At which point, everything was wired up, fluids all in, engine oil in and ready to prime. So went to turn the key with spark plugs out to prime the oil, the engine turned over slowly then ground to a complete halt. It was stuck solid. I knew the engine turned over perfectly before it went in the car, I turned it over after fitting each piston and after timing it up, I knew it turned over beautifully. I pulled the timing chain off to make sure the cams were free, which they were. But the crank was solid. I decided to pull the sump off thinking I may have to pull off some bearing caps. So got the sump off, and found the problem.
The flywheel bolts, about 1-2mm too long, and hard up against the main bearing cap
The story behind the bolts is I had lost or thrown away my old ones, but I couldn't find new ones for love nor money in time (about a week before VBOA at this point!). So I bought some bolts from the size of the originals. But the ones I bought had a tapered end, where the originals had a flat end.
You can see where they rubbed.
So this meant the gearbox has to come back out, and this was on the DAY BEFORE VBOA
I was about ready to throw the towel in and give up. But somehow I managed to crack on with it.
Subframe back off, box back out.
Modified the bolts with the bench grinder, put it all back together, the engine turns over, woooo! Got everything back together on the Thursday, and ready to start once again that afternoon. Cranked it over, oil pressure light went out in a few seconds, happy days! So spark plugs in, coil pack on, and turn the key.. it cranks.. but no fire.. F**K SAKE
After about an hour of checking wiring found a missing fuse, which gave me spark, but still no fire. After a lot of head scratching I found the problem, massive schoolboy error.........camshafts in back to front
In my defense, they were probably fitted on a late night when I was exhausted lol. Luckily the camshafts are an easy swap in these engines, just drop the chain off and a handful of bolts. So got them swapped and it fired right up, thank god
By this point it was Thursday night, VBOA was the next day, the car's done 0 miles, I'd not packed, still needed an MOT and the interior putting back together!
Friday morning the interior got done, was all the dash trims etc to put back in.
Once that was done, I had the small issue of the state of the car, it had sat outside for the best part of 2 years! I washed it and went over it with the DA and some polish just to make it look a little more presentable, but it was far from perfect, but not a massive priority either.
I got to work at about 1pm for the MOT, the first drive actually went very well, no issues at all apart from the speedo not working, which later turned out to be my pulse converter had died. Got back home, threw everything into the car, downloaded a GPS speedo app and we were off to VBOA!
And it made it...
I think I was about ready to cry with relief it was done and I was there
Got there about 7pm, still had to put the tent up and build and light the bbq with absolutely no energy. But the VBOA weekend was bloody awesome!!
Since VBOA, been putting some miles on it, done the 250 miles running in, now on the proper oil and running full boost, it goes very well indeed!
Replaced my old pulse converter for the speedo with this, which is cool, records your top speed too lol.
Other than that, a few niggles but nothing much at all. It's driving very well! I think that's the majority of things caught up on in here now lol