Jherriott

Yes, I meant if he took readings before he handed it over to me... I'll check in tomorrow with him, Thx!

Jase.

jamesjedi

Thanks for the reply from m42racer. An excellent contribution.

Wayne Dempsey has a book on rebuilding these engines. It is not expensive. He has a very good description of the break in process. Not sure if it covers just rings, but an excellent resource none the less.

m42racer

Something I did not cover is the re tightening of the Cylinder heads. This is something that needs to be considered with knowledge of the studs used along with any changes in head sealing.

Always a good idea to check if you can. Heads have been known to come loose especially if the nuts were torqued in assembly and not tightened by an angle, as friction was a contributor to the final torque value.

irobertson

Like yours, my cylinders still showed some of the original cross hatching from the factory. I ran my rebuild for 20 min with Brad Penn break in oil, drained it immediately, filled it with 20W50 and drove it below 4000 RPM for 1000 Kms at varying RPMs and doing a fair amount of engine breaking. Changed the oil again and then did another 500Kms below 5000 RPM, then started running it right up to redline. She is tight and runs well now with over 5000Kms and two seasons on her. I also did two valve adjustments and a head stud torque check during that time.

Jherriott

Thanks for the addition irobertson. I have only put 200 miles on the car so far. Running perfectly so far, I'll be taking it in for an oil change and a look-over at 500 miles.

Jase.

Jherriott

Just an update:

Oil was changed at about 600 miles and inspected for anything in the oil or filter. Nothing found. Up until this point the car was burning oil as things seated in. No smoke seen, but I could smell it particularly when slowly cruising in 1st in say a mall parking lot, or after WOT up to 4K.

After the oil change the engine started going through some changes in sound. I was a bit worried as the main change was an almost Diesel clacky sound about 30 sec after start up when cold, which would disappear after the engine started warming... when hot, valve tick was quite pronounced. I took it to the builder and he said it was just a clearance issue and that a valve adjustment wasn't necessary at this point.

I continued with the plan and put on the total 4K miles since the rebuild and kept the revs below 4K. At about 1.5K into the break-in I noticed the oil consumption pretty much stopped although I could still smell it a tad at certain times. I was able to drive for the last 2.5K miles without having to add any oil.

When I went in for the final valve adjustment and oil change, the builder said it should be much quieter as the valves had a lot of adjustment. He told me to drive it like I stole it.

That was about 2 weeks ago and the cops are still chasing me. I'm super happy with the rebuild. It pulls so hard that I get shoved and held in the seat. I took it out for a blast today and took a short vid: