Cleaned up the exhaust manifold:
Prepped a load of little bits and got various components painted:
Manifold coated in VHT spray, the rest of the engine's just in bullshit silver :hehe:
Blasted the sump pan too. This was particularly grotty and greasy. Took ages to clean up! Has now been handpainted with Galvafroid, a sort of galvanised-ish zinc-based paint. No idea how good it is, I've heard good and bad! So I did a particularly vulnerable bit of engine with it before dusting over with the standard silver, and I can monitor how it goes:
They say French cars are shit. I think French cars are the best engineered, and it's for reasons like this....
Last time I had to remove the dowels from a flywheel, I had to grip them with mole-grips and work them out on a Rover V8. Two of them sheered. PSA, decided to take the hole all the way through for you, and just step it. This way you can punch them out from behind:
Sorted! They've been in there 190,000 miles, and 30 years. Out with next to no bother! And the reason for taking them out? The flywheel is pretty grotty! Nicely scored, been pretty hot in the past, and I'm going to the trouble of fitting a new clutch. Last thing I want is clutch judder, so I had the flywheel refaced:
The clutch was supplied by my Dad way back when I first took the BX in. He found some NOS Motaquip units. Pretty sure Motaquip were (originally) PSA's factor brand back in the day, much like Motorcraft for Ford:
Looks like that may be the case....:
When I was stripping the engine down, I made a bit of a balls-up. The crankshaft sprocket was well and truly stuck onto the crankshaft! I had to try to lever it off, as there's nothing from a puller to grip. In doing this, I managed to damage the thin metal disc on the back of the sprocket, which prevents the belt from touching the oil pump casing. Bugger! I dressed it up like this:
But when fitted, the belt tried to jump every time it went by. Part of me thought to keep going with the smoothing etc, but the other part was worried a belt would get chewed. I stopped by eBay and found a used 205 GTi lower sprocket for £18. Took a punt:
It paid off!
Timing belt all fitted:
More bits bolted together:
One issue I've had is that the exhaust manifold heat shield was held on by some M7 bolts. M7 bolts that I cannot locate. M7 bolts that were not something I've got in stock, and I wanted to get the engine refitted. Solution? Trusty, thrusty drill!:
Followed by trusty, twisty tap:
Leading to:
Resulting in:
Verdict:
So just time to fit the new clutch:
And give the gearbox a spruce up:
And a powertrain package is complete:
And after a bit of heaving and fro'ing, and a remarkable lack of scratched freshly applied paint, both of body and engine variety....
Engine back in BX. I've actually refitted something!!
Plan now is to continue fitting up the front end, right up to things like wings, lights, bumper etc. Then move onto interior in early to mid March, get electrics back online, seats and dash back in etc, before April brings the rear end. LOTS of work to be done there still.
For now, I have some wiring to improve (30 years old, and crusty in places), suspension to refit and and engine to plumb in. Going well though
Actually they (M7) are around just hard to find in the UK,,, a 1/4" UNF will fit OK as pitch is identical, though a little thin on diameter..... 
so if not too critical you can use in a pinch.