Building a turbo engine part one

17th Mar 2007
The heart of a good turbo engine is its turbo. I had purchased a Ford RS2000 Garret T3 turbo unit from eBay some months earlier with an interest in the possibility of turboing my Beach Buggy. The Garret T3 had arrived some weeks later and it was clear that buying a turbo from eBay was not a god investment. Firstly the exhaust housing was cracked and secondly the bearings where completely shot.

Most people that know anything about car turbo parts will know that any part whatever it is will cost you at least £50.00. This can be anything as simple as a Samco hose made of a latex/silicon material to a simple repair kit.

I found a Garret T3 repair kit online and at the same time found a Bailey dump valve and some connecting tubing on EBay. I had left all this in the garage as I was in no hurry to rebuild the turbo as I had plenty other projects on the Buggy to keep me going.

The Garret T3 turbo is held together in there sections the exhaust housing, The main water/oil bearing block and the turbine housing. All three are held together in the same way. The real skill comes in getting the bolts out from the housings as the turbo unit runs at very high temperatures which seize the bolts in place. Obviously with this in mind a good blow torch and determination is needed to remove the bolts holding the rings that hold the three components together.

Once the securing rings around the turbine housing are removed the housing can be removed leaving the fan and bearing block exposed. The securing rings on the exhaust housing have to be undone in stages as the bolts will not come out all the way as they hit onto the bearing block. You need to twist the bearing block to rotate it so that all the bolts will come out. This took a vice and a hammer to release mine and the exhaust housing parted leaving the bearing block with two fans at each end. The fans are held onto a long shaft by a nut at the compressor end. This is torqued up to a very high torque and takes some getting undone. Once removed the spindle can be removed and the bearing block left .

The bearings are little brass rings on the T3 that are held in by circlips. It is important to ensure that the circlips sit in their grooves and to install the inside circlips on both sides before putting the bearing in followed by the securing circlip.

With the bearings installed and the other components that come with the bearing kit added the shaft can be reinstalled and torqued back up. I decided to grease the bearings with grease to ensure that they worked and had lubrication when the turbo was first fired up.

The rebuild of the turbo unit is exactly the reverse of dismantling it. The exhaust housing needs to be rotated on the bearing block to allow all the bolts to be inserted.

With the turbo rebuilt i decided to cut the pipes to supply the air supply to pressure ducting and then to the pressure covers that where going to go over the Weber 40 IDF carburettors.

The process of building the turbo unit was going to be a slow one as finances fro this project where not in place and as most components where around £50.00 or above and their availability was nearly impossible to find. I new this was going to have to be revisited several times as an when I could purchase a part to add to the turbo unit.

Solving the mystery of my engine madness

9th March 2007
The day had started badly with my engine valve re-tune not fully riding me of the problems of backfiring and popping that I had been plagued with since fitting the twin Weber 40IDF carburetors.

I was sure that there had to be a reason for the engine noises as the engine seemed to run much better when it was stationary. There had to be a loose component or something that was failing during acceleration. I considered the electrical system and was sure that the ignition system was solid as had already checked this out when I fitted the new spark plugs.

If the ignition system was OK this only left the fuel system. One possibility was that the fuel fuel reservoirs in the carburetter float chambers was not full enough and was moving whilst the car was accelerating. The problem with this was that I had already had the float levels set up by a specialist and new they where correct.

After eliminating everything else I was left with the fuel regulator which regulated the fuel supply to 4 psi. I removed the regulator from the fuel system fuel lines and tried again , giving the car a short run. To my amazement the problem had disappeared. It seems that my corroboration problems had been plagued by a bad regulator that I had bought from eBay. I was not sure if it was my mounting or adjustment as the regulator had no gauge. Either way my buggy sounding more like it should.

Tuning up - Adjusting my valves

8th March 1007
My engine had been coughing spluttering and backfiring for several months and my attempts to solve this by corroboration had not come to much fruitfulness.

I decided that as my cylinders #3/#4 were making a larger than normal tapping sound and it was also noticeable that the exhaust from these cylinders was considerably colder than cylinders #1/#2 that I should tune up my valves

The procedure for a valve tune-up is fairly simple as long as you have the area clean , the correct tools a feeler gauge; 13mm spanner; 19mm spanner and a large screwdriver and a smaller screwdriver.

Before starting I remembered to purchase some new cork gaskets for the valve covers and put my ground sheet down under the cylinders #1 and #2 . The first cylinder is easy to find as you can remove the top from the distributor and crank the generator nut with a 19mm spanner until the rotor arm points to the line on the perimeter of the distributor body. With this set the feeler gauge can be used to check or set the valve clearances for cylinder #1. I used the .008" and .006" blades from the feeler gauge to check that the adjustment between the rocker arm and the top of the valve stem was .006". By trapping the 0.06" blade between the adjuster and the stem and doing the adjuster up until you can just slide the .006" blade in and out with friction. It is possible to then do up the lock nut and check you have the correct setting by trying to insert the .008" blade. If this is successful and the .008" blade fits you have the wrong setting and must go back and try again with the 0.006" blade. This has to be repeated for the inlet valve and the exhaust valve.

The whole engine has to be moved backwards by 180 degrees so that cylinder #2 is in firing position. This can be accomplished by using the 19mm spanner to rotate the generator anti clockwise so that the large pulley on the crankshaft travels 180". Once done the valves for cylinder #2 can be set in the same manor as cylinder #1.

At this stage two cylinders have been adjusted and #3/#4 remain. You can keep rotating the engine by 180 degrees a further two times adjusting the valves on #3 and then #4.

Once completed you can replace the valve covers with the new gaskets that you have purchased earlier.

I started up my engine and was happy to see an improvement , however before long there was a slight metallic sound coming from #3/#4. I shut the engine off immediately.

I presumed something had come loose...

I had to wait another 24 hrs to let the engine cool down and could not get back to remove the valve cover until the following morning. Once I had the valve cover removed it was clear what had happened. I had encountered some problems getting the valve cover on #3/#4 and had inadvertently knocked the retaining pin off the rocker assembly. I found the pin and three washers complete in the bottom of the cylinder head. Replacing them was fairly simple and the pin was a tight fit. I carefully replaced the valve cover after cleaning up the gasket and restarted the engine.

The engine fired up beautifully it sounded like it was running much better and producing more horsepower. I reved the engine and found a nice rich sound of power. I jumped in and backed the car out of the garage and put the buggy into first gear and pulled away. The engine started to pop and splutter and sounded like it was running unevenly.

This was very odd. I could run the engine stationary perfectly but could not drive the car without it spluttering and making awful noises.

I would have to have a rethink ...

Building A Compressor, My Clark Pioneer 100+ SIP HobbyAir 210

3rd March 2007My Clark Pioneer 100 compressor that I was kindly given by a friend as it did not work was only capable of 3.5cpf displacement as it ran at .6hp, this means that it would only run small air tools and the LVLP newer guns at 8Bar .

I had a SIP HobbyAir 210 1.5Hp compressor without a tank that was capable of 7.5 cfm output that I felt would give the compressor more power and would hopefully power the HVLP guns on the market as well.

I decided that I could mate the two compressors and started by removing the plastic cover of the SIP HobbyAir. This was easier said than done as the bolts holding on the cover where recessed into the plastic so far that I needed a box spanner to reach in far enough to get them undone. Eventually I found a suitable box spanner in one of my toolboxes and got the plastic lid off. The HobbyAir was similar in construction to the Clark model but a lot smaller and lighter. I presume this was due to the HobbyAir being newer. I removed the Clark compressor motor by undoing the housing bolts and then the air and power lines that can be accessed under the switch panel.

It looked as if the Hobby Air would fit in the cradle of the Pioneer base. It would not line up with the bolt holes but I soon created some new bolting positions and started to work on the wiring.

I figured it was best to marry up the wiring in such away that if the Hobby Air compressor would not work with the Clark tank that I could easily put the Clark compressor motor back on and rebuild the HobbyAir to get me back to what I started with.

The wiring was pretty easy and I managed to bend the air pipe so that it reached the output from the Hobby Air.

The pump power up.

The capacitor on this model was CBB60 a 25 uf EN600252-1 starter cap

I was hopefully now in the possession of a 7.5cm 8bar compressor. I could not run a long test as my 4 month old daughter was in bed. I would find out if my creation lived another day.

I would have to make a new cover for the compressor engine and fan another day.

R/H Sidepod Respray & Balancing the Carbs.

2nd March 2007
After fixing in the battery compartment I was starting to run out of critical potential fails that would stop me getting a MOT. I new that the engine was running badly and that the drivers side pod need to be blacked out as it was white. This was a fairly straightforward procedure which unfortunately needed a couple of warm days in succession to do as the temperature needed to rise for spraying.

I used black satin spray from a spray can on top of car primer. This provided a good coverage that I new would come of in the summer if my planned respray went ahead. The sunshine was lovely and I was waiting around for the side pod to dry sometime wishing all the time to go for a drive.

The side pod eventually dried and I had had the opportunity to fiddle with the carburetor balancing whilst I waited. I had managed to warm the car up to a good temperature and the work I had done previously on the linkage rods made it easy to get a good idle. The Buggy was starting to sound great. This made things worse as now I really wanted to go for a drive. I bolted on the side pod and ran the car around the garage complex . It was now pulling like it should and to be honest in all probability should pass an MOT. I new that this would be a while before I could get the buggy MOT'd as it needed to be weighed and I had to line this up with someone.

The pictures were taken on a mobile phone the day after the work was done they had to be taken inside the garage as it was raining and this is why the pictures are low quality.

I also had to arrange insurance and the three things needed a cash injection of around £200-00 before i could get the car on the road.