Posted By Evan on Feb 29, 2016 | 1 comment

Wow it’s been a while since posting any updates on the GTV project.  We did actually start to make some progress again mid-2015, when I was able to retrieve the engine and gearbox from storage.

I started to tear it down when I had a chance, bagging all the nuts and bolts and keeping everything in plastic tubs.

The head was particularly difficult to remove, but eventually the BIG special tool was able to make it budge.  The head was sent away to the machine shop to be checked, and came back straightened and with new valve guides.  At the same time the original radiator was sent away to be cleaned and pressure tested.

Bruno and John measured wear on the pistons and liners, and they are perfectly fine to be re-used.  The crank was sent off to the machine shop to be ground and balanced.  Time to order some bearings, rings, gaskets and all the other bits needed to put it back together.

I don’t have any pictures of the hours of cleaning and degreasing I then did on all the aluminium alloy engine parts.  The plan is to have all of the alloy parts ‘aqua-blasted’ a process which makes them look like fresh castings.  The parts have to be free from oil and grease before being blasted, and our engine was gruesome.  All of this was done in December, but it’s only now I’ve had a chance to get the parts over to the blaster.

Here are photos of the parts sitting on the shelf today at the blaster.  Block with liners retained, sump, inlet manifold, timing cover, head, an additional cam cover, and the airbox.  I’ll post some photos of the finished parts when I get them back.

Last highlight for today is the exhaust headers, which I got back from Competition Coatings in Coburg.  They were blasted, then ceramic coated inside and out.  The colour is a dark cast grey which should look pretty natural in the engine bay when it’s all together.