Page Forty-Two - Alphie's Soon-to-Be Beating Heart

 

Alphie’s mighty fire-breathing 87 horse four banging monster motor, all 592cc’s of it, is on the operating stand.  A new chapter of Alphie’s story!

Four years after I yanked Alphie’s lifeless heart out of his chest (two hearts actually, one from Alphie and one from the Organ Donor), I rolled it into the garage, propped it up on an engine stand and tore it to pieces, lots of pieces.

Alphie’s Heart Health

For the record, Alphie’s is getting the ’64 engine from the Organ Donor, the overdrive one with the “OD” stamped on its block.  And the Organ Donor’s heart is in pretty decent shape.  I measured the crankshaft’s main and rod journals, and they were all in spec.  No cracks in the block or head, nothing missing, no broken things or excessive wear.  Just what happens from sitting under a tree in Kentucky for somewhere between 20 and 30 years, and that ain’t bad!

I'm not sure if it was the engine that led Clint to park it, but I suspect it had some blow-by, was burning oil, and Alphie may had been feeling a bit anemic.  From the state of the piston rings, I'm guessing that the compression had dropped off a bit.

Before shots - the other engine has a
6 blade fan that will pull more air

The rust is mostly superficial

The exhaust manifold is toast, but the other engine has a solid one

I’ve already had the cylinders walls and crankshaft main journals honed, and the head reworked, and the machine shop saw nothing that caused concern.  BUT that doesn’t mean there is nothing wrong.

Half of the valve lifters, tappets to the Brits, showed rust pitting, so I’ll be tearing into the other engine for four unpitted ones. 

The piston rings fell out in pieces when I tapped them from the cylinders, not sure what that means, but I’m taking a close look at the pistons.  They appear to be in good shape, but I haven’t measured them yet.  More later…

A few blurry (sorry) shots during dissassembly

At a glance, everything looks OK

Grease and rust, but what did you expect?

The fuel pump is rebuildable, but years of sitting in soggy soil has rusted a few parts, especially the hand primer pump.  I’ve never seen an American engine with a hand primer on a fuel pump, seems a good idea to me.  Fortunately, I have two fuel pumps.

Alphie sports the Solex carb, and the one on the Organ Donor is significantly rusty but not beyond repair.  I found one hard stop though.  One of the little tube doohickies in the carb’s throats sheared off at the jet as I removed it.  The parts manual says the tubes contain the “correction jet” and “emulsion tube.”  I’ll explain what they do if I ever figure out what they do. So, the other engine will give up its carb in a two-to-make-one kind of arrangement.  I’m betting that the carb on the other engine is in better shape since it spent most of it’s time under a roof.  Interestingly, “dirt daubers” (dobbers in Alabama) (aka mud daubers, mud wasps, potter wasps), anyway those little wasp critters that build dirt tubes, built a few inside the Organ Donor’s carb.  Not sure how they got in there, but they did.

A blurry close-up of the crankshaft

Pieces, pieces everywhere and plenty of rust and grease
(appologies to The Ancient Mariner)

The water pump on both engines sounds like they are grinding rocks when I turn them, but who wouldn’t replace the water pump as a matter of course?

Those are the problems I’ve found so far, more later, I have no doubt.  But many new parts are on their way from Sunbeam Specialties and Classic Sunbeam, and my air compressor gasps for breath as I bead blast all the little parts that make an engine chug.  I’ll add a pic of cleaned, blasted, and painted parts I’ve finished so far. 

Clean and shiny (for the most part) and some sport paint

Thanks to Southern Cylinder Heads in Huntsville for the machine work.
They sparyed some gray primer on it to stop rust, but
I'll shoot it with black as the factory did.

You may notice a gap in the honing at the top of the cylinders -
it concerns me, so I'll do some measuring and thinking.
It might need another trip to Southern Cylinder Heads.

I’m enjoying getting beyond the bodywork!  Less dust but dirtier hands – black grease!  So satisfying to see old stuff look new again.

Oh, I’m talking to a couple of shops to coat Alphie’s bod.  Alphie will be getting a respray when the humidity drops to somewhere below 300%, aka “death sweat” (actual National Weather Service humidity designation for the southern US or, at least, should be) here in Alabama.

Many oils in days of yore contained parafin
that would leave sludge in the oil pan.
If you need to know why you should change your oil, here's why!

The before pic - not that bad but still...

Bead blasting is a miracle!

Powder coating is the next miracl - shiny and really tough!
(Turns out, the four blade fan were stock on Series IV Alpines.)

The machine shop resurfaced the flywheel.  I cleaned up the pressure plate.
The p plate doesn't appear to have many miles on it.

The pressure plate had some surface rust - couldn't leave that there.
New clutch disc, of course.

Cast aluminum powder coat - thought about polishing it...
I have another one, may polish it later.

Installed, new cam bearings and a cleaned oil pump.