Christmas and new Year all over and Australia Day gone as well, the year slipping away, the Allora Heritage Festival for old engines, cars,bikes, tractors and trucks plus a swap meet passed on the weekend.
I attended but disappointed not one MacDonald engine there and nothing as far as steel wheels to suit a transporter I intend to build.
Excellent turn out of tractors and old cars.
Today I headed back into the shed and pulled the head off the spare 4hpSPI MacDonald.
Guess What? No head gasket fitted looks like some white sealing compound spread very thinly over contact surface.
I was expecting a copper gasket or similar but no such luck.
This engine has seen a lot of work and rings in poor shape judging by the carbon on head.
Cleaned up the head, removed valves as valve faces pitted and valve seats need reseating.
I decided to use the valves and springs from the other motor.
Looked up the angle of valve seating and 45 deg is the ticket. Spent a couple of hours reseating the head for the valves and lapping in valves.
Fitted head to my No! SPI and turned it over, not as much compression as before, I used the composite head gasket that I had available,
Only a couple of half hearted kicks but would not run.
Did some careful checking and looks like my efforts on the exhaust valve not up to scratch so tomorrow off the head comes for more lapping in exhaust valve.
Funny enough the MacDonald manual mention this after lapping in valves they may be worse than before(,And to pay more attention) in this case they are right dam it!!!##**
Tomorrows another day, see what gives.
Cheers,
Grasshopper Max