I wish to bring this piece of information to anyone contemplating rebuilding
their engine.
First I heard a small metallic noise like a bolt
falling off from the body work [it does happen], the next time the sound was
heard a closer look, much revving of the engine found nothing, the third time
'Bang' and the engine was sounding very sad, luckily we had just arrived at my
works and I was able to wait there until the 'nice man with a lorry' could take
Ruby and me home.
Once
home, I set too. It turned out to be a failure of
a small end bolt which was of the original type, I hadn’t replaced them
thinking that they were fine.
So the advice is this: if rebuilding your engine REPLACE the little end bolts
[as if they were gaskets] the cost of the bolts is small compared to the cost of
the damage!!
However please ensure that the bolts are :-
The correct grade The letter 'R' should be stamped on the head of the
bolt which indicates a higher carbon steel bolt [stronger].
2. That the bolt is the full length of the thread in the conrod, this
will mean a little bit of filling of the bolt to ensure that the correct
length is gained.
Tony Leslie at Holmesdale Sevens was very helpful and informative on this matter.
