Part 3: Valve grinding

Chris and I had visited Fred many times before and he always had this contraption in the basement next to his dryer that had all these levers and knobs.  Turns out this tool was to grind engine valves and he had picked it up decades ago for $50 at a garage sale.  

Fred refinishing the valves with the valve grinder.

The valve on left had recently been cleaned ground smooth.  The valve on the right had only been wire brushed clean.

After all the valves were ground smooth the next step was to make sure the valves sealed properly in the engine head.  To do this, we applied a bit of valve grinding compound onto the valve, seated the valve in the engine and attached a drill to the end of the valve and drilled/smoothed the valve in place.  Fred did the first valve below and then let us do the remaining seven.

Part 2: Engine Head Restoration

Before restoring the engine head, we had to remove the valves and springs.  We found that the best way to do this was with a giant fork to press down on the springs.  A socket was placed underneath the engine head (under the valve), to keep the valve up when the spring was pressed down. 

The engine head with the push rods, valves, and springs removed.  If you look towards the back of the picture, you can see the push rods and valves placed in a box that indicates which exact hole the rod/valve came from.

Chris and Fred cleaning the valves with a spinning wire wheel that had Fred rigged up to an old motor (the Ford Model T is in the foreground).

Cleaning the engine head...  Fred's preferred method of cleaning was: step 1) wire brush as much gunk off as possible; step 2) brush on kerosene to clean off any remaining grease; step 3) spray off the kerosene and any remnants with water from a pressured hose; and step 4) use compressed air to dry and spray off remaining water and gunk.

The final product - one cleaned engine head...

Part 1: Engine dismantling

First...the before picture:

Now on to dismantling...  While dismantling, we found a few unexpected discrepancies.  For example, when taking off the exhaust manifold (step 1 of dismantling) we found one manifold clamp to be larger than the others and then a manifold clamp missing.  We suspect that a clamp was lost along the way and that one of the bottom row clamps was swapped into the top row.

The engine with the valve cover removed:

If you haven't noticed yet, Chris did all the heavy lifting.  In this picture, Chris is removing the engine head which is what we worked on next.

Engine Restoration Underway

I've been terrible about working on the Triumph these past few months.  Work had been crazy and any free time that I had was spent catching up on errands.  Memorial Day weekend could not come soon enough and Chris and I spent the entire weekend in New York rebuilding the engine (not complete, but we got a lot done).  These next few posts will all be about the engine.  Hopefully, I'll make up for my delinquency in Triumph restoration and posts with lots of of pictures.

Why New York for restoration?  Chris' great uncle Fred lives in New York.  Fred is a machinist by trade and self-taught mechanic.  Over the years, he has restored 3 1960s Ford Mustangs and a 1929? Ford Model T, maintained various daily drivers that he has owned, fixed motorcycles/mopeds/bicycles...the list goes on...

Now how to get to New York without the transmission and engine moving around in the truck bed?  We built a wooden frame to fit in the truck with various wooden pieces to keep the engine and transmission snuggly in place.  Although the engine is not super heavy (still heavy), we used the engine hoist to load the engine into the back of the truck and hauled the engine hoist all the way to New York with us to offload it in when we got there.

Next up the engine restoration...

Installing the Rear Brakes

I thought I had remembered how I installed the rear brakes the first time, but after setting the rear cylinder retaining kit (U-shaped pieces that interlock) without putting the hand brake operating lever first, I realized that I had forgotten a few steps.  The U-shaped pieces are tricky to unlock and so I thought I would document the rear installation brake this time just in case I ever need to refer to it in the future.

Installing the cylinder spring with the brake pliers

Best method I know for installing the rear brake

1. Attach adjuster assembly unit
2. Set hand brake operating lever (L-piece metal) in place underneath the rear wheel cylinder
3. Attach rear wheel cylinder and use rear cylinder kit to lock the cylinder in place
4. Hook adjuster spring onto the shoes (not attached yet) - this spring was tricky to attach with the brake shoes mounted; it was easier to attach with the shoes off
Before continuing to step 5 - apply brake grease where needed.
5. Have someone help get the brake shoes (with 1 spring attached) in place
6. Install the shoe hold down kit (gold spring, pin, and clip) to set the springs
7. Attach the cylinder spring

A while back, I had found brake installation tools on sale at Harbor Freight and bought them without realizing how to use them.  Chris decided to bring these out for this installation and it turns out they were really useful (not 100% sure if we used it the right way, but anyhow).

There were 3 tools in the kit (1 straight metal tool, 1 plier with a hook on one end, and a tool with a screwdriver-like handle and socket-like head).

The brake pliers were helpful to grab the spring and hook the brake shoes in step 7 above (and picture above) and it turns out the brake screwdriver were useful to set the clips for the shoe holders.  There was a visibility hole in the brake screwdriver that allowed you to align the clip and teeth on the ends to grab and set the clips in place (see pictures below).  This worked much better than trying to use pliers to install the clips.

I have no idea where these parts go...

...well, I have a vague guess now where some of these parts go, but when I first unwrapped the red chassis parts I was clueless where these parts came from.  Since these parts were removed by the powdercoating shop, I did not have any close ups pictures and have not found any of the hundreds of pictures that I had taken to be of the correct angle to capture these parts. 

My guess are that these parts are for the rear engine mount (this I already knew), connecting the exhaust somehow, body bolt mounts, and ???

The two parts in the bottom right of the picture are the two
whose chassis location I am the least sure about.

Back to where I was in July of last year...

The progress on the Triumph is back to where it was in July of 2012 with the front arm assembly restored and assembled.  It took a while to get to this point and at times felt like I was going many steps backwards, but as it has been before, the second time around is always easier when it comes to car restoration.

After struggling with removing the rubber bushings a second time to prep the parts for powdercoating (and ruining the new rubber bushings during the removal), I decided to splurge and get poly bushings instead of rubber ones this time.  These bushing are so much easier to install than rubber bushings.  In the time it took me to install one rubber bushing last time and trying to grease/press/wiggle/jam the rubber bushing in, I was able to install all eight poly bushings.  The trick was to install both poly ends in first (had to apply a bit of pressure - no vice or clamps needed) and then slide the inner metal tube...piece of cake.  :-)

Poly bushings - 1 installed and 1 waiting to be installed

The only tricky part in the reassembling the suspension parts was that some of the holes were no longer as big as they once were.  The powdercoating had shrunk some of the holes to the point where some sanding was required to fit bolts through the holes.

This hole is not as big as it was after powdercoating

The powdercoated parts looks great and are much more durable now.  Any dings/bumps during reassembly that would have caused chips in the previous restoration paint job do not leave a mark.  It took half a year to get back to this point and more money, but with how good things look, I would definitely do it again.

Finished front arm assembly

Next up: Finish the rear brake assembly and hopefully in the spring (when the weather warms up) install the suspension and brakes on the chassis.