needed to be tightened to such a large torque figure! We had to get my dads "big" torque wrench out!

I am glad to say that once it was all tightened up it all fitted perfectly

So, I managed to get the calipers on and the flexies all bolted up, then it was on to the handbrake cables

Again, this was all fairly straightforward. All I had to do was drill the holes out slightly to clean off the powder coating, and a new hole had to be drilled for the off side cable, as the bracket only came with 1 hole for the cables entering from the rear. 

So, that is the rear pretty much done. On to the fuel tank fitting next!