There was still a little dribble of coolant coming from the same place. I’ve decided that my torque wrench is probably inaccurate, so i tightened all the bolts more. Hopefully this has done the trick. All taken at different times during the course of messing about out in garage.
I found these brackets in the garage we bought, (in this post https://bhhh.co.uk/forged-and-wrought-iron/) they’d been languishing on a shelf, which was too much irony for me.
Found another coolant leak.. Pulled all the plugs so that I could access the row of bolts down that edge of the head. Pulled the rocker cover off also and checked them all. They’re all at 120 Nm now. Fingers crossed. Next it’ll be a test run and recheck..
This morning there was a stunning sun rise, as there might be many mornings, but if I don’t see them then they don’t happen for me. This one happened for me.
I finished the work bench shelf. Though I had to unscrew the members I put in yesterday, put the plywood shelf-top in and then put the horizontals back again. Winner. Still need to find a better place for some of the long lengths of timber and the two bikes still need a proper home, but progress is being made. One day I might have a tidy garage, or not.
I spent a couple of hours last night tidying and working on the bench. I made a couple of plywood hooks to hang two of the bikes from. I managed to strip the concrete that one of the hold down bolts was going into, so had to make up my own chemical anchor solution using a but of tile grout and some water, than ran the bolt into that. I hope it does something. I was only bolting it down so that when I have the vice mounted, I can apply an upward load on it and not have the work bench rise with it. The addition of the shelf was going well until I realised I couldn’t put the ply in because the black shelves were in the way, so now I’ll have take all of the members out, put in the ply first and put them back.
I had a fuel leak caused by a damaged O-ring, so ordered two more right from SU themselves. Fitted it last night and now I have running Land Rover, short of any coolant/antifreeze, so can’t test it yet. I did fire it up to confirm that it will start and idle, but only briefly.
Valve clearances done, that bit wasn’t too bad, i did have help, a friend did the engine turning bit using a ratchet on the crank and i did the clearances. Having done that i then tried to stop the fuel leak on the float bowl hose to the jet. But it turned out that the rubber washer was badly cut. I’ve now got another on order. Also found a fuel leak on the discharge hose from the fuel pump. Fixed that easily by tightening it. The left hand imagen shows the hose curved from the brass nut at the top middle of the photo. This connection is the issue.
Torqued all the 1/2″ head bolts to 90 Nm and the 5/16″ ones to 30 Nm. then i went around re-attaching all of the hoses, manifolds etc to the head. Next job is the valve clearances.
I have lapped all of the valves in, now I just need to re-assemble the head and pop it back on with new stem seals and gaskets etc etc. Shouldn’t take too long. Looking lovely..
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