boat owner

Reassembly
Assembly is the reverse of the taking-
apart process, with lashings of engine oil,
and I used a blob of grease on the collets
to hold one in while getting the other in
place. A quick tap on the top of the valve
with a hammer beds in the collets. The
cam bears directly on the head and cam
carrier cover, with a steel half-moon that
locates the cam longitudinally. The valve
clearance has to be checked with the
cam in place. VP sell special tools for the
purpose, but I just got some 8mm bolts,
nuts and washers and drilled a steel bar
to suit so that I could put the bar across
the bearings to clamp the cam in place
and check the clearances.
Basically, the way the cams are cut,
it is possible to check two at the same
time. I put two bases next to the valve
buckets for checking, pushed my
feeler gauges in and found them to
be within tolerance.
Intake: 0.20-0.40mm (1mm =
0.040in approx, so 0.008in-0.016in).
Ex: 0.35-0.50mm (0.014in-0.020in).
Then I slackened the clamps off,
turned the cam to the next two and
continued checking. I was lucky,
because it had only taken the lightest
of grinds to optimise the seats: the
clearances hadn’t gone out of spec.
Phew! The thought of trying to find
valve biscuits for an engine this old
filled me with horror.
There are seals at both ends of the

I gave the valves a light grind with
smooth grinding paste and
a valve-grinding sucker

shut-off solenoid (don’t forget, in this

case the solenoid works the opposite

way: power on to start rather than power

on to shut down), attached an injector

to a pipe and span the pump by hand.

I could feel the resistance build as the

air bled out of the system, then bingo,

creak and squirt, they all worked ok.

However, I didn’t know if they were

‘breaking’ at the correct pressure, so I

phoned Dr Diesel Fuel Injection Services

in Oswestry. The ‘doctor’ said: ‘Bring

them in, I will check them for a tenner,

while you wait’. What a star: a proper

old-fashioned workshop, all the tackle

and a nice bloke with it. He put them

on the tester and flushed them while

checking them. They were spot-on, so

they’re ready to go. I am tempted to

take them out to the boat in Portugal

and change them as a matter of course,

bring the old ones back and let Dr

Diesel work his magic on them.

So, after all this work, the top end

is good to go: ready to be used or

as a spare in storage.

NEXT MONTH

Renovating the block and

reassembling the engine

cam that come with the head set, so I

placed them near enough into position

while I assembled it. The handbook

recommends a 2mm bead of silicone

on the joint of the cam carrier, so a

good clean-up and gasket goo got it

all together. Thereafter, I needed to get

the seals on the end of the cam into final

position: I used a 6mm bolt and gently

tapped them both home.

One other job that needed doing was

fabricating a blanking plate out of 6mm

aluminium to cover the space in the cam

carrier left by the vacuum pump that we

don’t use in our engines.

The glow plugs were tested with a

battery and a couple of wires: they are

notoriously difficult to check with a

meter, with internal shorts giving strange

readings. Only one warmed up, but

as this engine is going to be stored I

decided to use them as blanks until they

are needed. They are standard, generic

plugs, so there’s no fear of not being

able to source them in the future.

The injectors looked good after I

cleaned them externally with a brass

wire brush. I set up the injector pump in

the vice with a fuel feed from a plastic

bottle, applied some power to the

used the Scotch pad to clean them up,
then gave them a light grind with smooth
grinding paste and a valve-grinding
sucker. All it took, literally, was a few
turns of the grinding tool to get a nice,
matt, full-width seat.
I then washed the whole head down
in a bath of kerosene.
The valve stem seals are shaped like a
top hat, with the brim used as the base
for the valve spring and the middle bit
tight on the valve guide. The earlier
engines used a simple seal which only
gripped the valve guide and could slip
off. They usually come with the head
gasket set, but care must be taken that
the right ones come with the set: they
are nearly a fiver each if bought
separately! The website http://www.
parts4engines.co.uk sells a head
gasket set including both types for £33.

TOP Valve seats

after grinding,

showing a full-

width matt finish

ABOVE A valve

clearance ‘biscuit’

is used to

adjust clearances

RIGHT The front

cam carrier

bearing surface

Car engine as boat spare