FC wagon

[Johns]

Thanks Guys. 

Other than some brush touching Graham, we didn't paint anything on the outside. Here is the before engine bay.



Cheers
John

[Johns]

I picked Thelma up yesterday.

Brand new engine leaking oil out the rear main, does this reduce as it runs in? Ditto noticeable fumes from the breather? Nev's new engine did none of these so I think I already know the answer

Front floor mat is shot and I have a replacement, so I partially stripped the front floor today. For one of these, the floors are very good.





I folded the rear seat, it appears to have no latch stopping it from flipping forward. My car was built if Feb 59, I thought FC wagons had a latch to prevent this, I recall early FEs didn't, can someone clarify?

Also the seat doesn't fold flat, should it?

Thanks

John

[mcl1959]

From memory the seat retainer bracket was changed mid 59 but I cant find the specific article detailing the exact date right now.  The rear seat should definitely fold flat once you have lifted the base up.

Ken

[HAD 708]

Looks great John i should get a wagon one day!! Wasnt the rear main replaced when the motor was taken out? i would think if it is leaking now it will only keep leaking not dry up! Also the motor should not be smoky or fumy from the breather pipe but i am sure i am telling you nothing you are not already aware of!? I hope you havent sent the cheque!
Cheers
Brett

[Impala]

Hey John,
Good to see another wagon on the road. It looks good. Just read about your motor and the choice to keep the grey motor, we have decided to put a 186 in ours, its not original, but should be better at towing the van.   Impala

[Johns]

I mentioned in my last post that the new engine was fumey. Spoke to the guy who built it who told me that I need to put 1,000 miles on it. If it was still fuming then he would take it from there. Meanwhile it was pissing oil out of the rear main.

I'm no engine builder but I have had enough engines built to know that a new engine shouldn't fume. When the oil filler was off it didn't just puff which was might indicate one cylinder had a problem it fumed uniformly which indicated there was a more general problem.

So after three discussions with the original builder which resulted in the same drive it for 1,000 miles advice I'd had enough. So, I took the car to the guy who looks after my Italian cars. He builds race cars and looks after Porsche Cup cars and V8 utes. His view was that it wasn't right and thought the only course of action was to strip it and have a look. Since the engine had to come out for the rear main anyway, this wasn't a big decision.

I'm waiting for his written report, he hasn't measured it all up yet, but here's what he found.

ring gaps too wide
two ring sets are odd
one compression ring incorrectly fitted
rear main seal frayed ends showing and partially wrapped around the bearing
muck has passed through the motor and damaged two bearings

Not bad for a start eh

Cheers
John

[Maco]

Hi John

Who put the motor together, a butcher.

John

[FC427]

Sounds like the 1st year apprentice was left to teach him self on your engine  I hate hearing stories like this when we pay good money for a job that is half done then it's up to us to sort it all out.....JUST  WRONG ........FC427.......

[GMB-58FC]

Sorry to hear about your problems John, sounds like the bloke was blindfolded and took a lucky dip with the components when screwing it together

Hope you get it all sorted out.

[mickusmickus]

Stories like this give me nightmares!  Had my donk rebuilt about 18 months ago and its still not even out of the plastic!

Hope you sort everything out!

[FX1975]

      Sorry to hear about your motor John, obviously whoever biult it doesn't take any pride what so ever in their work.  Seems like you've got the right person for the job working on it now though,

                                          Hope it all works out
                                                    Frank

[zulu]

Yep, I feel for you John, as you may recall, similar situation to me, it's fun putting it all in the 1st time around, but when you have to pull it out because of someones incompetance and then put it back in again it becomes a bit of a drudge.

The thing with mine is, it didn't leak a drop of oil the 1st time around, it was a problem of oil not getting to the rocker gear and tappets

Now thats sorted but guess what? it leaks! grrrrr haven't tracked it down yet.

Hope you get back on the road soon

Gary

[Johns]

Thelma's re-rebuilt engine is taking shape.

It was suggested to me by my engineer that the components should be balanced, something that wasn't suggested in the first place. I had understood that this was to give smoother running, which is true, what I didn't know is that this also serves as a check of the components. This revealed the engine had mismatched rods with two being 14 grams heavier than the other four and that the crank was slightly bent by about 4 thou. This unsettled me a bit and I asked if it was fixable, no trouble, they just put it in a press and straightened it

Apparently the two rods were too far out to balance so courtesy of Denis Booth I obtained a matched set of rods. It was suggested that the most worthwhile improvement we could make to an otherwise standard engine is to put red motor valves in so I agreed.

It should be running next week. It will be interesting to compare it with Nev's engine, which is nearly run in.

Cheers
John

[CraigA]

Only 166 mph slower than a Bugatti Veyron

Geez John, sounds like you'll have a weapon on your hands. You might have to change this to "Only 158 mph slower than a Bugatti Veyron" 

When you are done with the wagon I'll race you in Nev. But you need to do the windows down, cowl vent open thing to give me a chance. See how you go then hey!!!

Sound like a plan? 

[Johns]

Well, things have moved on a bit since my last post.Thelma is changing complexion a little.

I have decided to build a warm motor now that I am in the throws of the full rebuild catastrophe. Accordingly we have decked the head and block to achieve a screaming 8:5 to 1 comp ratio, Camtech are going to grind a very mild cam for me, too much overlap in these motors can apparently be counterproductive. We have sent the head away to be ported and Nigel at Xtreme Fuel Systems is rebuilding a set of twin Strommies on a Lanspeed manifold, all will be highly polished. I have a Nasco alloy rocker cover and will polish and install this.

We have decided to scratch build a set of polished stainless extractors with 1" primaries on 1 and 6 and 1.5" on 2-3 and 4-5. We will then run a full polished stainless 2 or 2 1/4 " system right through.

I'm keeping the non synchro box and may upgrade the front drums, I will definitely run a 3.36 diff.  I haven't decided on a few other possible mods but everything will be period and she will look stock.

I will post some photos as it all comes together, as well as dyno figures when we are finished.

Cheers
John

[Ed]

Sounds great John,

Enjoy keeping the polished stuff shiny 

Cheers

Ed

[zulu]

They arn't too hard to keep shiney Ed, as the Nasco cover & Lanspeed manifold are both smoooooth.

Your a bit of a mug lair John, watch out for those speed cameras, Thelma ay, where's Louise

Cheers, Gary

[Johns]

Hi all,

The wagon build has been stalled of late. I was planning to use my polished Lanspeed twin carb mainfold with stainless extractors. This didn't work because the inner edge of the mainfold is only two inches from the head and we couldn't get the right bend out of the head for the primaries. We then acquired a Cain mainfold which had four inches of clearance but it was badly finished and we couldn't readily secure it and the extractors to the head without seriously milling the the mounting face of the inlet manifold.

So we gave up on that and acquired a set of repro headers which just fit inside the Lanspeed manifold. The problem now is making the linkages up to make it work. Nigel at XTreme Fuel Systems made up some linkages but we need to mofify them using ball joints to reduce friction and changing the linkage arrangement to get full accelerator travel.

So if some of you who have a working twin carb set up on your car could you please either post here or pm me some photos, I would be gratefull.

Thanks and regards
John

[customFC]

Hey John
There's a pic of the linkages in our Bad Girl thread.
This page to be exact.
http://fefcholden.org.au/forum/index.php/topic,9227.60.html
Hope this helps. If you need something else, just call out, I am sure to have what you need amongst my pics.
Regards
Alex

[TTV6FC]

Hi John,looking back on your engine bay re-paint,did you paint or cad plate your bonnet hinges?Jamie.