Back of the garage

A lot of my noise seems to now be from the floor, have 10mm foam covering as a carpet already so assuming panel drumming is the remaining noise, the engine is fairly quiet as have the ‘hi line’ engine cover and have thick matting inside of it and on the engine front panel also. I’m being quiet fussy here as me and the missus can chat even at 60 mph. I do think the air filter is making a fair bit also, going to see if I can move it in front of rad without affecting performance too much

A good coating of bitumen type underseal under the floor and wheel arches would work too. I did inside the doors on the VW and it really reduced noise, but underseal inside the van really pongs. It took months for the smell to go, so only use it underneath!
 
While I was at it I fitted an MGB clutch release bearing, dead east to fit just needed about a millimetre filing off the inside faces of the fork to make it fit

Panky, could you tell us the part number (or supplier) for the clutch release bearing, or are they all the same. I will do mine over the winter, as I hate those carbon things, which are prone to failure without warning.
 
Going back to the release bearing. Be aware that some of the bearings on ebay for Rapiers and Hunters are too small, these have a space between the fork as 66mm like this one


The distance between the fork on a Commer is 80mm so go for an MGB one.
 
A part of the problem here is the fact that the throwout bearing fork travels in an arc. Having recently changed the broken pressure plate on my daughters Ka, I couldnt help noticing that Ford have a solution using a concentric slave inside the bellhousing pushing the bearing in a straight line.
 
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I suspected a head gasket problem on Harvey as the cooling system was pressurising more than normal - so today it was off with his head :eek:
Suspicions confirmed, obvious marks around the water port in the middle and back of the engine and it looked like some of the pots were getting steamed.

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Bores look very good and very little carbon build up, not bad for about ten years driving

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So tomorrow I'll be 'Vizarding' then take it for a skim, there's plenty of meat left according to the cast-in indicators, and will post the results when they are in.
 
Panky. Look carefully down the back of pot 4. You may find a build up of crud which restricts coolant flow. Local boiling can cause those kind of symptoms. Just about every engine I've done has had that.
 
Very interesting about carbon build up as I read that the best way to remove it is with a few sprays of water into the manifold, apparently it works a treat so guess you may have been doing that inadvertently...are the suspect ones the ones with least build up?
 
Panky. Look carefully down the back of pot 4. You may find a build up of crud which restricts coolant flow. Local boiling can cause those kind of symptoms. Just about every engine I've done has had that.

Thanks Colin I'll double check that out although everything looks pretty clean
 
I did check the waterways and apart from a tiny bit of crust around the edges all was good, in fact it's just about the cleanest system I've seen.
Just as it dried out, didn't use anything to clean it before I took the pic, just made sure I used plenty of antifreeze in the past.

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I got the head back from the skimming place on Friday afternoon so set about grinding the valve in and re-building

Nice and shiny :cool:

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A couple of the seats needed a bit more than a grind so I dug out this bad boy

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It didn't make much of an impression on the hardened seats but by placing a disc of emery cloth over the cutter the seat eventually came good. This one had a nasty nick in it but after a half hour with the cutter/emery it was fine.

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When I was happy with the seats it all went back together
I made a valve compressor out of a G clamp . A dab of grease held the collets in place

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Then tested the seal with parrafin

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All done

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As suggested in the Rapier mods article I didn't go mad with the ports, just cleaned then up and removed any edges and roughness

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Plonked on and torqued up

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And finally all done, remember Tim's monster inlet manifold:cool:

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So after an oil and filter change and fill up with coolant he fired up no problem:)
I didn't go mad on the test run but results are positive. Not a huge difference but Harvey was pretty sprightly any way, the main gains seen to be mid range torque. Pulling from 50mph in OD top produced a nice surge to 70, not push you into the seat surge, but a noticeable improvement and it does want to go but I'll wait to get a few miles on, re-adjust the valve clearances then maybe give it some and see what happens;)
The main reason the head was off in the first place was because of the gasket problem, happy to report that minimal pressure build up in the rad even when the lekky fan cuts in at 94 degC, just the little pop you would expect when undoing the cap - result:)
 
Some great work there and sounds very positive, a surge from 50-70 could be a new thing in Commer land :) certainly enough to encourage me to do it some point soon.

Maybe a bit more of a brisk glide but very un-Commer like;) but Harvey feels like he's got plenty more if needed.
I think with this mod you will better feel the benefit when thrashing it a bit
 
I guess it is a racing one, sounds like a good overtaking modification to me. Desperate to get it done but this winters first jobs are to sort the interior out completely, sound proof, recover dash etc. I did put the new floor dead mat in - used Dodo Mat which was a lot cheaper than Jons recommendation but has worked a treat underneath the carpets, a lot quieter now so doing on the front engine cover, in doors and front panel combined with regular sound absorbing material - be quiet as a mouse in there I reckon
 
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