Eunos Chump

I abandoned replacing the brakes, and settled for replacing the fluid for now.  The old unions are rusted and not going to give up easily, and I don't have the time to replace all of them before Friday.  Incidentally, the caps supplied with Gunson's Eezibleed DO NOT FIT.  Very annoying. It was then time to drive it... it was very eager to escape the garage, in fact when I let the handbrake off it rolled away and gave the BMW a good punch in the mush.  By coincidence, Mrs B gave the Beemer another wack a bit later when she didn't notice it parked behind her car.  Only it's pride is hurt. Anyway, MX5 good - new dump valve works properly (much smoother on/off power now), and discreet (sounds exactly like the Porsche 911 GT3 in Forza 3 ).  New engine mounts = no clutch judder.  I can't tune it because the LC-1 is broken, it's showing an AFR of 18, will have to look at that in the week; for the moment I've removed it's influence from the fuel map...

It works!  I turned it over with the coil disconnected to build some oil pressure, then it just fired up immediately.  Top end was initially noisy, I let it run for a short while then changed the oil/filter.  Engine still sounds loud, but then it's still on axle stands in the garage until I get around to putting on the new brakes.  Temperature was -1 all day so that was enough for me, it's too icy for any tuning runs anyway.

I've wasted the best part of an hour looking for my poxy spark plug socket.  How could it disappear in a garage so small?  It's very frustrating because the motor is all back together and ready for testing.  I'm afraid I resorted to copious amounts of swearing but it didn't help.  I was also annoyed that I didn't torque the crank pulley bolt correctly first time, I used 100NM which is for the short-nose crank (the one with 6 slots in the crank pulley), for the later long-nose (8 slot pulley) it's actually 158NM.  It's right now, but it's a faff locking the crank. 7 days to Brands Hatch and it's still sitting on axle stands, still with it's knackered brakes and I don't even know if the engine will run.  Great.

I'd been waiting on a head gasket kit from MX5Parts for more than 10 days, so I went down to Autolink instead and got one off the shelf  - cheaper too, so I might start using them more. I've replaced the engine mounts with some competition ones , it seemed sensible while the head was off and access was easy.  I started by loosening the 14mm nut on each side securing the mount to the subframe (each needed a 24 hour soak with WD40), then the 3 bolts at the engine.  With a block of wood under the sump, I gently jacked the engine up to free the mounts, then removed the nuts altogether.  I raised the engine a little more to give enough space to unbolt and remove the mounts.  The mounts have a top and bottom, so I matched up the new ones and slotted them in.  Sounds easy, but it actually required 2 hours of rocking the engine from side to side, swearing, dropping tools, and more swearing before they were actually in .  Was it worth it?  The exhaust-si...

Over the past couple of days I've disassembled and cleaned the hydraulic valve lifters, in total it's taken about 4 hours!  They weren't in bad shape but it's nice to be thorough, and they all have the same 'springiness' now.  There's a tiny valve inside, comprising of a ball bearing and a minute spring, which could easily be jammed by gummy oil.  Very good article on cleaning the lifters here .

Today I lapped the valves, and refitted them into the head with new stem seals.  I'd never lapped valves before but found a very useful YouTube vid on it, only took about 30 mins in total.  I fitted the stem seals using a 11mm socket to push them on.  Reassembling the valves was initially infuriating.  I must have spent 20 minutes on the first one, it made me miss Merlin on TV (hey, I like it, it's a sort of medieval Doctor Who).  Putting blobs of grease into the collets then 'gluing' them into position with a magnetic screwdriver worked best, I got quite good at it after the first... 15.  With them all back in, I cleaned up the combustion chambers with a tiny wire brush in a Dremel.

Removed all the valves over the weekend.  I used my latest fancy tool for this, it's designed for Zetec engines which means it's good for getting onto recessed valve springs (a standard tool wouldn't reach).  I used a flat-blade screwdriver with magnetic end to pick out the collets, it was fairly straightforward work. The inlet tract and valves are virtually spotless, perhaps Optimax does actually work.  There is evidence of at least 2 failed stem seals, but the valve seats are all fine.  Exhaust valves are a different story - most had a good covering of oil, and the seats need regrinding.  Valve guides seem OK - well, there's no play when I wiggle them.  anyway.  This is how they measure things at NASA, I'm sure.