Ferrari Mailing List: Racial comm..., etc.

[Rick (rolindsay]

Hello old friends,

Oops!  I meant acquaintances of indiscriminate age.

We must never forget that humans are animals.  And our species shows lots of outward variability.  We come in all 'breeds'.  Inside, we're all but identical.  And I'm not talking about touchy-feely crap.  I mean our internal working components are almost identical.  Then again, we're also almost identical to chimps. :-P

And with a grain if salt, isn't this the story one always hears from guys like me - the most hated of all the politically incorrect: White, Anglo-Saxon, Old, Christian, Male?  Truth be known, I'm actually kinda beige, pure mixed breed mutt, late middle-age, agnostic, and as for being male, well, its all I can do to keep one woman disappointed!

If Varsha made a comment that offended someone, the concern should be for the feelings of the one offended, not the persecution of the offender.  I call that point-forward thinking.  One can do NOTHING about the past so let it go.  Work only from the present, this point forward.

Back to the central theme; I agree with all who posted, and obviously believe, that 'political correctness' is a doctrine forced upon us by the media and by the legal profession, opting for the 'safest' position.  And remember, fully half of the phrase is the word 'political'!  Wouldn't a better doctrine be 'common sense'? Sadly, common sense isn't all that common - especially in a politically correct society.

Time for a right angle in finger typing: 

I've been back in the garage, this time building the engine for my friend's '65 Lotus Elan.  In '65, the Elan used the 1.6 liter Lotus/Ford TwinCam engine, fitted with two 40DCOE Webers!  This is the engines used in smaller open wheel race cars and without the Lotus head, in various British saloons.  It's about half of a 328 - including the flat crank!

We knew the engine was damaged when we got the car.  It was locked solid.  We just didn't know how badly it was damaged.  

I've restored engines with broken blocks so I knew we could save this puppy.  It takes machining, lots of effort, and of course, a 'unit' of money.  The original problem was possibly a blown head gasket, although there was no evidence of that present on the old gasket.  There was a LOT of carbon buildup in the head.  I mean, the exhaust port on cylinder #3 was 70% restricted!  There was also rust pitting in the cylinder above the uppermost ring travel.  The rings were also rusted, thereby locking the piston in place.  (Because of the added oxygen, rust has a greater volume than iron alone.)  Water from some source got into #3.  Fortunately, the bore across the range of ring travel, was not damaged and a light honing put all things right.  Bore #3 tested 0.002" oversize with minimal ovality and taper below the limits of measure with my instruments.  The remaining cylinders measured 0.001" or less wear.  The worst case, #3, is still below the recommended limit requiring an oversize bore.

What we also found upon disassembly, was a broken center bearing cap.  This brawny little four cylinder uses a five-main bearing configuration with large, wide main journals.  We have sourced a replacement bearing cap but it will have to be shimmed and line-bored to fit properly.  

We rebuilt the TwinCam head a few weeks ago.  The cams are undamaged and the journals are clean and smooth.  Unlike most engines, including Ferrari, the Lotus cams run in replacable bearing shells.  And of course, we replaced them with new.  All valves were lapped on to their seats after verifying that the valve guides were within spec..  Valve adjustment is via shims, under cam followers, just as used in the robust Jaguar XK engine.  In fact, the shims are the same for both engines so sourcing them in the sizes needed is easy (and cheap).  And doing so followed by installation and re-measurement is all that is needed to complete the head.

Pictures at www.aubard.us/Elan

Damn, it's early!

-rick

PS: No, I still haven't repaired the vacuum leak in my 308's carb mounting...

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone