I was having some serious oil leaks which I’d been putting off addressing but the time finally came. The car was dripping on the driveway - it transpired the front of the sump had rusted through.
Furthermore the head gasket was leaking oil. I’d fixed the cam cover gasket leak but I knew a new head gasket was inevitable.
Pressing my e36 cabrio into use for the summer I’ve replaced the sump:
Cleaned up the top of the bores - 105,000 and if you run a finger up to the top of the bores there is zero wear! They were carbon deposited up, so I cleaned that up gently and painted the block. The block was perfectly flat on top so required nothing but a clean.
Lockside Engineering in Castleford fitted new cam seals, lightly skimmed the head, fitted 2 new valves, re-rounded 14 others, and drilled out snapped bolts in the water pump mount (£444 - not bad value). I refitted with a gasket from DMGRS which is meant to resist leaking oil.
I found the power steering pump was broken with snapped off metal tooth so replaced this and the water pump and fitted new belts and tensioner.
Then I’ve reattached the bulkhead sound deadening, painted all metal parts, cleaned off 30 years of oil, replaced most bolts and jubilees with stainless where possible and used a lot of copper slip so it’s easier next time. Tonight I finished putting it all back together pending running it. It’s taken weeks.
Next it’s tie bar bushes, gear linkage bushes, and the ignition barrel switch which is intermittent for starting. My replacement solenoid and relay didn’t fix the issue, nor cleaning earths.
Then after that it’s bodywork ready for winter and Buzzweld lanoguard. Been really enjoying giving a great car some TLC.
