Had some fun with this over the weekend. Andy Millers very tidy TR... amazing what a quick blow-over can do to a genuine rust free straight shell!!
Andy has just fitted some serious brake and suspension mods and was setting a PB at Wanneroo (73.8 long circuit) when the engine went on to five and sounded rough as guts and blowing smoke.
Andy limped home half happy that he had gone 1.5 secs quicker with no more power but a little worried that he had lunched his recently rebuilt engine. A compression test by Humph showed zero on number 2 which seemed to confirm the need for a head lift to determine piston or valve trouble.
Anyway arrived at my place where we stripped it down to the point I had the manifolds off (number 2 inlet full of fuel!!! oh dear maybe no cam lobe!! ) and about to strip off the head when upon lifting the rocker cover it was immediately apparent that number 2 inlet pushrod was having a few issues.
Easily fixed with a good SH one from the 'store' and with a cleaned set of plugs and quick reassembly and a very happy Windy was on his way in less than 90 minutes!! And there I was hoping to chuck a different cam in whilst rebuilding the engine to test some theories.... Oh well I'll have to take mine apart next for some development mods.... it's feeling neglected
The rod showed classic fatigue failure ending in brittle failure. This engine has nothing radical. 0.265" cam lift and standard rockers and springs. Revved to ~6000rpm
Just goes to show that you can't be to careful building engines (this one was not built by me) but I don't check pushrod runout routinely either... I will be from now on!!!!
