After having set the valve clearances some weeks ago, I continued the little tune-up today with new breaker points. They had been delivered to my Mercedes-Benz agent who was surprised to see such an item again after a very long time. Then I visited the local BOSCH agency and obtained some special super-sticky grease for the distributor shaft.
At the car, the distributor cap and rotor were easily off, the distributor shaft cleaned and the new breaker points installed, with the gap pre-set to 0.4 mm when open with the help of a feeler gauge. The most difficult thing was to turn the distributor shaft for the contacts to be open. The car being automatic, there was no use in pushing it to and fro. The remedy was to simple slacken the distributor fastener and turning the whole distributor around its shaft. The ignition timing has to be re-set anyway. After everything was put togeher again, I fine-tuned the dwell angle by carefully moving the breaker points in the distributor and finally obtained the perfect 41-42 degrees.
After every little part of the tune-up, the engine runs smoother and the revs when the engine is idling are rising and rising. Obviously the car enjoys the care that is being taken.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Heavily sidetracked
As announced yesterday, I planned to start celebrating the Crayfords birthday today with a few new parts. The actual status of the engine is: runs well, starts well, does not go beyond 120 km/h and drinks fuel at a very heavy rate.
As engine issues are always due to the carburettors, and carburettor issues are always ignition issues, and ignition issues are always just wrong valve clearances, I started with the latter. Re-set the valve clearances. Should not take more than an hour.
As if! Firstly, this car has twelve valves compared to my other cars eight. It then turned out to be a very long time ago that some garage checked or - god forbid - adjusted the valve clearances. The first adjusting nut was completely locked up. The remedy was to disasseble the rocker arm and then turn the adjusting nut with a suitable socket, instead of using the adjustment tool. The springs that secure the rocker arms are surprisingly difficult to reinstall. Now where do I know that from?
However, I adjusted my way through the twelve valves, the clearances of which were much to small. All of them. With disassembly (the viscous coupling has to come out to turn the crankshaft) and re-assembly this easy task took six hours. On the way, I also correctly set up the cold start unit (which had been renewed a few years ago) of the rear carburettor.
And finally a short test drive was undertaken and everything felt very well indeed.
As engine issues are always due to the carburettors, and carburettor issues are always ignition issues, and ignition issues are always just wrong valve clearances, I started with the latter. Re-set the valve clearances. Should not take more than an hour.
As if! Firstly, this car has twelve valves compared to my other cars eight. It then turned out to be a very long time ago that some garage checked or - god forbid - adjusted the valve clearances. The first adjusting nut was completely locked up. The remedy was to disasseble the rocker arm and then turn the adjusting nut with a suitable socket, instead of using the adjustment tool. The springs that secure the rocker arms are surprisingly difficult to reinstall. Now where do I know that from?
However, I adjusted my way through the twelve valves, the clearances of which were much to small. All of them. With disassembly (the viscous coupling has to come out to turn the crankshaft) and re-assembly this easy task took six hours. On the way, I also correctly set up the cold start unit (which had been renewed a few years ago) of the rear carburettor.
And finally a short test drive was undertaken and everything felt very well indeed.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Happy birthday
The green Crayford /8 estate turned 37 today. It made it through all those years and is now the only one left on the road, with only one remaining brother that is somewhat alive. What an achievement! We wish it all the best and a lot of happy years to come. For celebration, lets see the car back at home, where it was born, at the Crayford factory:
I bought it a number of birthday presents (a new distributor cap and rotor and new breaker points) and am planning for new ignition leads and then a major overhaul of the two Zenith carburettors. It is about time that we get going again.
I bought it a number of birthday presents (a new distributor cap and rotor and new breaker points) and am planning for new ignition leads and then a major overhaul of the two Zenith carburettors. It is about time that we get going again.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
We have finally succeeded
The title phrase was originally (well, perhaps not for the first time) coined by a group of 70s New York graffiti artists that did a "whole train" - paint ten subway cars in one night with a more or less continuous theme. I kind of feel like I did this tonight. But I finally succeeded - the green Crayford /8 estate is completed again and runs well.
Well, assembly is more or less the opposite of disassembly. So I put the car together again: refill the power steering system with fresh oil and fit a new filter, mount an almost new BOSCH alternator instead of the questionable (but very fashionable) LUCAS item, tidy up the wiring that connects to the alternator, complete all the balancer/pulley/belt stuff again and finally fit a radiator that actually stays at its designated place instead of moving around, because of the formerly missing and now introduced rubber guidings at both sides.
And the result? The radiator fits perfectly and the fan does not touch the radiator any more - finally. The new seals are holding back the oils fine and the car drives again. Did a little test drive. Very well. Dirty fingernails: plenty. Problems fixed: plenty. Lets go.
Well, assembly is more or less the opposite of disassembly. So I put the car together again: refill the power steering system with fresh oil and fit a new filter, mount an almost new BOSCH alternator instead of the questionable (but very fashionable) LUCAS item, tidy up the wiring that connects to the alternator, complete all the balancer/pulley/belt stuff again and finally fit a radiator that actually stays at its designated place instead of moving around, because of the formerly missing and now introduced rubber guidings at both sides.
And the result? The radiator fits perfectly and the fan does not touch the radiator any more - finally. The new seals are holding back the oils fine and the car drives again. Did a little test drive. Very well. Dirty fingernails: plenty. Problems fixed: plenty. Lets go.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Running very hot
Not the car, me! 33 degrees centigrade even at 8 pm. Consequently, work on the green Crayford /8 estate was very slow today, but nevertheless steady. Relaxing on my sofa with a pint of Old Speckled Hen in hand, everything is now fine again but in the workshop it was hot!
However, when I arrived in the morning the car presented itself still with the front mainly in parts. I pulled a chair to the car and started work. First task was to remove the power steering pump to clean it and replace the seal ring on the main shaft of the pump. To access the bolts to remove the pump you first have to remove the pulley. You need a special puller for that - a puller I did not own. The puller I eventually scrounged did only barely fit. With a combination of puller, parts from a spring tensioner, an hour of patience and finally a big hammer the pulley was off at last. Because I decided to remove the power steering pump completely, I unscrewed the hoses (one of which did not come off easily and needed a few seconds with a torch - which again I had to scrounge) and then replaced said seal ring with the pump safely on the workbench without much hurry. Then the pump went into the car again. All is well.
Next, in went the other seal ring, the one on the crankshaft. I had already removed the chromed ring on the crankshaft on which the inner lip of this seal ring runs on. The chromed ring was polished and installed again the other way around. After the new seal was carefully hammered in place, I started to reassemble the crankshaft balancer etc. Easy going. The temperatures had meanwile risen to their afternoon heights and I retired.
However, when I arrived in the morning the car presented itself still with the front mainly in parts. I pulled a chair to the car and started work. First task was to remove the power steering pump to clean it and replace the seal ring on the main shaft of the pump. To access the bolts to remove the pump you first have to remove the pulley. You need a special puller for that - a puller I did not own. The puller I eventually scrounged did only barely fit. With a combination of puller, parts from a spring tensioner, an hour of patience and finally a big hammer the pulley was off at last. Because I decided to remove the power steering pump completely, I unscrewed the hoses (one of which did not come off easily and needed a few seconds with a torch - which again I had to scrounge) and then replaced said seal ring with the pump safely on the workbench without much hurry. Then the pump went into the car again. All is well.
Next, in went the other seal ring, the one on the crankshaft. I had already removed the chromed ring on the crankshaft on which the inner lip of this seal ring runs on. The chromed ring was polished and installed again the other way around. After the new seal was carefully hammered in place, I started to reassemble the crankshaft balancer etc. Easy going. The temperatures had meanwile risen to their afternoon heights and I retired.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Work commences...again
During the last week or two, I had a few thoughts about the future of the green Crayford /8 estate. The overall objective is to have the car on the road, at least a few times a year, to enjoy it and to show it at a club gathering or a similar event. The main problem is the german TUEV (the MOT equivalent) who is not happy about the condition of the bodywork of the car. The possible solutions were found as follows: 1. have the car restored to top condition (I cannot do this myself) 2. have the car welded up crudely so that it somehow passes the TUEV test or 3. enjoy the car as it is with a couple of 5-day temporary number plates a year (no TUEV approval is needed and you can drive virtually anything on them, hard to believe in Germany).
I had a great welder in to discuss solution no. 1 but did not like his attitude. There is another guy in Germany that is absolutely unbeatable when restoring /8, and I will talk to him eventually. This will be VERY costly, anyway. Solution no. 2 was out easily, I will not destroy this car. After some thinking, solution no. 3 was chosen as a temporary remedy for the next few years or so. I will try and find out whether I can live with it or not. Its main advantage is that the green Crayford /8 estate will be on the road again, soon!
So, work commenced again today. After being laid up for almost a year, the car started easily and I drove it onto my workshop lift and got to work. First thing was to remove the radiator - again, and I finally found the reason why the fan touched its housing all the time. The radiator was missing a rubber running down its side that secures its position relative to the body. This time, I removed the radiator together with the oil cooler, because otherwise its brackets would finally be destroyed during dismantly. This meant unscrewing the oil feed lines that were last touched almost 40 years ago, but everything went very fine. The radiator was out and cleaned, as was the fan shroud.
This was only foreplay, the main reason to attack the car was the huge oil leak from the front of the engine, and I suspected the front crankshaft oil seal was the reason for this. With the radiator out of the car, getting to the seal is not too difficult. You simply dismantle the car, beginning at the front. Both alternator and power steering pump had to come off to remove the respective belts, and both protested. A bolt securing the alternator was rusted solid in the alternator body (someone tried to remove it a long time ago and failed, but managed to damage the tensioning mechanism), and the power steering pump simply refused to surrender. Eventually, I won.
With the belts taken off, you remove the pulley on the crankshaft and then attack the balancer that is mounted to the crankshaft with a very sturdy bolt. Out came the impact wrench and on went the 1000 litre 8 bar air compressor in the workshop. The next half an hour was rather boring and very noisy, but finally the bolt gave up. Thirty minutes of continous attack! Next, I removed the balancer using a specially made extractor and collapsed.
The workshop looked a bit clattered by then, it was like in the good old times, a /8 on the workshop lift, tools all around and the scent of oil in the air. I simply love it. This is so rewarding!
I had a great welder in to discuss solution no. 1 but did not like his attitude. There is another guy in Germany that is absolutely unbeatable when restoring /8, and I will talk to him eventually. This will be VERY costly, anyway. Solution no. 2 was out easily, I will not destroy this car. After some thinking, solution no. 3 was chosen as a temporary remedy for the next few years or so. I will try and find out whether I can live with it or not. Its main advantage is that the green Crayford /8 estate will be on the road again, soon!
So, work commenced again today. After being laid up for almost a year, the car started easily and I drove it onto my workshop lift and got to work. First thing was to remove the radiator - again, and I finally found the reason why the fan touched its housing all the time. The radiator was missing a rubber running down its side that secures its position relative to the body. This time, I removed the radiator together with the oil cooler, because otherwise its brackets would finally be destroyed during dismantly. This meant unscrewing the oil feed lines that were last touched almost 40 years ago, but everything went very fine. The radiator was out and cleaned, as was the fan shroud.
This was only foreplay, the main reason to attack the car was the huge oil leak from the front of the engine, and I suspected the front crankshaft oil seal was the reason for this. With the radiator out of the car, getting to the seal is not too difficult. You simply dismantle the car, beginning at the front. Both alternator and power steering pump had to come off to remove the respective belts, and both protested. A bolt securing the alternator was rusted solid in the alternator body (someone tried to remove it a long time ago and failed, but managed to damage the tensioning mechanism), and the power steering pump simply refused to surrender. Eventually, I won.
With the belts taken off, you remove the pulley on the crankshaft and then attack the balancer that is mounted to the crankshaft with a very sturdy bolt. Out came the impact wrench and on went the 1000 litre 8 bar air compressor in the workshop. The next half an hour was rather boring and very noisy, but finally the bolt gave up. Thirty minutes of continous attack! Next, I removed the balancer using a specially made extractor and collapsed.
The workshop looked a bit clattered by then, it was like in the good old times, a /8 on the workshop lift, tools all around and the scent of oil in the air. I simply love it. This is so rewarding!
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Time for a refill
During the preparation for the big trip to the south of Germany a few weeks earlier, the new aftermarket radiator did not entirely convince me: it did not fit properly and the fan hit the air ducting because of the poor fit. In the meantime, I managed to acquire an almost new original Mercedes-Benz/Behr radiator that had only been in use for a few months. So it was time to change radiators. Out with the old one. In with the new one.
This is always a little bit of work. Drain coolant. Disconnect coolant hoses. Disconnect hoses for the oil cooler of the automatic transmission. Part radiator from the oil cooler. Remove radiator. Then assemble accordingly.
While the whole lot was in pieces again, I decided to fit a new viscous coupling because the old one had lost its oil filling and looked like this:
and the new one had been delivered to my house from an eBay seller for the precise sum of 1 Euro a few days earlier:
Disassembly/assembly is so easy there is no need to describe it. That done, the car was completed with the "new" radiator in only a few minutes. After all the piping had been connected, it was time to refill the coolant. This was done in true british manner.
The green stuff is coolant, not "Old Speckled Hen"... Tastes differently, too. So finally, a radiator that fits correctly.
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