Homegrown Garage Green One -75

[Homegrown]

Prepare cylinders today.
Honing cylinders to get rid of glazing and get a good crosspattern for rings to bed in, try to take as little as possible. Low rotation speed and quick movement up/down. Use diesel with some oil in the cylinders and add WD40 in the process, very happy with the result.
After bores locks nice, I clean them thoroughly and start adjust cylinders to deck height. Hade to move around the shims some before to get what I wanted. I measured shims again today they were 0.10 0.12 0.15 0.16 I shimmed cylinder to tolerance with priority that cylinder pair standing against each other are absolute level.
When cylinder preparation where ready I check ring gap in respective cylinder and all was enough so I don't need to adjust. Rings from GOETHE looks the part.

Hurry to work

 

[Homegrown]

Keep working this morning on engine.
Time for pistons and rods. Had clean everything last week or week before, so just final clean and assambly I thought.
Checked gap on pistonrings yesterday, start put rings on the pistons. First two went as supposed but piston number three piston oil ring didn't move freely so on with the glasses and check closely. Hmmmmm carbon build up i top part of oil ring grow. Off with the ring and dental tool to remove carbon debris.
After that rings come on the last two pistons. GOETHE rings seem quality wise better then the one from factory. Oil ring of modern design like the compression rings. TOP sign up every ring,easy instruction with good information .
Don’t like my ring compressor. I spread gap 120* apart but when I start to compress tool rotate inside. So gap orientation maybe jeopardized.
Anyhow No1 piston merry No1 piston and rod. Oiled piston bolt and rod bearing, cap on and hand tourque bolts +. Rotate crank. Repeat No2,3,4.
Got use for my “cylinder holders” and torque rod bolts to 26lbft, 36Nm. Rotate after every cap. Feel good
Still some time left before work so I start prepping cork gaskets for sump. One of the gaskets was way too wide and long. Cut it down in the bandsaw to 10mm and 138mm length.
Then I put the cut pieces in tension over night so I don’t need to fight so hard when assembly the sump.

Hurry to work

 

[angel]

The first time I did an overhaul on a Billancourt, I didn't have a piston ring compressor. I installed the pistons in the liners first, from the bottom of the liner - there is a generous chamfer there that made it easy. Then I fit the liner/piston/conrod assemblies in the block at their predetermined positions.

 

[Homegrown]

The first time I did an overhaul on a Billancourt, I didn't have a piston ring compressor. I installed the pistons in the liners first, from the bottom of the liner - there is a generous chamfer there that made it easy. Then I fit the liner/piston/conrod assemblies in the block at their predetermined positions.

I did the same but one cylinder at a time. I get top ring in easily but second compression ring I couldn't manage to go in wth ease, feel like my hands and fingers are way to big to squise second ring in the grows, so I had to use the ring compressor. It's not a performance engine but I still want to spred the rings with control.
Used to pistons and cylinder in much larger size that's more adapted to my hands.

 

[Homegrown]

Prepared to mount sump today to complete the bottom half.
Have had half moon gaskets under tension some days.
Made pin bolts for holding gasket when putting sump on.
Used Permatex 300 on moon half, let it sit 15min before mounting. Had clean gasket area with brakeclean before. Side gaskets I set them dry. Had trimmed down gaskets to size I want. All 90* gasket junctions got a tiny dab of Permatex 1732. Wish you could put flywheel on after sump so you could see gaskets on flywheel side.
Remount the 14 bolts to the sump and torque harder and harder until gasket start compress.
Looks nice so far.
Someone know why two front bolts have a slot in them? For screwdriver?

 

[malcolm]

The ones with a screwdriver slot are fitted between the sump and flywheel. I guess it's to help get them started in the threads when you can't get your hands in there.

 

[Homegrown]

One more thing I think is a good upgrade into the oil pan. Magnetic oil plug.
Have some 8mm diameter magnets since before so one of them going into the plug.
Put in the lathe and drilled a 8mm hole 4mm deep. Some loctite and then press magnet in.

 

[Homegrown]

Ended evening work with port matching intake and exhaust manifold. You can see in first picture how bad they have lined up
(actually exhaust ports was not 24mm more like oval 22-24mm) also a lot of debris from casting inside “primaries”.
Tiny better on intake side, matching, reshaping and polish. On carburetor side i take inlet out to 35mm from 32 to cope with 35mm Solex. Reshaping transition from 35mm throat to intake runners. 90 degrees and sharp corner. Lots of material so made a smooth corner.
I do this before cleaning so it’s easy to see the miss match.

 

[Homegrown]

Mars last year I start thinking about my warped cylinder head. Everything is on a budget so I try to do all in house.
Instead of let someone skim the head for me I put in some elbow grease. Big piece of sandpaper on a flat surface and start skimming,back,forth,diagonally and eights. First pic after a 20min of work still some areas are low. Just keep working another 20min and head is flat.
Have to rinse the paper with a brush quite often and it gets quite a pile of aluminum dust.

 

[Homegrown]

Keep working with the top end.
Valve day. My valves had som carbon deposits on the trumpet.
Start cleaning them in my bench grinder with wire brush. After get them clean enough they are pitted but straight. The valves shape is not flow oriented.
Reshape of all valve heads. Reduce the seat face (hopefully not to much) blend it to the fillet also radius margin to combustion face. All this to gain some flow. Hope I kept enough seat face to get a good seal with good heat transfer.
Trying to use my lathe to reshaping the valve head but ended with a mix of lathe, drill press, hand grinder and files, sandpaper.
Keep valves in order in a wooden plank to not mix them up.

 

[Homegrown]

Keep planning what to do with the head.
Everything tiny wini. Hard to reach with fingers and tools, still I plan to fill som of the intake port with JB-weld.
On a normal head and intake it should be a tapered cone from plenum all way to the intake valve with smooth short and long radius. All to increase gas speed at the inlet valve.
Here is the opposite.
Plenum with sharp radius intake runners that is like venturies and after that it gets bigger and bigger and end with a ok short radius and a horrific long radius.
Can’t do so anything about the siamese ports but I can reshape the long radius adding epoxy in the crazy pockets under intake valve seat. And port out a nice long radius.

 

[malcolm]

Your work is really interesting. Keep it coming. A lot of interesting things on the go.

 

[Homegrown]

Your work is really interesting. Keep it coming. A lot of interesting things on the go.

Happy some is interested in my (stupid) mission to optimise what Renault gave us.
Mostly it's very good materials in the R4. Good steel, brass, rubber and hi quality bolts. Renault Engineers done a very good job. The R4 was a really cheap car so some places they have to cut the corners. I'll try adjust the shortcomings by adapt ideas from motorsport and higher performance cars on almost zero budget but a lot of thinking and work. Interested to see what gains can be ashived just optimaising.

 

[Homegrown]

Must be one of the dirtiest engines I’ve worked with ever. Changed water in the ultrasound wash many many times.
I let the washer rest overnight so all heavy particles sink and eventual oil will come up to the surface. Tap out the water phase in buckets and all slushy oil that is left after “clean water “ have come out I take up with fine wood dust from my bandsaw and throw it in the garbage.

 

[Homegrown]

Keep working on the top end.
Intake and exhaust is only secured with four pin bolts in total. On the 1093 its the same but bolts are moved up and down instead in a line like it’s original layout. This is too enable bigger intake and exhaust runner diameter.
I on the other hand keep the original layout but add three more pin bolts to a total of seven. More like a modern engine. This will be my “standard”. This is to ensure exhaust gas stays inside exhaust pipes. In some later engines I probably put on a turbocharger, and then it’s nice to have a standard.
All dimensions is written on the masking tape. After deciding what c-c to use it was time to machine some 6.8mm tapped to M8. After that I flatten the area with a file and drill out 1mm of the top tread.
Modify original exhaust flange to accept new bolts.

 

[Homegrown]

More job on top end.
Design is usually bad on siamese port heads due to it’s shortcomings(cheap before funktion).
David Visard written a lot of his studying on A-series mini engine 5-port. Similar problems on the intake side like the Mini engines.
Try to use the base information from there.
Our billancourt head is really nasty under intake seat long radius. First I tried to just blend sharp edges before I realized the shape is nothing to work on. Have to fill the pockets under valve seat with JB-weld and then start with new canvas to shape new long radius.
Have to make three batches of JB-weld to fill the cavities (didn’t think so much material was missing).
Then try to get it in with a short torch welding rod (everything is so tiny). After sitting some hours I did final shapes with my finger.
Let i cure 24-hours in 20* C

 

[Homegrown]

Top end continued.
After curing on my stove it’s time to reshape the long radius and make all of intake and exhaust ports streamlined and smooth. Easier said than done due to the fact that all my tools are to big p. Had to adapt some 3mm spigot (dremel maybe) tools to 6mm.
The nasty long radius became an ok one and all casting imperfections is adjusted. From experience from doing clean up on other heads flow had to be much better. Still 50% of intake valve is shadowed in combustion chamber due to small bore and valve spread.
Out an before and after pic at last just to see how much shape is altered (cavities in JB-weld looks big but can’t be felt with a finger).

 

[Homegrown]

Top end continuous.
Valves get lapped and mounted same place they came from. Valve spring compressor is way too big so I have to fill combustion camber with two pieces of plywood. All goes in easily only problem is that everything is so petite and tiny (hands and fingers feels oversized).
Same with the lifters back to the hole and cam lobe they come from.
Lifters quite heavy for its size. In later engines I will reduce some weight on them. On these I just drilled a 3,5mm hole cambered smooth.
Reason for the hole is that excessive oil should drain through there. Hole is above the pushrod grove (ensures oiling is correct).
Benefits draining oil out is that lifter cleans inside due too the drain. One gram of material was taken away (hole) and few grams of oil and dirt is trapped inside normally. So I guess lfters totalwieght reduction is 3-5grams each. That’s 10% weight reduction.
All this is to make valve train managing higher rpm on its original valve spring.

 

[Homegrown]

Top end completion.
Leaving pushrods standard but the lifters get some work. Quality wise it looks like there were two different manufacturers on the left vs the right turn lifters. The four left weigh 40.5g original all surfaces smother and without debris. The four right turn on the other hand weigh 38.5g and are really rough in the finnish. Away with all unnecessary material and sharp edges. Using air tools and hand files to smoothen them. Some reduction in weight again, makes it easier for valve springs to do their job (handles more rpm).
All valvetrain parts gets a diesel wash.
Final cleaning on head and block mounting surfaces with brakeclean, gasket as is then put things together torquing bolts in sequence 20, 40 and 60Nm after warmup let it cool down three hours then 60Nm again.
Head were it belongs time to remount valve train. Made an easy "tool" to control holes in lifter axles to line up with holes in casting. Insex M8 with a nut to turn axle in the right position.
Adjust intake valves to 0,15mm and exhaust 0.20mm.
Call it a day.

 

[Homegrown]

Preparing for start up!
Turn engine 90 degrees and fill oil through oil filter mount into oil pump and oil channel. Put on filter and fill engine to halfway on the dipstick. Pinstuds to manifolds 6 instead of 4 (one blanked of for now). Gaskets and manifolds, Starter motor, carburettor. Connect to the battery and check lamp to oil pressure censor. Use a big screwdriver to let bendix work on the starter. Just a few revelations and there is oil pressure so this sequence three times cranking until oil lamp goes out. Sofar everything look good.
Put in new Bosch spark plugs (friend of mine gave it to me, normally I'm a NGK guy) put in the distrubuter gear, distributer, ignition coil, and leads. Connect everything together set timing and snaps the engine (put tiny bit fuel in carburettor throat).
Screw driver start and there is backfire. Move the leds 180* and a tiny snaps and WROOOOM. Just to reclock distributer and cam driven gear. Mount fuel pump, fuel lines, fuel can for pump to suck from. Snaps again and start WROOOOOM .snaps WROOOM, wroom brapp brapp brapp its alive.