It's been a while since I had a chance to do some more work on the engine. I blame the winter for that. I just do what I HAVE TO do and hibernate the rest of the time. The weather has warmed up nicely now and we expect probably the last cold front to pass us in the next two days. It never snows here - we just get the cold!
The only thing I totally skipped during the restoration was the rocker assembly. I just cleaned it up and put it back when I assembled the engine to get it running. The wear in the bushes was quite bad and there was a distinct clicking sound coming from the valve gear.
As I did with the Camshaft, I turned the worn Rocker shaft ends down to get them round again. The centre portion where it locates in the block is still standard.
There were steel bushes in the rockers... I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be brass!
I opted to make the replacement bushes from VESCONITE. Pretty amazing stuff. This is used everywhere to replace brass bushes and brass wear plates in machinery. Easy to machine, extremely durable and dead cheap compared to brass.
I had these two pieces in my off-cut bin waiting to do something great
New bush machined and in the rocker ready to do some work
There is now zero slop in the rocker assembly and it most definately runs quiter. It took me all of 2 hours to get done and I have no idea why I haven't done this sooner!
A reminder of what the panel looked like when I last worked on it:
I gathered my last energy, stripped out all the guts, cut two more windows in the door and painted it the prettiest colour I could think off.
Next I got myself a little to-me-from-me for my b-day and finished off the panel with a brand new frequency- and hour meter. It cost an arm and leg but well worth it. Appart from added functionality it finishes the panel off nicely.
The new face:
A little video to show what it looks like now:It runs a whole lot better with the new gadgets installed
https://youtu.be/C5JExqserFk