John runs the Morgan into the lower shop, while Butch looks on
Butch finished up with the Morgan +4 on Wednesday, pending the owner’s final inspection. What you see rolling down the hill on the south side of the shop under its own power is Butch’s last 100, or so, hours of work. What it’s rolling past is a right hand drive diesel-powered farm implement, a.k.a. a Series 2A, or thereabouts, Land Rover. In safey orange on the roof above the driver’s head is the admonition, “50 MPH Max.”, but that notion is comfortably out of reach for us. Mostly this truck just trundles back & forth to the 20 acre wood beyond the upper pasture at a very small fraction of that speed.
New pistons for a Jaguar 4.2 engine
I’m at work on an E-type 4.2 engine, and, in the accompanying picture, can be seen knocking a new piston down #5 cylinder bore. Jaguar six cylinder engines being numbered from back to front. These pistons are Polish-made Nurals and have an AE logo inside them. They were supplied with Goetze piston rings, although we prefer Hastings. All four companies just mentioned are part of Federal Mogul now, and we silently thank them almost every day for keeping the supply lines open with quality non-Asian engine parts. We’re even thankful occasionally for that stuff, too. Some of it gets better over time.
Butch & John establish Midget 1500 cam timing
Work continues apace on the 1500 Midget seen on these pages recently. The owner asked us to take the leaks out and replace the timing chain, an easy job since the engine was already out for a clutch replacement. But we’re going him one better by installing the vastly stronger TR6 double roller chain and sprockets.
Because these are new chain wheels, it was necessary to re-time the camshaft, which is what Butch & John are up to in this picture. There are four possible timing combinations with these sprockets and John eventually kicked the advance forward by a few degrees.
Duplex sprockets & chain in a 1500 engine
These are nice steel sprockets which should keep the timing accurate for at least the life of the engine. Later in the day John dropped the oil pan to get access to the aluminum bridge piece below the front main bearing. Like a lot of Triumph engines the oil pan hold down threads were stripped out of it, which encourages leaks from the front of the engine. We’ll Heli-coil them in place, slap on a coat of fresh paint & the new clutch and back in it goes.
The 1500 Triumph engines are generally tough little buggers, although somewhat prone to thrust problems, but Jaguar six cylinder engines are close to bullet proof. The valve train architecture is a truly elegant design inside a truly elegant power plant. Here’s a look inside:
Jaguar 4.2 valve train architecture
