| Author | Message | ||
     Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Prolific User Username: soviet Post Number: 111 Registered: 2-2013 |
I have the sump off the Camargue's engine. As I previously mentioned there was much sludge in the camshaft valley to the extent that I could not actually see the lock tabs on the lifter blocks. So I was expecting the bottom end to be a sludge palace. Weirdly, it is not. Indeed its as clean as a whisle. All the main being caps look like they are brand new. I have run my finger all around the bottom of the sump and its very clean. I have been trying to figure out precisely why this engine was ever pulled out in the USA and I think I have the answer. The tell tail holes show no signs of leakage and there are no scores in the bores. In fact you can see the cross hatching on the bores which would not be there if the engine had done a lot of miles. Clean coolant ran out of the engine when I tilted it up onto its rear end to get at the sump. When I worked in Manhattan New York (and the Camargue comes from Brooklyn right next door) I was asked to fix the brakes on a Cadillac Ambulance. I found the problem was just the valve that plugs into the brake booster. Then the boss told me to take the entire booster off and paint it black and put it back on. As I was putting it back on the owner of the Ambulance came in and demanded that I inform him as what was wrong with the brakes. I politely told him that I wasn't allowed to talk to clients and directed him to management. Yeh yeh I knew what was going on but I was making twice the money I could make in Australia and I was having a wail of a time in the Big Apple. My boss used to say to me in a Hell's Kitchen accent "you want American Citizenship, I'll make a phone call". New York was a very sinful city in the 1980s and bullets flew threw the air on a regular basis. This is what I think happened to the Camargue, the little chappy who runs a big dealership of way over priced exotic cars, bought this car and put it into a Brooklyn garage because it had a miss. So the garage yanked the engine out then told him the price to overhaul it and he freaked, took the car back in pieces and sold it to me for a song. I snipped it for 13 grand. But that doesn't explain the absence of carbon in the last cylinder on A side. I think that is defineately a sign of water getting into the combustion chamber. I think what happened there was somebody failed to properly tension the head nuts because that side head has been off before as its clean. So tonight when the Mad Scot returns with verniers I will measure the length of the bolts to the block on both sides. If it looks ok I am going to put this engine back together with only new head gaskets put it into the car and see what it does. If it runs okay I'm going to register it with personal number plates "LOSER" . I have heard of somebody in Sydney driving a Jensen Intercepter with those plates and thought that's my kind of humour. |
