Following, nice work

Collected the final few parts today. Crow 4220 double springs, cheers Philbey for that tip in your build thread and a few other threads. The cam grinder said I needed at least 80lbs seat pressure and 180lbs over the nose so these are about right at 200lbs. Shouldn't have a worry with coil bind as these can cope with more lift than I'm running.

 

Now I'll clean up the 3k rocker gear I bought and start the final assembly/paint/polishing.

 

Hey guys,

 

Good progress yesterday as pics below show, everything had a good clean and plenty of oil/assembly lube prior to fitting. The last thing I want is for it to run dry after all this effort! Just need to mask it up and give it a lick of paint before fitting new welch plugs, sump, and the intake.

 

Double checking deck height post machining of pistons 2 + 3

 

Dialing in the cam

 

Another hole drilled corresponding to 0.066" lift, 0.001" off ain't bad for measuring by hand and drilling with a drill press!

 

Fresh head surface

 

Double-row timing chain installed

 

Bottom end together and progressively torqued up

 

Head assembled with new stem seals and Crow double springs

 

3K rocker gear cleaned up

 

A little trick Matt has used since the Bathurst 308 days; a light smear of Araldite around the sealing surface. Apparantley they had better life out of head gaskets since they employed this.

 

 

Head on and torqued down, sorry again for the pictures taken with a potato. Trying to be informative as possible, really fascinating stuff (to myself at least haha).

Looking good. Keep the photos coming.

Looking good. Keep the photos coming.

 

Thanks mate :)

 

Spent a bit of time on cosmetics today.

 

Spray on over cleaner to get off all the old baked on crud/oil.

 

120 grit drill flap wheel and wet sanding

 

Steelo and water srub/polish

 

Autosol and a buff attachment for the drill

Edited April 22, 201511 yr by Doogs

Looking good Doogs :2thumbs: keep up the great work and PICS as we all love PICS don't we :yes: , any idea when will be back on the road :rolla: ? Once we get Thomas little ROLLA all done we might have to catch up at a CARS-COFFEE & DONUT morning to get some photos of the 2 COTY cars together :) Good luck with the rest of your build . Cheers:- Stuart :wave:

Looking good Doogs :2thumbs: keep up the great work and PICS as we all love PICS don't we :yes: , any idea when will be back on the road :rolla: ? Once we get Thomas little ROLLA all done we might have to catch up at a CARS-COFFEE & DONUT morning to get some photos of the 2 COTY cars together :) Good luck with the rest of your build . Cheers:- Stuart :wave:

 

Cheers Stuart,

 

I'm going to try and keep the progress up over the next few weeks, it'll take me a bit of time to strip the bay and paint it as well as reco the carbs. Hoping sooner rather than later, I've learnt not to try and set a deadline though haha!

So we had a bit of a roadblock to progress and had to pull the head off again!

When turning the motor over slowly by hand there was a binding point, at first thought the worry was valves hitting pistons.. Thank god it wasn't! Turns out with the amount of lift I'm running, the collet on top of the valve spring clashes on the stem seal before the valve reaches maximum lift. The valve springs were still a long was from binding but the collet was bottoming out! Off came the head and down to the machinists to get the valve guides skimmed for more clearance.

 

Here we are back together with the welch plugs in;

 

Now I'll clean up the carbies and get it a bit closer to first fire.

Sadly I have my final exams coming up so that doesn't help my push to get the motor in! Once the motor is in the car I'm planning on road tripping up to North Queensland by the coast, can't wait!

Hey guys,

 

Exams are over so I'm getting stuck in again :)

 

I've pulled down the Weber's Matt kindly gave me and given them a run through a mate's ultrasonic cleaner before a blow out with compressed air and more cleaning with carby cleaner. Today I started removing all the hang on bits in preparation for pulling the motor out tomorrow. Bonnet, grille, radiator, extractors etc have all been taken out.

 

Before cleaning;

 

Covers off;

 

In the ultrasonic bath;

 

Clean;

 

'Before' shot of the engine bay;

I removed the motor and box today without too much trouble, it's nice when there's so much clearance in the bay with such an old simple motor!

 

 

The hole;

Hey guys,

 

Engine bay has been stripped and etch primed along with the battery tray and a few other bolt-ins. Next time I'll pay someone to blast the bay, I underestimated how much of a fiddly job it is! With the cold weather in Melbourne I had to crank the heaters to hot box the shed before painting today. Bring back summer..

 

Fair bit of flaky rust before wire brush treatment

 

So cool that a car from 1973 has a factory brace for the master!

 

Stripped at last

Etch primed

Edited July 7, 201511 yr by Doogs

Had the same problems with the stem seals pretty sure mines got commy v6 ones in it.

Had the same problems with the stem seals pretty sure mines got commy v6 ones in it.

 

Interesting, nobody else seemed vocal about it haha. Mods, might be worth adding a few tips to the FAQ?

 

Layed down some topcoat today, getting there! :)

 

Hi Doogs ! the little Rolla is coming along GREAT :thumbsup: and I just read about your valve stem problem . We had the same problem with the high lift cam in Thomas little Rolla :down: had to machine the top of the valve stem guides down and now use a valve stem seal that looks a lot like a rubber thimble and they work fine :yes: although I just finished porting up another head as we found one of his exhaust ports was cracked :rant: Thomas recons it is running the best it ever has , still need to book it in for another Dyno run and tune . anyway enough about Thomas little Rolla I will have to keep a bit more time on here to see how your little beast comes along look forward to catching up some time and have a chat :2thumbs: keep the great work up :) . Cheers:- Stuart :wave:

Hi Doogs ! the little Rolla is coming along GREAT :thumbsup: and I just read about your valve stem problem . We had the same problem with the high lift cam in Thomas little Rolla :down: had to machine the top of the valve stem guides down and now use a valve stem seal that looks a lot like a rubber thimble and they work fine :yes: although I just finished porting up another head as we found one of his exhaust ports was cracked :rant: Thomas recons it is running the best it ever has , still need to book it in for another Dyno run and tune . anyway enough about Thomas little Rolla I will have to keep a bit more time on here to see how your little beast comes along look forward to catching up some time and have a chat :2thumbs: keep the great work up :) . Cheers:- Stuart :wave:

 

Thanks Stuart,

 

Yeah I'd certainly be keen to revive the Vic rollaclub scene a bit when this is running again, be good to get everyone out for a drive and catch up!