Stag Resuscitation

For too long my wifes poor old Stag has been languishing engineless in the shed whilst me and Ken have been getting the engine refurbished due to severe electrolytic head corrosion only 5 years and 15000 miles since its previous rebuild. So finally in November 2016 we had all the bit ready to get the whole assembly back into the slightly tatty looking shell.

The list of thing that we had done included:

Replacing an impossibly heavy Borg and Beck clutch with a AP cover from LD Parts which proved to be magically light.

Replacing leaking O rings on the gearbox selectors with  Quadring seals which have proved their worth on my TR6.

The head gaskets we are trying this time are made by Cometic via Tony Hart and we have also used 0.040@ thick anodised aluminium saver shims due to the heads being overskimmed following welding repairs.

I also managed to get a set of vernier timing wheels to allow the cam timing to be returned to factory settings. Most Stags suffer in this area once heads have been skimmed leading to sub optimal performance.

Putting the engine back into the Stag was mostly by the factory ROM although we didn't really have enough height and risked the front panel a bit as we heaved the gearbox into the engine compartment.

In she goes

It is an extremely snug fit and the only obstruction was the power steering hose that we had neglected to remove.

A jack at the back of the gearbox allows the assembly to slide in

Doing up the engine mountings was a little bit of a fiddle

Engine fitted the car saw daylight for the first time in 2 years giving us a chance to wash off the rat poo and assorted black filth

New year saw us making the final push to get the old girl running - this should have been simple but the dreaded pattern part syndrome struck - in this case a remanufactured 12vane water pump cover decided to put a spanner in the works. It simply didn't want to let the inlet manifold fit

Basically it was fouling the inlet manifold in about 4 places plus we had the inlet bottoming on the core plug casting in the center of the V

After some significant metal removal from the block, waterpump cover and the inlet manifold we were satisfied that the manifold gaskets had half a chance

One thing that had to be compromised on was the thermostat bypass hoses - these simply would not fit with the pattern cover - to solve this, blanking plugs were fitted and a hole drilled in the thermostat - it has proved to work perfectly.

All together and ready for the first start.

All that remains now is some minor fettling before a decent road test and a trip to a paint shop - oh and better put the seat covers in the wash to get rid of the rat wee

Bonnet back on after 2 years