just updating everyone on my 76' kombi,

the engine lost all its balls all of a sudden, compression tested it and yer... not to great, terrible in two cylinders also.
S
o given a little bit of smoke i decided to just rebuild it n not mess around, plus i dont know the history of the engine n it could have even been a stock engine never rebuilt!!!

i left the block in the car cos it has awesome engine access so no need 4 a stand,

pushed out the pistons and rods to find that the laft bank had about 50% head gasket failure, no.5 shattered a top compression ring! ( leaving NO SCRATCHES on barrel AT ALL, and must have shot the snaped bit of ring out the exhaust valve)

while the heads were off i inspected all valves and seats, cylinders 4, 6, 7, 8, all had around 60% burnt out exhaust valves, so much that there was no valve to valve seat contact in areas,

cleaned up and polished the valves and lapped into existing valve seats (VERY TEDIOUS JOB AND TAKES AGES untill ya get a good face!!!)

i left the combustion chamber of the head fairly stock (no point polishing...) and gave intake and exhaust ports a clean polishing up with the drill grinding pieces,

just waiting for lower compression pistons now so i can start to reassemble the engine,
this engine had starndard 10.5:1 compression, but with todays fuel it will just run crap compared to a 9.25:1 comp ratio engine, so i'll prob put in 8.75 or 9.25:1 pistons.

theres a P plater down the road with a honda civic hatch that i want to shut down hehe, cant wait to burn the v8 bus around again!!!

will show pictures tmora guys,

cheers,
kevo

[ Edited on 17/4/2006 by kevo ]

max is the man to talk to here , he has a shed full of these v8 and can help you out .He is stripping a motor in the shed tonight that may have the parts you need .

I will send you his number

PS , my stock subaru will piss all over your v8 :rudolf

cheers neil, ill get onto him now, i may be needing a LOT more than first thought! cheers,


PS... oh yer by the way... mine sounds better and........ you suck:P

:thumb

Max has a 5 ltr there in Bits ! shed sell out of this stuff , cut down sumps and all !

have finally moved house and have started to finish the rest off the engine now!
i have got the block back from the engine machinists (TOOK NEARLY A MONTH!!!) and got straight into it!

enjoy the photos guys!

this is danny towing my bus to the new place where the rest of the work will take place


bare bored and honed and clean block

bare block after the cam and reground and balanced crank have been fitted, rollmaster timing gear is on too



crank shot

here is a shot of the hypatech pistons b4 the were pushed down the bore,



after the pistons are all in place and big ends torqued

after all new seals fitted and gaskets connected, the front timing cover and water pump ass goes on...... yer its still upside down eh


new oil pick up n sump gear



heads are now on and all torqued up,

hope to have all the rocker gear bolted in 2night, might work late on it as i got a late start at tech tomorrow


this is the boot lid that i made and had sprayed by the local panel mates, it came up excellent!

the petrol tank has been removed, insulated with thick insulating foam and then pushed back in place with snug fit, so the engine heat should not be a factor now as some commodore 6 cylinder bay window drivers have told me about,

i hope to have this running by sunday the 30th of july... but the cracked oil pump casing may look to delay this as they are hard to FIND!!! (yep mine is cracked..............F****)

will post more photos 2mora

kevo

After close to 3 months the engine is complete!

clutch and flywheel go on tnight, and the engine is bolded to the gearbox 2morow (day off tafe)





ill keep the fotos comin

When you taking me for a spin in this beast Kevo?

looks great. That thing is gonna kick butt. I wonder how long your gearbox will last?

I give it three spins round the block and 1 burnout.

haha yer im hoping for maybe 5 spins round the block and 3 burnouts before i hear a bang noise haha,

i got a $100 bet with my mate who says the box goes within a month of it being on the road too!!

anytime your keen ash, ill be driving this bus round all the time now!

engine goes in today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

back to it then,

have just bought a new oil pump assembly so its ready to roll!


kevo

[ Edited on 28/7/2006 by kevo ]

i love this ikea trolley (not that it is REALLY an ikea trolley................................)







and its in!

That trolley is cool.

I bet your itching to get it started and take it for a spin.

I love see brand new engine internals going together.

Great work

had it start up yet?

yer only for a split second tho, no coolant in it.

i took the dizzy out and spun the oil pump gears to get oil pressure before i started and that worked great, i recomend that proceedure!

then when filling up the radiator i found that the new fittings for the water temp sensor was leakin like a siv! SO PISSED OFF!!!

i will block that sensor hole off and copper solder (or whatever its called) a new thread into one of the cooland exiting pipes and screw the sensor in there...

sounded meaty even tho it was on for one second haha

will hopefully post some videos of the car isnt leakin green water

started the engine 2day, is in desperate need of a tune tho!!!

will get video footage when all is goin sweet

Way Kool Kevo, I had a 4.4 P76 donk in my splitty Ute for years & years, went like stink, but blew up quite a few g/boxes (like 1 every 6 mths) before i turned it into IRS & late zombi box, then i only went thru one every 2 years

:-)

Cheers

anyone know if they`re legal to put into a Bay Van in Qld at all these days? I have a bay Van now & still have about 12 of these alloy V8 engines :-) 3x rover 3500s as well if you need bits for yours Kevo

mate that is great, those bits and pieces may come in handy later on,

every two years for a 2L bay window box then huh? haha could be worse,
its good to know everyone elses issues as i have only spoken to one other guy who has done this conversion,

what gears do you blow? i have heard that the 3rd and 4th gears are bullet proof as most turbo beetle guys use them too,

regarding the licencing, if it passes the pits for being roadworthy(indicators, decent brakes, no rust n shit...), all welds must be backed by an engineers certificate, then i think your good to go, (in W.A. that is)
But none of the mechanical engineers at work (BHP) would even consider looking at it incase something went wrong and their name was on it... better to give plans to welder for crossmember etc. and get them to make and certify at the same time!

i might be in toutch about those parts mate haha,

cheers



also, what kinda fuel consumption would yours be like mate

Mostly lunched 2nd gears , but also created a situ where the whole gear train would seem to loosen up & stuff up the shifter forks, something to do with overloading the mainshaft bearings i believe,not too sure tho, gave up on them & ended up just sticking 2nd hand boxes in there everytime after, way too much stuffin around trying to fix em back up all the time, was just simpler & quicker to shove another 2nd hand job in there. Had the engine cradle set up on rollers so i could just slide it all back outa the way, swap box &/or clutch assy, slide it back in, no jack, no stuffing around wiggling sh!t, nothin. easy-peasy. :-) i was too dam cheap to bother havin a good box done up properly tho. should have in hindsight.

From memory i spat 8 early split boxes in the first year before i swapped the whole rear end over to late Kombi IRS, then it was a box every 2 years after that.

I kept spinning clutches for ages, till i had a 2700lb cooper puck one done for her, then busted forks, so i made up an un-breako fork, then shredded cables all the time, then had a stainless adjustable marine cable made up,,,& THEN (would you believe it) busted the dam clutch pedal!!!!!!!! I couldn`t believe it so i made an unbreako adjustable one of those up. again in hindsight i should have just gone hydraulic right from the start.

I must admit tho, this was actually a 4.7litre , big cam, 4 barrel carb, big valve/port heads, hi/comp Rally type engine, probly had just short of 300(ish) ponys but never did bother having it dynoed :-)
Had enough grunt for me :-)

Was good for doin wheel stands at traffic lights & dragging off commodores etc tho :-)

The looks on their faces was well worth it. :-)

splitty utes don`t have much weight in them tho , so i was cheating a bit :-)

Did plenty of sand driving around Moreton Island for about 12 years before the Dept Of Tpt got wind of it & told me to take it off the road :-(

Best car i ever owned :-(

I only have one picture of the old girl tho, anyone care to host & post for me?

email it to me at mjhutchinson@netspace.net.au and i'll post it 4 ya...:beer

E-`mail sent. cheers & thanks man

There we go,

Thanks Mick

First pic is of my Alloy V8 off road buggy assembled with all the running gear from the Zombie Ute after Dept of Tpt took it off the road.

2nd shot is said Zombie Ute taken at Moreton Island after running into a big log & smashing a front rim/tyre & tearing off a brake hose, swapped the front wheels over to the smaller ones & was lying under there trying to block off the front brake pipe. :-)

rear tyres are 12Rx15s & was still too zippy geared :-)

sick mini man, what a beast

good use of the split for a buggy too!!

after a strip down of the engine internals i found that the engine is great after 300kms, the cause of blow by and below desired compression is the crappy valves and valve seats,
the head has been ported mildly to remove all burrs in the mold and smoothen the flow, and is being dropped off to be machined 2morrow with new valves and valve springs ( i think the valve springs are standard ones... that means 30 years old this year!!!)

will post photos in wednesday when the heads are back, then come the photos of the 1/4 mile and burnouts

here are some hippy guys i met at scarborough beach, they were travelling around aus in i convoy of kombis, they were funny



there is the new rear end

So Kevo are you happy with it all? would you drive it across the country? I like the hippy guys way....but want power as well!

oh hell yer! the only part i would have done differently is build a new engine 2 start with,

there is not one part of the car now that i wound not think can handle 6 full months on the road if i were to drive around oz...

the heads are being machined as we speak so i will have to show you guys how it really goes with an in car video or something, later on in the week tho...

made my stainless steel fake spare tyre cover 2day to hide the rad too.

no regrets at all, but im happiest that ii chose a rover v8 over a jap engine, they are just simple and powerful

here are the new heads, new valves and stiffer springs,

i was really happy witht the finished product! should go great now