Project Swamp

[RobboMC]

I thought I'd go back to Day 1 when we rolled the car off the trailer and start fresh. with this project

We knew the previous owner had boiled the engine so we filled it up with water and waited for the puddle to form on the floor
which happened quite quickly down near the front which was interesting.

Upon jacking up the car my 11 year-old pointed underneath saying" That doesn't look good."

What he could see was these rusty old pipes.

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So problem solved, off to the local parts man and within a week I was happily bolting in the new steel pipes.
The old ones had lasted 13 years so I didn't worry about upgrading to aluminium.

I had replaced coolant pipes in mid-engine cars before and these under body positioned ones were pretty straightforward to change.

New clamps were a must and we soon had a car that held it's coolant off the floor.

Challenge One completed.

[RobboMC]

Next the small issue of a missing battery was fixed and we soon had a fully working dashboard and even a ticking clock.

However the engine would not crank over. After all manner of fiddling with the key fobs, locking and unlocking the doors, replacing fob batteries and so on
I decided that deeper trouble was at hand and set about removing the starter motor. My partner had acquired a workshop manual by now however application of the 'if it's in the way remove it' principle allowed "access" to the starter motor bolts. Removing the starter motor revealed a bit of a shock. Most of the snout was missing, but I was lucky enough to get my son's little hand in through the hole and recover the broken piece safely away from the clutch.

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So we were off to a different MG specialist this time, however still in Sydney, and found a starter motor that was in good working order.

Challenge Two completed and now I had a good working knowledge of the engine bay layout.

[RobboMC]

I should point out now that this is a 1998 model 1.8MPi manual car with air-conditioning. This would become important later on.

[Rob Bell]

Nice project report! Keep 'em coming!

[talkingcars]

Good start to the project.

So problem solved, off to the local parts man and within a week I was happily bolting in the new steel pipes.
The old ones had lasted 13 years so I didn't worry about upgrading to aluminium.

People tend to use Stainless Steel, they don't cost much more than mild steel but do last longer.

[RobboMC]

With a working starter motor installed and armed with a shiny new compression tester we set about doing a compression test but the thing
would still not crank over. So after replacing the battery terminals I removed, cleaned and replaced every single battery lead connection.

We were able to do a compression test! The 4 pots read 100-100-0 and er 0. Ouch.
So after an enjoyable weekend discovering how to get the inlet manifold off I soon had the head on the garage floor,
and found the broken rubbers in the apparently original head gasket.

And a quiet voice inside me started to fear the worst.

[RobboMC]

46 degrees.JPG (21.47 KiB) Viewed 2919 times

With some missing LED bars - 46 degrees in Sydney that week on the dashboard of our Zafira. No work on the F at all.

[Rob Bell]

Ouch - Scorchio!

I'm really worried about the 0 compression on two cylinders - it might just be the fire rings on the head gasket sealing no longer sealing - but if that is the case, then why? Have the liners sunk? Has the cylinder head been cooked and gone soft? Or have the liners/ piston rings failed?

Fingers crossed that the problem isn't too serious!

[RobboMC]

Now that the head was off the true extent of the damage became visible. While the liners seemed level, they were no longer sealing against the head as
the head bolts had been stretched by the temperature the engine had reached when boiled. The hardness of the head was about 60 BHN when it should have been at least 90 or so.

The liners has started banging the fire rings into the underside of the head leaving nice deep grooves.

Basically the head was soft as butter and the grooves were too deep to machine out anyway.
The metallurgist at work suggested I buy a boat as I already had a nice anchor. ( The head; not the car )

[RobboMC]

So I started searching on the parts pages for a replacement head, which would also mean changing the cam pulley system to accept an auto tensioner and a 26 mm belt
as these are the only new heads available. But it wasn't just a new head, there was also a damaged piston to consider ( that little gouge beside the valve cut-out, small but dangerous ) and the probable cost was starting to grow.

[RobboMC]

Meanwhile in the shed I determined to remove the engine/gearbox assembly from the car. We turned things around so the engine end was nearest the door
and worked away at disconnecting everything. A good mate arrived with three trolley jacks and carefully we jacked up the body and removed the subframe.

I found that after other difficult work on the F that the subframe came out remarkably easily, except the disconnecting the shock absorbers and about 3 chapters on
removing the air con compressor have somehow been missed in the procedure in the now quite well used workshop manual. My notes on what extra was removed
are almost as long as the original process.

I thought this was the end of the dismantling, but alas it was not as the gearbox had to be removed as some of you know.

So now my thread has caught up with my personal photo.

When we took delivery of the car I boasted that I had removed engines from mid-engine cars before and that now turned out to be prophetic words.
I had also made a minor mistake, I should have placed the car further into the garage as it was now very hard to move and the engine subframe was now sitting in the driveway.

[Rob Bell]

I don't fancy the look of that piston at all. A bottom end rebuild is calling your name I think Robbo

[RobboMC]

Spot on Rob I agree. So when my partner started pointing out the lack of progress over the Aussie winter I set about pricing up the parts. New head, pistons, MLS gasket and oil rail a small voice inside me suggested I just check eBay one more time. Amazingly here in Australia was a fully rebuilt engine rebuilt and ready to go, and it was for sale, and a mere 950 kilometres away.

Here's the new engine sitting on the pallet after a great mate picked it up for me and arranged safe shipping all that way to me.
Yes he got a big carton of beer for his help.

It seemed to good to be true, all I had to do was swap the new engine in where the old one came out.

Challenge Three seemed to be well near completion.

[RobboMC]

So one afternoon I popped the gearbox off and took it out for a degrease and clean.

And found this:

One very missing tooth.

So it was off to Brown & Gammons website for a new ring gear.

Annoyingly the ring gear is about to arrive right at Xmas and the fitting shop I have lined up is going on holidays for a whole month
so now I am madly searching for somewhere else. And I can't use the other flywheel as it is an automatic one.

Meanwhile the posts will slow down as I have a short holiday as well.

[RobboMC]

I made myself a very nice flywheel locking tool that works when the gearbox is removed.

Very handy and necessary for removing and replacing flywheels.

Crafted from free-machining brass from a pattern posted here

http://www.mgfcar.de/gearbox/clutch_replacement_MGF.htm

it may look a bit 'agricultural' but it works perfectly.

[RobboMC]

So the brother in law arrived and we lifted the new engine off the pallet and into place in the subframe.

And we commented " When you are up to your neck in alligators remember who it was that drained the swamp"
Hence the title of this post.

Two engines in the driveway and a subframe on it's side. Time for a beer to celebrate.
The car waits patiently in the background.

[Rob Bell]

How frustrating is that??? Hopefully there is light at the end of this tunnel!

[RobboMC]

Finally hassled enough by my mate that turned up with some motivation and stripped the cams out of the old head for me.

Within an hour or two we had the MEMS 1.9 cams fitted and were applying Rover sealant to refit the cam ladder.
A quick check that all was aligned properly and on with the matching cam cover.

So now the new MEMS 3 engine is now set up to run MEMS 1.9.

I just have to remember in 5 years time that it's using a 26 mm timing belt and an auto tensioner.

My son stood behind me and read out the bolt tightening sequence for the cam ladder and to his horror discovered it's the same
sequence he is trained to use at McDonald's use to flip burgers, bottom right, go up, then move left, go up, etc.

Yes I have a few sensors to swap over as well, and an inlet manifold with the injection.

It's turning out really handy to have a complete dead engine to practise on.

[Rob Bell]

Always good to have a dead engine around - I have one on my bench at home that I am using for my throttle body build! Next will be making a bracket to hold the oil cooler that I want to fit to Project Shed...

[RobboMC]

MEMS 3 one day.

mems3.JPG (46.25 KiB) Viewed 2757 times

MEMS 1.9 the next.

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