Winter is usually a good time for Kerr Stuart progress, with the distraction of train playing reduced. After some tussles to find a bit of space at Boston Lodge, Rick cracks on and makes progress while other members of the team sit back and relax in the reflected glory of his progress.
This winter is different from others, but with the steady drip, drip of stalagmite formation, progress continues to be made. In the 25/10/18 blog the dispatch of the crankshaft to Farndon Engineering was reported, closing with the line Imagine the excitement when the new one comes back and we start worrying about the broken piston, the missing fuel pump and injectors…
Brace yourselves; it’s back. Obviously still fretting about the other bits on the list, but two of the biggest challenges facing the engine restoration have now been ticked off with the repair of both the crankcase and the crankshaft.
Before we formally accept the delivery of this significant component, we are hoping that one of the works machinists will be able to give it a dimensional check. Assuming that it is fine, then this will free up some work to be carried out by the staff at Boston Lodge.
After a rummage round in the store of components, the crankshaft bearings and housings have been locatedfor a quick trial fit up to understand what we have, and what needs doing.
Hopefully the next job will remove the last of the crankshaft failure damage. The bearings need to be re-whitemetalled and then bored out to fit the new shaft. The rather nasty score marks in the photo below show the point of crankshaft failure.
Moving from the bottom to the top of the engine, the 16/2/20 blog reported on the dispatch to the foundry of the rocker covers. These have now been cast and are with Chris ‘Rimmer’ Barry, who has offered to machine them up as a homework project.
Still some way to go and clearly difficult to be bullish regarding progress, but we also have the cylinder heads away with T&L Engineering and also have new cylinder liners on order, so we are getting close to the point when we stop taking things apart, and start putting them back together.
When that will be of course is anybody’s guess.
