January 2020.
Another set of cases had been acquired for this engine so it was time to find out if it could be economically recovered. The 'new' cases were only 6 numbers off these ones, which if nothing else, was a good omen. Unfortunately there was some rather severe corrosion damage to several pieces which had obviously taken place at some time during their storage, so that would be a labour intensive repair.
Gearbox outer
While inspecting the new cases I found a disturbing thing - it appeared that one of the main bearing cap studs was either pulling out of the case or had been interfered with at some recent stage - according to the colouring on the stud itself.
Centre crankcase
Meanwhile the dismantling of the original engine was presenting a number of hurdles. The final drive sprocket nut would not budge despite considerable force, nor would either of the two left hand thread camshaft gear retaining nuts, so it would seem that a good helping of loctite or similar had been applied to all of these. Whoever assembled this engine prior to its sale were fairly sure that they would not be seeing it again, so many parts had been glued, thread taped, loctited and otherwise bodged in an attempt to make it appear it was worth more than it presumably sold for.
While considering a course of action to remedy this I dismantled the gearbox. It was a 5 speed box and most of the internals looked to be fairly new, but the inner cover had received some treatment which echoed much of the engine. We did not have another one of these.
Inner gearbox cover
The barrels looked as though they may be able to do another tour of duty if bored to .060" oversize, and pistons were available to do this. When my machinist checked them he found a crack in the lower edge of the centre cylinder liner. It would seem that a broken conrod had made contact with it at some stage, so the crack would need to be welded up before it could be bored, if that was to be the course of action.
I knew a man who could do that but he had moved to Blenheim. As that was where the engine had come from it seemed logical to get the owner to deliver it for repair.
Progress to 8 january 2020.