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Hazz's 1971 mental Mini Clubman - JDM B18CR engine

Just spent another £140 on stuff from tegiwa/opie - making use of the final half hour of their 15% off deal.

In fairness £40 of that was for the DERV (oil and filter).

2x 5L Shell Helix 10w40
1x hamp oil filter
1x Honda High temp grease
1x Hondabond

It's going to get done properly (famous last words).
 
Right then... I had a partial attempt at doing the crank seal this weekend. It didn't go wrong at all but it also didn't 'go' much at all.

Part way in, having jacked up, removed wheel & the rocker cover I noticed that my crank pulley has been machined down, (aircon and powersteering belt slots removed) meaning that the recess for the crank pulley tool is missing. Great, that's £18 worth of crank pulley tool now useless. So now I'm stuck. How do I remove the crank pulley?

I have thought of some options:

1) Use the aluminium cambelt locking tool and old cambelt to lock the engine and undo bolt - could break locking tool, timing wheel, or slip the veriner timing.

2) Brace a braker bar on the top of the suspension arms/chassis pointing towards the back of the car whilst attached to the crank pulley. Turn over on the starter, just a quick blip. This should (I think) undo the bolt. All fine and dandy if I've got it right, if its wrong then it'll either fly through the garage at speed or tighten the crank pulley bolt to retarded levels. And 2nd dilema will arrive at re-assemble - how to lock it to torque up the bolt?!

3) There's 2 small holes in the pulley that I could possibly knock up some kind of locking tool for. I just don't know if they're large enough to allow for a strong enough tool.

4) Put it on a trailor to grinspeed.
 
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Option 4 for me, but I am lazy when it comes to working on my own car.

I'm relatively skint now I'm not working the middle east so I'd rather not pay all the labour for what is quite literally a £21 part I'm replacing.

I might give stevie a cheeky call this afternoon and see if he'll let me pick his brains. I know he's done it before because my crank pulley is the one from the B16 which he swapped out.
 
Stevie to the rescue!! A pry bar through the bell housing apparently. Investigation required.
 
Stick a rattle gun on it, a couple of ugga duggas should do the job :lol:

won't it just turn the engine over? Plus I'll be in the same dilemma when coming to tighten it.

I was looking at the Dewalt 950Nm one as it happens...
 
Stevie to the rescue!! A pry bar through the bell housing apparently. Investigation required.

you've spent enough with him, didn't think he would mind giving you some advice. Hope it is an easy fix for you
 
won't it just turn the engine over? Plus I'll be in the same dilemma when coming to tighten it.

I was looking at the Dewalt 950Nm one as it happens...

The idea is that the rapid percussion undoes the bolt but doesn't provide enough sustained torque to spin over the engine. Doesn't always work that way, mind.
 
Yeah Dewalt ugga dugga for the win. I use one daily for work. Undoes truck wheel nuts with ease, so 600+Nm. They're about £200 for a kit or 140 ish bare if you have batteries already.

The impacts are small and not constant torque, so as said above, it'll rattle it loose while not turn the engine over as such, then just dug it back up again, if you're unsure on how tight, then do it until it's mated up and then watch the socket go round, once it's slowed down its pretty tight!

A pry bar into the ring gear usually works as well, but if it's an ally bell housing it would be pretty easy to snap a bit off if it's really tight.

Sent from my Mi MIX 3 using Tapatalk
 
I have the dewalt drill already but only the 1.5mh batteries. I was going to get the bare tool and a 4 or 5mh battery for around £200. I think the kit with the charger and 2 batteries was a smidge over 300.

Could be worth a try. I don't particularly like the idea of uggadugging a crank pulley tight though :lol:
 
They're brilliant, I use mine for anything my little 3/8th one won't undo really. You soon gauge how tight things are. Once you've used the battery impact guns, you'll wonder how you ever managed without!

Quick search shows £150 from ffx for the gun, then I'd get an ebay battery or 2. 4 or 5AH will be fine. I can easily undo and do up 4x wheels on a truck on a single charge. A friend at work has had one since Xmas and all good so far, it's was about £15 from memory. So for light use well worth the gamble.



Sent from my Mi MIX 3 using Tapatalk
 
Starter motor idea isn’t going to work, engine turns counter-clockwise so it’ll only get tighter :/

Looks like it’s starter motor off and see what I can find?
 
Is there an inspection hole? Basically anywhere yiu can stick a screwdriver in to stop it turning really.

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I've been pretty lazy about getting this sorted. Lost my motivation to get it going somewhat.

I got the ugger dugger gun and impact set, got that pesky crank bolt out at last. Pulley off and BOOM - clean as a whistle at the crank seal and oil pump. WTAF.

That was about 2 weeks ago. I totally gave up at this point until today.

So, I cleaned the engine and subframe down thoroughly. Twice. Then I've set about taking off everything that I've replace gaskets on, lathered them up liberally with hondabond and refitted.

In doing so I think I found my leak. It was (unsurprisingly) my own fault. I must have fixed the original leak prior to tuning with my gaskets, then created one immediately adjacent with my new oil pressure gauge take off. Things now make more sense. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how oil had got to the bottom side of the intake manifold without there being a single trace of oil from the top end. Zero leakage from rocker etc. Well, the oil pressure take off comes from the high pressure oil switch, so pressurised oil was probably spraying in all directions making it nigh on impossible to pinpoint the source.

Great stuff. So time to reassemble and test you say? Nope, I'm afraid not. 2 reasons.

1) Crank bolt torque - Same situation as earlier - I can't lock the engine easily.
2) I ordered a low profile valve bolt/washer set. A Chinese knock off obviously, not paying £90 for a Skunk2 set. It arrived. 1, bolt, 1 washer. Cheeky robbing cnuts!! After some back and forth with the seller they're sending the rest out. Clearly knew what they were doing and tried to fob me off, unfortunately for them their picture and description worked in my favour with the folk at ebay.

I'll wait for that to arrive and build it back up as far as I can, just leaving the bolt to torque. I'll get the GF to try holding on the brake again but that didn't work for untightening (although I guess that takes even more torque so slim possibility for success?). If that is a no go then I'm going to get a £60 lightweight underdrive pulley and immediately chop it up so it fits. I'm thinking mount it in a drill and chop the A/C off with a hacksaw to get a nice clean and even cut. That'll leave the recess for the crank pulley tool in tact and hopefully not be too far out of balance. Thoughts?

Oh, it needs chopping down so it fits inside the subframe by the way. The only pulley I can find that fits out of the box (and still has the crank tool recess) is from America, £90 and £80 postage. Then how long to wait?
 
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It’s at grinspeed again.

The oil leak was the head gasket. Fcuk.

So, arp head studs bought. I’ve got some forged rods. Next step is assess damage and choose pistons & headgasket after everything is skimmed up. It might end up being a scrap head if it’s bad seeing as it’s already been skimmed within an inch of its life for compression.

Fcuk.

Question is, do I keep the compression high or do I bump it right down in prep for a turbo?
 
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Tough call.

Personally I'd want to keep it N/A, but then it isn't my car.

Plus, I'd be mindful of a wallop of boost plus tiny brakes. :lol:
 
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