Morris Minor Owners Club

Pulling the engine, cleaning the gunk off everything, sprucing up the paint, doing a bit of porting on the inlet manifold and head, finding new washers and fixings, eyeing up each gasket, and of course this bore vs piston size drama has been quite the reminder of how much work it is to do these things "properly"!

As such in the name of continuing to do it as well as possible, I'll see if this second set of pistons arriving tomorrow is any closer to the bore - which again is bang on the book figure - and retain the option of cleaning up my standard block to fit the pistons if needs be.

... boring the block to the pistons it is.

Degreasing all the other parts is a pain!

Balancers have come back and said they can't do the clutch cover because it's designed for four studs whereas the flywheel has two. This is the 1098 drilled for the Ford clutch cover.

Hopefully not too much of an imbalance!

Fit an additional two cover dowels set to suit the ford cover!
To me it appears to be an easy job as you have already got the additional dowel holes in the cover for precise location.

Funny they didn't think of that. Can't get the staff these days!

Final calculations as it's all about to come back from machining.

When calculating the compression, if I'm taking a smidgen off the top of the piston, am I creating both piston dish and deck clearance? I should effectively double-count that change right?

When assembled measure the distance from the top of the piston to the top of the block and calculate the volume. That volume should be added to the combustion chamber volume. The thickness of the gasket provides a volume of approx. 3cc so add that to the combustion chamber volume so you now have an all up combustion chamber cc. You can now do your compression ratio calculation.

Ah yes that simplifies it. Looks like it'll need 20-30 thou off the top or I'll have to commit to 98 octane fuel to be completely safe.

Well then!
Last few things to do; choose an oil pump, paint the block, re-paint some more ancilliaries, figure out how to get the oil strainer on with the centre main strap there, lego it together again.

As regards the oil strainer - drill and tap the cap strap and adjust the oil strainer leg to suit. I had to do this when I built the 998cc many years ago.

Given the choice between a standard (£15) slot drive pump, a NOS "concentric" (32421C) and the Kent Cams one from Minisport, what's the preferred/best?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303983712981 ... SwUldgTkNv

https://www.minisport.com/kenop13-kent- ... 998cc.html

Personally I would go for the Kent cams oil pump every time.
Just make sure that the drive is not too long.

Whatever oil pump you go for try and get one that has the rotor secured to the drive shaft by a woodruff key. It is not unknown for the rotor to come loose on the shaft and loose all oil pressure.

It is possible to mix and match oil pump drives.

Progress continues slowly due to my special/perfecting requirements and work, however, great success in having a company make up some replacement seals for the Metro oil/water heat exchanger. I've had it in the garage for a while and have now tarted it up.

Went with a tapered rather than square profile in the end, but still only £5.50 a piece.

The MG Metro oil/coolant intercooler factory seal is no longer available so any means of acquiring a seal is to be championed.
Useable MG metro oil/coolant intercoolers are getting rare now as most suffer from corrosion of the inlet and outlet stubs and internal corrosion.
Even though I have several used MG items on the shelf and have a correct NOS rubber seal I have fitted a NOS Citroen/Peugeot oil/coolant intercooler.
There are several advantages in fitting the NOS Citroen/Peugeot item.
1st - Is the lack of unseen external/internal corrosion.
2nd - The intercooler is made from alloy so very light compared with the MG item.
3rd - The seal between the intercooler and filter head is a readily available item. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334122249203 ... SwdQVhIhpd

The Renault 5 intercooler is the same as the MG item (but with a slightly different seal). It will fit but again the seal is no longer available.

Yes, all very sensible phil, that has gone on my eBay watch list. I'll have a look inside for corrosion and will test to see if water comes out the oil holes when I connect a hose pipe to it!

I hope to stick with it as the part one already has is the cheapest solution, and I quite like the idea of sticking to period and/or A-Series parts where possible, but we shall see.

Do "rust converters" (i.e. the tannic acid + polymer solutions) do anything to protect the internals? Perhaps it would degrade the thermal conductivity if used in waterways? Hmm!

Does the PSA oil-water cooler fit on the aftermarket engine mounted filter heads widely available (perhaps with a stubby filter) or do you ned a remote mount?

It will fit the after market screw on filter head but I would not recommend it.
The MG Metro intercooler is so heavy that you do need the MG Metro filter head or an aftermarket remote filter head similar to that in my post above. If the MG Metro filter head or similar is not used there is a possibility of the oil filter/intercooler breaking off and loosing all oil pressure.
Below is the MG Metro filter head used with the oil/coolant intercooler. You can see that it is substantially made.

Trouble is they are not 2 a penny any more, I fitted one of the aftermarket ones but It does look a it delicate. did find this which looks interesting though.

https://www.apukonline.com/84124-oil-fi ... bolts.html

shame it doesn't have the external pipe connection though would it fir the early engines?

These look a good alternative though which I may go for.

https://www.minispares.com/product/clas ... 2RACE.aspx

I think it would make sense to use the minispares one, although it is pricey, or make up a little supporting bracket - perhaps running from the alternator bracket mounting spot to the pipe/hose take-off on the top.

Here is the correct oil filter head and which is suitable for use with the MG metro intercooler.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234118674880 ... Sw0LJhCT7E