GT mediated Awesomeness

[BX Bandit]

Matt, if that's 'all' you have left, just imagine what your original haul must of consisted of!

They do look much cleaner James, but it is scrap after all! Good luck with the measuring.

[Tinkley]

Please be careful undoing the crank bolt and extracting the pulley wheel (with hydro and alternator belts). It is possibly very very tight. DO NOT have the timing dowels in place, tbh you should not need them. One way I have used is to jam a socket (22mm on a 1.6) and ratchet and then when set up tight to the ground or part of the wishbone very quickly 'blip' the starter motor. One of my cars was a real pig, I had her lifting in the air on the starter. If it is that tight get a local garage to loosen it with their air tool. Best of all is once its loose you can turn the engine to the position where the timing marks and dowel positions line up before removing the pulleys.
Removal of the pulleys should be OK, however they can rust to the crank and will require gentle leverage. Take your time and insert a jemmy/massive flat blade driver against the heads of the bolts you can see behind the pulley wheel. Tap one side then the other, repeating until it gives. DO NOT lever against the alloy crankcase unless you have a reasonable ammount of plywood or quality solid timber as a buffer. It is much safer to use the steel bolt heads and be patient. If it is rusty clean it with fine say 400 grit wet and dry before replacing after a smidgen of grease.
The belt should have timing marks which align to indents in the crank toothed pulley and the cam one. My experience is that it is easier to put the belt on the bottom (crank) pulley first feed around pump and idler and then after checking belt mark and indent on cam toothed pulley gently tease it over. It is OK to use soft blunt levers gently and to tap with a rubber mallet. Best is to try and ease it on all over rather than at one end too much first. Again just be patient and gentle with it, do not damage it with sharp edges. It will go on fine.

[Kitch]

You have to remove the crank sprocket on the 8v?

On the 16v you just undo the bolts holding the crank pulley/damper onto the crank sprocket and slip the belt off. Got to do the GT's cambelt soon, so will have all this fun myself (though I'm pulling the engine out first so it'll be pretty easy!)

[saintjamesy89]

Kitch, apparently you do, the pulley itself holds the HP belt and there is a little cog behind the pulley that holds the cambelt. There is only one bolt that holds the two to the crank I assume.

Tinkley (sorry, I don't know your name!) I have already learnt the follies of forgetting the timing dowels, leaving the cam one in is what broke the belt in the first place. I am aware of the damage you can do if you leave them in whilst doing up/undoing bolts - especially on the crank pulley (doesn't seem to be the same case on the cam timing hole - mine is still fine). I too was planning on breaking the tension of the crank pulley bolt with a breaker bar and the starter motor, I do hope mine doesn't push the car off the ground as the drivers side engine mount is disassembled! Thanks for the tips, i'll keep them in mind when I get to that stage

[saintjamesy89]

Ok, hello chaps. Managed to achieve some (albeit, limited) progress today on the GT, today is the first full day off i've had for a while and I have tomorrow off too! I won't know what to do with myself, well I will, car bits

I finally bought myself a breaker bar and 22mm socket, I could only find a star shaped inside one but that proved acceptable (although a proper hex will be needed for tightening). After over an hour of fiddling, positioning, jacking the car up a bit, jacking the engine up a bit, I managed to get the socket and bar wedged between the floor and the wishbone so the socket stayed on the crank bolt and didn't fly off as soon as I flicked the ignition. Hey presto! The bolt shifted!



It then took me ten minutes to get the blasted pulley off, I didn't have a big screwdriver nor any bits of thin wood to protect the block, but I did have a breaker bar and a very thick folded over piece of cardboard (previously used as a jacking protection device), the breaker bar handle end wedged with the cardboard between the block and the pulley was enough to lever and wiggle it free. One problem here, I managed to lose the bloody woodruff key! Didn't even see where it went. So that limited the progress for today - but an obstacle has been overcome and I feel I can get on with it now.





The cardboard idea was a good one, just a bit of thick cardboard folded over three times in an 'S' shape is enough to protect most leverage/jack potentially damageable surfaces. I also bought a recess 17mm spanner to get the last bolt of the engine mount off, that was very fiddly, getting the plastic washer bits off the studs on the bottom.

To get ready for the next installment, I loosened off the tensioner, getting the rear nut undone was a ballache, it's a very shallow nut so much so that a ring spanner (all the ones I had were slightly offset at the end) wouldn't fit on it because of the offset, in the end I found an ancient straight spanner that did the job. I also re fitted the cam, but didn't do any of the bearing nuts up as I still may have to move the crank around to get it in the correct position when the belt/pulley/new woodruff key goes back on. Can't check the valve clearances yet either, that'll have to wait until the cam is secured, and the new belt on.

Right, questions.
1. Does anyone know what size woodruff key will I need? Is there one each for the cambelt cog (cog the belt goes around behind external pulley), and also one for the pulley (I can feel a slot in the metal where this should be). The belt cog doesn't feel/look like it's going on far enough either, and I was very reluctant to hit it, should this be flush with the block?

2.I lost two of the bearing cap nuts, does anyone know what size they are? (There is a nut+bolt shop in Yeovil, or at least there used to be, so I could go in and ask, but i'd rather know first).

3. The cam pulley end oil seal was very loose going back on, I remember it being tight on removal. Should I get a new one of these?

[mat_fenwick]

Quick answers:

1. Measure the slot width for the woodruff key, then just get a standard metric set in that width to suit. I think that would be easiest as the length might be more difficult to measure accurately enough. Can't remember for certain if the cam sprocket also does but 99% confident it does!

2. M8 x 1.25 from memory - by that I mean my memory of what size they looked. Best to measure the threads - it will be metric. Or just take off one of the nuts you still have and get a match? It may not be a standard across the flats measurement - M8 is usually 13 mm but may be smaller for clearance.

3. Replace the oil seal - they often leak but will almost certainly do so after disturbance.

Not sure I 100% understand your other questions; a photo may help?

[saintjamesy89]

The belt cog doesn't feel/look like it's going on far enough either, and I was very reluctant to hit it, should this be flush with the block?

Is this the bit you don't understand Mat? If so, there is the crank pulley, that the aux/HP belt goes on (can't remember which one), when this pulley comes off, there is the cog behind that holds the timing belt. This cog (not pulley) has it's own woodruff key, but when I put it back on it looks like it doesn't go back on the spindle far enough (i.e it isn't as close to the crank oil seal as it looks like it should be). It's just a precautionary question, as i'm sure when I do the pulley bolt up it'll settle to it's correct place.

Thanks for your advice Mat, every time I do car stuff another layer of complexity seems to be revealed. I didn't know anything about woodruff keys, or even their existence before today. I'm not looking forward to setting the ignition timing when it's all back together either...

[mat_fenwick]

Ah, sorry. I thought you were asking about the sprocket/cog on the camshaft, but that was me mis-reading it. The pulley and the sprocket on the camshaft both share the same woodruff key, and yes, it sounds like the crank sprocket should slide on further than it is doing. To be certain, it should be perfectly in line with the water pump and camshaft sprockets.

[saintjamesy89]

Could a woodruff key break along it's length? I can feel a small woodruff key for the crank sprocket, but further outwards where the crank pulley would sit is an empty slot.

I wonder if I have lost the cam pulley key too? Didn't notice anything when I took it off, but that doesn't mean much!

[Kitch]

Could a woodruff key break along it's length? I can feel a small woodruff key for the crank sprocket, but further outwards where the crank pulley would sit is an empty slot.

I wonder if I have lost the cam pulley key too? Didn't notice anything when I took it off, but that doesn't mean much!

Yeah, woodruff keys are designed to sheer.

[Tinkley]

Biggest problem with Woodruff keys is slop in my experience. I've even made 'custom' ones for my old Morini!
Not had a problem with the BX though. Make sure the crankshaft is clean if necessary rub it down with very fine say 800 grit wet and dry to get any rust off. Only take off superficial surface rust try not to alter the diameter by more than a couple of thousandths of a mm. The lower timing pulley should then slip back into its proper position. If I'm honest I have even put a trace of grease on the surface to prevent it rusting solid for the next time (we live in hope!) the pulley is removed.

[saintjamesy89]

Hello everyone, very long time no speak! I'm sorry I haven't been on here for a long time but things are finally starting to improve in my life, I am no longer doing 3 jobs, I'm reducing it down to 1 and a bit so I finally get some weekend time off! I also got my long awaited pay rise in my main job which in part allowed me to work less. We are alswo moving back into our own house this summer, although the house we are currently looking after (and have been for the last 2 years) is lovely in the summer, it's cold in the winter and is also full of Steve's families stuff, we also get unannounced visitors sometimes, so it'll be great to be back in our own house - also the GT can be in our nice, warm and dry garage!

On the car front things have improved too, since I sold the TXD turbo, I was offered a 2001 TD4 Freelander at less than trade which I snapped up (it's been a godsend in these floods and horrible roads), although it's a lovely car, it's a bit of a tank and at best so far has done 38mpg - so last night I bought a Jaguar XJ6 3.2 on LPG Always wanted one of these for a daily, and on LPG I should get (cost wise) between 39-47 mpg, this XJ16 engine is supposed to be very reliable too (ford took over jaguar in the early 90's so reliability hugely improved, especially electrics). I know some things are going to be expensive, like tyres etc but it's a 1996 so only 220 a year tax and is cheaper than the Freelander on insurance.







On a more BX related front, this is going to be the year of the GT. It will be getting it's little tyres on the road this year, my next pay day is going to be a good one, and depending on how much the Freelander goes for (hopefully around 2K), the jag cost just over a grand so even if it needs stuff doing to it i'll have a couple of hundred from there too. I realised last week that my mothers mechanic (who has just replaced a con rod in her n/a XUD 306) does mobile work, so he's going to look at getting the GT cambelt sorted and getting her running. My first aim is to get it going for the X rally/technical weekend if that is still going ahead, as i've really quite missed BXing and all you lot

[Tim Leech]

Welcome back honey, weve missed you, typical bonkers car choice...well done!

Make sure you get a hat to wear when in the Jag!

[MULLEY]

The jag looks ace

[Paul296]

A bloody Jag V6! I have to say though that's A LOT of car for 'just over a grand'. It's a pity that an oil filter and a new tyre will cost . . . 'just over a grand'.