Engines

 

The Pictures above were taken during the rebuild of 15928’s engine.

When I first bought 15928 the engine was in a pretty bad way.  The carbs were full of water.  The engine block particularly the water jacket chanels between the liners was full of rubbish.  I think the car had a water leak, probaby a head gasket.  Basically the engines water ways were full of radweld or something similar.  I stripped the engine down to the bare block removing all the muck.  I then replaced the big end bearings, the piston rings, the valves and the valve seats.  Both the head gaskets were damaged they had substantial corrosion and small cracks in particular around the spark plug threads.  These cracks were widened and then welded.  The valve seats were replaced throughout and hardened seats were put in to allow for unleaded fuel.  The valves were replaced with stainless steel ones.  The original valves on this model were prone to snapping.  The valve guides were also replaced and fitted with oil seals.  The original engines do not have oil seals on the valves guides and burn considerable oil as a result.  All the head work was done by “The Cylinder Head Shop” in surrey.  The heads were then reassembled and the valves shimmed to the standard clearance.  We discovered that ford escort diesel shims fitted.  I replaced the engine mounts and bushes and finally whilst the engine was out the clutch.  (The clutch plate is the same as in the period 240 SL Mercedes and is considerably cheaper than from Lamborghini or Eurospares, I have the partnumbers I if anyone wants them)  The carbs were all rebuilt with new kits and cleaned throughout.  The whole engine was repainted with silver heat proof paint.  The air boxes were painted and new air filters put in.  In addition I had the sub frame shot blasted zinc coated and I painted it black.  The exhaust system was in reasonable condition but that was also shot blasted and painted in very high temperature black paint.  Finally I painted all the water carrying items in gloss blue and replaced all the water pipes with high performance blue pipes.