Time for the tiniest of updates! As a treat!
Progress on the welding? I welded part of the passenger's side door step back in the wrong place, and I'm still in a little bit of a mood about it, two weeks later. It's not the end of the world, but I've got to unpick and re-weld in the right place, and I'm not feeling like it.
Not helped by me also having to do a load of welding on the car, which I am also not feeling like doing. So it stays where it is for the time being. (I will have to sort the car out & get it MOT'd, because I kinda need it to be able to haul parts around. Also, if I leave it sitting there too long, the landlord might notice...)
As for what I have done...
Tappets, pushrods, and rockers have all been thoroughly cleaned, appropriately lubed, and installed. Rockers aren't adjusted yet, because it's rather sketchy to bar the engine over on the stand as it is and I don't want to tempt fate.
I've cleaned the threads on the manifold studs & bolt-holes, so they all run on nicely.
And I've cleaned & refitted -- mostly -- the oil pump. I say mostly, because the bottom of the pump has been left loose for now as I need to sort out a new oil pickup to go with the new sump that I still need to sort out. After all, the sump I have is the wrong one and I'd rather not do damage by assembling it with the wrong sump then having it hit the diff again. How likely that is to happen is debatable, but knowing how I drive, and how tempted I'd be to take it offroad a bit... yeah, it's tempting fate.
Flush with success on that, I cleaned, painted, and refitted the oil filter housing with a new gasket.
Gasket still to be trimmed, and paint needs a little touch-up. I'll be ordering filters at some point in the near future. (Sogefi FA3448 is what I used last time, cross-referenced from the AC72 that's on the housing.)
Having sorted that bit out for now, I went hunting for the side panel. Didn't find it, but did find the starter motor, so decided to clean that up too.
It's a Lucas M45G L7. OE number of 26043A. Isn't it great that pretty much everything used the same parts bin for electrical parts?
Anyway, as part of cleaning up, I decided to take off the cover band and ... ew.
Looks a bit like mud, but is glittery. Pretty sure it's dust from the brushes combining with other assorted grunge. But that's when I noticed something else rather concerning...
That wire shouldn't really look like that, I feel!
Looks like it's got caught on something, shredded up and arced a bit. Being that it's a wire feeding a brush, it shouldn't be the end of the world, other than it's connected to the wire coming out of the field windings. Not ideal. At some point, I'll be running this starter down to the place work use to have their starters & alternators worked on, and see about getting that straightened out.
Thankfully, since so much stuff used the same basic M45G motor, stuff like brushes should still be readily available, surely? (In the absolute worst case, I could probably get a modern-type gear-reduction starter to suit, I guess?) Anyway, that'll be up to the starter shop, and in the future for the time being.
Still didn't find that side-panel for the engine, though. It'll turn up.
As for further updates: Oh my god it is too hot, help, I have radiation damage and I think I may have melted at the edges.
stumbles off singing "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear fur-nace~"