1974 RX-4/929 hybrid-ish.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:22 pm

Tackled a few small jobs today.

Rubber boot that had split on the inner tie rod end. I used a repco generic replacement boot (thanks to aaron hogan for the heads up) and it fitted like a charm. The part is TE2.

New boot on and looking schmick. One thing I noticed was that I'm pretty sure I had all the ball joints lined up so that the boots weren't squashed. I think that when I got the wheel alignment done, when they adjusted everything, they had the balljoints at an angle. Anyway, boot in place.

You can see above how I got the joint at 90 degrees, so the boot isn't squashed on any one side or stretched on the other. It's the opposite on the other side of the car, shown below. I think this is what causes the boot to perish. It was a newish boot too, so it shouldn't have died so young.

One of the jobs down the track will be to get some aftermarket strut tops, I'll get all of the angles on the balljoints sorted then.

I also gave the tie rod ends a lick of POR15 to stop them looking so shabby with their light surface rust.

Finally, while I'm waiting for the new slave cylinder and master cylinder for the clutch, I pulled the slave off the gearbox. Oh dear...

Ummm....

yeah that's not good. I also noticed the hose has a nasty burn mark or stretch mark on it that I have totally missed. I'll grab a new one of those too sometime this week.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:05 pm

clutch parts turned up yesterday, no one was home so they took them away again.

One of the last little things was to replicate the factory yellow markings on the underside.

Humbrol hobby paint is perfect for this

It's number 99 and I used Matt

A few dabs and viola!

I found that a cotton swab/bud worked perfectly.

If you were doing a restoration in the states on a muscle car, they go nuts for this kind of detail, so I thought I'd give it a go on the wagon since one day I'd like to restore something like a Cougar or a Firebird.

Things left are clutch, check timing, oil change, fit a few small things I have and that's about it. Oh and somehow the bonnet closed late one night while something was on the rocker cover and my perfect bonnet has a small dent in it. :evil:

I rolled the car out of the garage and started it in the sunshine over the weekend, it sounds a hell of a lot healthier now. All the old rattles from the top end have gone. :tu:

timmy201 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 07, 2013 3:17 pm

My tie rod ends ended up just like yours... rusty and split boots.

They dont make them like they used to!

ewokracing · **Posted:** Wed Jan 09, 2013 4:22 am

I'm also a bit worried too as I live a stone's throw from the sea. The beams in my garage are crying out for some love with what looks like corrosion bubbling the paint..!

Anyway, I thought I'd also attack the master and slave cylinders for the clutch. I gave them a coat of POR15. The original master has got 3/4 1 cast into it, new one is a bit rough in comparison, I had to clean up the thread on it and check that it was square on the mounting surface.

The master is a lot better quality, it was AC Delco I think and the slave was Dorman (I also think). I'll double check and post up prices as they were so cheap from America, though I'd go with Delco for the slave next time.

I should have got a clutch hose thinking back, so now I'll have to probably run around and get ripped off on Sat morning and have one made. Oh well. It'll be the last job to tackle so I suppose its worth it.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:34 am

So two things. kind of big.

1. The master cylinder I bought is for a B1600 and the bolts aren't long enough.

2. I have smoke from the exhaust.

First up, I removed the old slave, old hose and old master.

Had to pay the rediculous wallet raping price of 40 dollars for a flexible rubber hose. So much for supporting a local guy. I'll just buy more from overseas if they're going to price gouge.

Anyway, Removing the master cylinder showed how badly it had leaked and peeled the paint off the firewall.

I gave the slave and master a coat with POR15 so they don't get surface rust, fitted up the new hose and the slave, gave the firewall a coat of POR15 after tidying it up with some prepsol.

Went to bolt in the master, problem, the bolts are about 2cm short.

I've taken both cylinders to work and I'll get the short bolts pressed out and new ones pressed in.

My other main issue is that the motor is blowing smoke. When you initially crack the throttle, a whitish smoke comes out, but clears away when the motor spins up. Obviously I haven't driven it yet either to see if it does it under load. There's no more coolant smell either, but there are a few tiny weeps from the exhaust side of the block (coolant), but I'll nip up the head bolts on that side and see if that fixes it.

I think I may just drop the oil after a bit of driving on a permit, throw in the thickest oil and "stop smoke" crap in a bottle and some head gasket goo (though put a tap in so that it doesn't go through the heater matrix) and see if that stops the smoke. I can't really work out if it's coolant or oil.

timmy201 · **Posted:** Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:46 am

Did you lube it up much putting it back together?

And you once you retighten the head bolts warm it might help a bit.

From memory mine smoked enough for me to buy a new head gasket before it all came good.

In my books oil burning smells nice, like a lawn mower. Coolant smells more like "oh crap, I've broken it again"

And I've got no help on your clutch. Other than if you had a cable clutch you wouldn't have fluid everywhere

Good luck!

Fat 4 RE · **Posted:** Mon Jan 14, 2013 5:05 am

From memory the bolts in both clutch masters should not be pressed in but just screwed in as the base is threaded, get 2 (m8 nuts) and tighten on each other and unscrew them and change over should do it

Smokey, um been ages since rebuild any kind of piston motor so your guess is as good as mine, maybe the rings have not bedded in enough yet and is causing some blow by and low revs

ewokracing · **Posted:** Mon Jan 14, 2013 1:02 pm

tim - yeah it's lost that burning coolant smell, which is good, as it was burning coolant. So the head rebuild has solved part of the problem.

I think either number 1 piston has finally died and it's blowing oil past the rings OR something else. It's not black smoke so I don't think its running overly rich.

Fatz - didn't do the rings, only the head. I dumped some atf down cylinder number 1 to try and free up the rings since that cylinder had low comp, but it would have burnt out by now.

I'll keep tinkering. I have a feeling that if I take it for a big long drive and break everything in, it might come good.

philip · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:21 am

Nooooooo, not oil smoke!!!!!!!! D'oh - this is soooo typical for VC/MA!!! :cry:

This head got the new valve stem seals, yes? If they're the original rings, then they may
be on the way out as well!

NA(not quite as much)/VC/MA have a very bad habit of rings not sealing well on cylinder bores.
If you have rebuilt your motor and put new rings in, I was warned many years ago by old, old school mechanics,
to not put super dooper hard chromo rings in. This is because they do not seal properly in the bores
and cause the engine to burn oil. Put cheapy rings in and surprisingly you will not have problems with oil smoke.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 2:43 am

Hey Phil

yeah, new stem seals, no rings though as it didn't need them at the time. Famous last words....

cheers for the heads up about the rings. I'm really, REALLY hoping it doesn't need rings as I have literally run out of enthusiasm/time again.

If it was rego'd and was blowing smoke, I wouldn't care as I'd just slap another motor in and cruise around while I rebuilt this one to be decent, but it's a bit hard to bring a motor home in the back of an excel hatch which is also on its last legs :lol:

philip · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:31 am

Geoff,
If you need a hand picking up/transporting a motor let me know. Happy to help out.

kv77 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:27 am

as someone mentioned before: just screw out the studs on that master cylinder and swap them with the old ones

ewokracing · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:44 pm

strangely the bolts on the original 929 master were not screw in, they were pressed in, yet the b1600 master had screw in studs.

I ripped the studs out of my 1300's master and used them instead, bolted everything up last night. Tested the clutch, it's fine, drove up and down the driveway a few times. Exciting stuff.

One of the guys at work suggested dropping the coolant out, filling it up with plain water and seeing if that cures the smoking. The head or some other passage may be leaking coolant still. Oh well.

Phil: cheers, will keep you in mind. Part of me wants to keep going, part of me wants to fix my triumph first, another part wants to fix the Rover. Not sure what to do next.

philip · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:25 pm

You're this close, finish it! :wink:

timmy201 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 15, 2013 5:41 pm

I have read it's sometimes not recommended to use coolant with a new head gasket..

ewokracing · **Posted:** Wed Jan 16, 2013 2:48 pm

Tidied up some stuff last night (like the mega spider webs that seem to appear everywhere overnight). It looked good in the fading light.

I've got a catch up with some guys that I got made redundant with last year, I think I'll take it down to where we're meeting. I'll drop the coolant tonight and have a look at it and also tighten the head bolt/s.

My brother is still waiting for me to come and collect some more stuff, so I might make some trips over there as well and load the wagon up.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:26 am

Had a bit of success tonight.

I dropped the coolant out and replaced it with water. Then I nipped up the head bolts. Straight away I noticed that the head started leaking right where it had been before, so I'd say the head gasket hasn't sealed properly. Maybe you're right tim and the coolant has somehow reacted with the sealant or the gasket?

Anyway, did that, whacked everything back together. Started it up and no smoke. Perfect!

Decided that I'd turn the car around, drove down the driveway, did a three point turn in the street, backed up the driveway (slight incline at the start) and smoke started puffing out the back in clouds.

It went away as soon as the car was flat again, then started again when it was just sitting in the driveway idling, but this time it was a blueish black and smelt like oil. So I'm thinking that somehow I have overfilled the sump or its lubricant burning off. Either way I'm hoping that the smoke from backing up the driveway was just one of those things and it wont do it at RWC time.

Of course I'd love to hear from someone in Melb that knows a sympathetic RWC guy!

timmy201 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:40 am

Seems like déjà vu ?

timmy201 wrote:

Had some time yesterday morning before work (who gets up early on Monday mornings?) to try and sort out why it wasn't running very well. I pulled out the spark plugs to see if that was the problem, it sounded like it was only running on 3 cylinders. Sure enough when I got them out, number 3 was wet and a bit dirtier so I swapped it for a different one. It now runs pretty smooth, except for the leaky gasket between the exhaust manifold and down pipe, which has again reminded me to get a louder exhaust!

Hopefully the video works..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNK8n03acA0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I though the smokeyness was probably due to me having the engine upside down and filling the exhaust manifold with oil. After the video, it wasn't smoking very much at all, and it was sitting on idle nicely.

I took it for a quick spin around the block on monday night to warm it up to set timing etc. Had a few drops of oil/liquid on the ground when i got back and it was smokey. It seems to have oil seeping out of the bottom of the exhaust manifold where it connects to the down pipe. I'm pretty sure the head gasket isn't sealed properly.

Hmm now when have I seen this before... Further investigationing to come!

ewokracing wrote:

Good luck Timmeh, I hope it's something simple and not a head gasket.

It turned out fine and ran perfect for another few thousand km before I sold it!

ewokracing · **Posted:** Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:58 pm

hahah, I'd forgotten all about that. Déjà vu indeed.

ewokracing · **Posted:** Sat Jan 19, 2013 1:38 pm

Drove around yesterday on a permit to see if anything broke since the last time I drove it.

It started blowing smoke again while warming up in the driveway. I drove around to an atm near me, had it idling away, pushed the choke in and the smoke went away. Drove the whole day and didn't see one puff at all.

I also checked the side of the head/block where it was leaking and there's a small dribble, but it hasn't lost any water out of the radiator, so I think putting water in has cured the problem. Possibly. Fingers crossed.

Oh and aaron drove it, it definitely needs attending to brake wise, so I will get that sorted before I go for the RWC.

Had a friend lean over and take a shot yesterday. Certainly needs a 5 speed for freeway driving!

Hopefully if I can dig out what's gone wrong in here:

so that I can start using this again to commute to work:

I'll be able to get home earlier in the evening and I can take the booster and brake master off and get them sorted. OR I will just drop the wagon off at a brake place and get them to do the handbrake at the same time.

1974 RX-4/929 hybrid-ish.

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