A new 1300 dual port engine

5th June 2009
I had started to realise that with the break up of my relationship that my new 2L engine was going to be something further distant that I had planned. I was planning to have the engine in by the end of this year and with the custody fight and various other depressing events I needed to find a solution that would get the engine situation resolved as my friend had been very good to lend me his engine lump but obvuously I wanted this resolved. I managed to purchase a 1300 dual port lump that had been dry stored in a lockup for some years. Although the engine had some end float outside the allowed parameters generally it looked in good condition.

Initially I decided that the engine would need stripping and the piston rings would need replacing , but I also found that the con rod bearings and crank bearings really could do with renewing. I really had not planned for this and had decided against renewing at this time until i was placing the pistons back on to the case and pung one of the pison ring clps accidentally into the casing.

This normally would have been a disaster but to be honest I was already considering stripping the block down and decided that this was now had to happen. You can see from the diagram that the gudeon pin clip was lodged beneath the camshaft and was totally uneccessable from the oil plate. I took out the crank hsaft and camshaft and cleaned the engine parts thourougly with gink and then jet washed them off to remove any final engine residue.

The engine casing parts cleaned up fairly well and without the use of a dishwasher I was unable to get them as clean as I had with the other cases I had worked on. I couls ssee from the bearing journals that the crank had not damaged the casing and the case was in good condition. I decided whilst I had the case apart that I would full flow the oil system so that it would be able to cope with any future upgrades. This consisted off tapping the casing outlet of the oil pump for a 1/8" NPT thread and tapping the main oil gantry to provide a return a 3/8"NPT thread. The oil pump casing was quite easy to tap and this can only be done with the negin in half. The 3/8"NPT main return thread was a hole differant ball game. The thread would not take in the casing and instead just powdered up and dug a hole . This was a disaster as there was not much room in the casing to put in a case saver. I new that I would have to delve into the world of case welding something believed to be a Pyrotechnics black art.