I e-mailed Tom couple days ago but haven't heard anything yet.
Hi Red,
I am sorry to hear about your issues. Sorry, I didnt see your email, I will check my spam folder, sometimes new emails end up there fore some reason. I will try to share my recent engine rebuild experience with you.
I performed a rebuild on my 79 2 liter. Performance cams and head from Centerline, New Motronic 10.1 pistons and liners, new bearings.....etc.. I was extremely careful during rebuild. I actually removed motor and did the rebuild in my basement. As Gordon can attest, I made many,many,many phone calls to him with numerous dumb questions and maybe one or 2 intelligent questions.
While I had the motor apart, I took the crank to a local machinist who builds dirt track motors. He polished it for me.
I thought the rebuild went pretty good. I re-installed motor. Drove car a total of maybe 40 miles, on way home on last drive, I started noticing oil spray appearing on windshield (my car is a Lotus 7 with a hole in the hood for engine clearance).
Upon arriving at home, I removed hood and discovered that my crank case ventilation (oil recovery bottle) was full of a minty colored mixture of oil and anti freeze. I had used Penn break in oil which has a green tint to it and coolant, the result mixture was the consistency a malt and minty green in color.
As advised by Gordon, I immediately drained all oil from crank case and replaced with diesel fuel and cranked engine, flushed and repeated a couple of times. This was an attempt to get all glycol away from bearings etc.....
I removed motor from car and pulled oil pan. With engine on stand I attached radiator hoses and plugged them. Then I started adding water to motor. I immediately saw water dripping ( actually it was probably closer to pouring) out of the bottom of the engine. Could not initially tell where it was coming from. I made a fixture that I could put into one of the radiator hoses and pressurize the cooling system. After pressure was applied, I could see bubbles around the #2 cylinder skirt.
Time to disassemble. I found a main bearing with a very significant gouge in it, luckily journal looked fine. Upon further investigation I found a 3/16" piece of hardened polishing compound in a oil passage in the crank. I attributed this to the cause of the bad bearing, and I also found a cam bearing cap that was damaged, probably also caused by the chunk of polishing compound.
I pulled liners and inspected mating surfaces closely. I could find absolutely no reason for the leak. When I assembled the motor the first time, i used only heavy grease on the mating surfaces.
I thoroughly cleaned everything and started reassembly(with new rod and main bearings). This time I used a thin coat of Permatex gray over the o-rings on the liners followed by heavy grease. I installed liners and pistons and locked them down and let motor sit for 24 hours. Then I installed head and let that sit for 24 hours. At this point with pan still off, I added water to cooling system, and pressurized it to 10psi. No leaks.....woohoo. I left the pressure on it for 24 hours with no leaks.
I have re-installed motor, this time I did not use anti-freeze, just distilled water and bars-leak. For first start -up I put in Valvoline racing oil, ran motor to temperature, and drained oil, repeat. Then I put in Penn break-in oil. I have driven car a little over a 100 miles with no issues, oil looks as clean as when put in, temperature holds at normal.
Sorry so wordy
Tom
