Success and, oh *%^&$&%^&

Yep, one of those days. Started off reasonably well, got up late (still recovering), and popped into work where I had a spare distributor and crank pulley, which I picked up.

Had lunch then we went into town to get some bits and pieces (me: nuts and bolts/her tv for the kitchen). Anyway I succeeded, she didn't:)

Got home and decided I'd make a start on getting the crank pulley modified for the trigger wheel. Having read in various places about using a lathe to skim off a couple of thou here, another couple there, I wasn't particularly looking forward to it.

Anyway, this is a pictorial history of how it went. Start off with one reasonably new pulley

And take it apart. Note the lack of lathe work required!

Then remove the rear section as a) it's surplus to requirements and b) it's where the trigger wheel is going to go.

Then figure out where you want trigger wheel to line up (I used a couple of 5mm spacers to bring it away from the rest of pulley, as recommended), and bolt it all together.

The other job I set myself to do was cut down the spare distributor. I'm going to use coil packs for ignition so the dizzy becomes redundant for sparking purposes BUT, the dizzy is driven by the camshaft, and the oil pump is driven by the dizzy, so it can't be lost completely. It just has to be reduced in size.

Take one distributor

Remove cap and innards, then cut off most of what's not required

Can't leave it looking as rough as that, so remove oil pump drive from bottom, pull out inner shaft, and shorten (the bit sticking out, on right side), turn for 10 minutes in lathe, and hey presto:

Just need to make a cap, which I'll do after I sort out the "Oh *%^&$&$%&".

This you really don't need to know about. Well, you do, but I don't want to tell you for no reason other than it's so embarrassing.

Doing engine work, cleanliness is rather good. So, when you have an inlet manifold, with all ports pointing up, you get a bit concerned about stuff falling in.

So you put tissue or rag in the holes.

Some time later, you decide that as you need to get tdc on engine and you want to turn engine by hand, it would be a good idea to remove the plugs.

Imagine one's surprise coming upon tissue paper in the cylinder bores. The engine still turns over freely, so I'm guessing nothing has jammed up.

So tomorrow, well later today, I take a hooked piece of (softish) wire and start fishing it out, then get the vacccum cleaner, then a bit of petrol and a match (maybe!).

Wish me luck:)