22-08-07

Engine.

Water pump. The slant four uses a water pump driven off the jackshaft by a skew gear. The jackshaft also drives the distributor, which in turn drives the oil pump. The pump is held by a brass cage and a bush. If the bush in the block is worn, it will make the pump run out of true, which can destroy the pump and the jackshafts gears.

Water pressure, make sure you remove all the air, use the filler on the thermostat housing, then disconnect the expansion bottle from the inner wing and hold it above the engine. Squeeze the top and bottom hoses until no air bubbles appear in the expansion bottle.

Jackshaft. The jackshaft runs directly in the block. There are no additional bearings, as it has minimal load should not need additional bearings. But, the block can wear. It is possible to line bore the block and install a bearing if necessary, a lot of so-called specialists do not check the jackshaft bearings. Play in the front bearing will reduce oil pressure and wear the water pump skew gear.

Cylinder heads. Don't be too concerned about skimming the head. A number of engines have had multiple 10 thou skims. A vernier pulley on the camshaft will make the cam timing much easier if your cylinder head has been skimmed a number of times. Torque the head up, and re-torque when the engine is cold, not hot, and after a couple of hundred miles. You will be amazed at how much you can re torque the head up by. You can get a water leak from the head to the outside of the block under the inlet manifold. This is a sure sign that the head needs re-torquing, if so - do it twice with 100 miles between (make sure its when the engine is stone cold).

Spin on oil filter conversion. The conversion has two pieces. The inner piece is a tight push fit and carries an O ring for the oil outlet (oil is pumped from the outside of the filter to the inside). When installing make sure the inner part has correctly seated on the block, otherwise you can have a filter that is doing nothing. The inner and outer parts can be a tight fit and when the centre bolt is tightened the outer part becomes tight, but the inner has not seated.

Con Rod bolts. If you use ARP rod bolts these can be very tight, get them pressed in at an engineering shop, and get the engineering shop to check the big end for round, and hone as required. The engine should not be too tight when assembled, and it will be tight if these bolts have slightly deformed the big end of the con rod - this will just need re-sizing.

Clutch.

The clutch cross shaft runs in two bearings, one either side of the bell housing. Use larger bearings (3/4" wide) or put two of the original bearings on each side.

The release fork is held on the cross shaft by a lock bolt with a taper fit. If the bolt snaps when you undo it, drill a hole in the release fork directly opposite the bolt then push the remains of the bolt out. Drill this hole in all forks so it is easy to remove the bolt if necessary.

Top rear suspension mounts.

Note that the top rear suspension mounts have an angle that positions the shocker/spring assemble into the rear suspension arm. Getting these round the wrong way (90deg or 180deg out) will make fitting the lower shockers bolt difficult and put an angle onto the shocker that can cause early failure.