Augusta progress

[Mikenoangelo]

Karl all the passageways you trace with coloured wire were clear even before I de-scaled the head so the problem must relate to the hole we have both enlarged. I see from the cylinder head discussion in the Augusta Newsletter that people have been able to drill through that hole and enlarge the passageway behind the spark plug. On my head I would not dare do that as there does not seem to be enough metal there for a larger hole to be made, although the passageway itself is clear.

I have also pushed a wire down the long water passage above the exhaust, feeding the wire in through the water outlet at the front of the head. The wire went right to the end of the passage so there is neither crud nor foundry sand left there.

I wonder whether, without modifying the head I could draw more heat out at the critical end of the exhaust outlet by inserting a finned copper plate in place of the gasket between head and exhaust downpipe. I would make it 12 or 15mm thick, the same general shape as the gasket/flange but with three fins projecting radially outward 15mm or so.

I wonder if in its earlier life the carburation was running too weak which would have led to overheating. I did have a problem with an incompatilblity between the fuel tap which is Augusta, and the fuel filter which is Ardea which requires the filter to be mounted at a slight tilt to avoid restricting fuel flow. This might not be noticed on flat roads but was immediately obvious on our Yorkshire hills. It took me some time to find out why the engine just faded away on hills but was fine on the flat and did not get too hot in normal use. It certainly performed better once I'd worked this out.

I must say writing this up on the forum certainly helps to bring ideas into my head -as well as the Augusta's

Mike

[lancialulu]

What surprises me is the "fire ring" of the gasket especially over #4 is perilously close to (and also covers (seen from Karl's photo) those miscreant water ways. On a much later lancia engine of the Fulvia the head gasket has a few punched out holes for water ways that do not line up with the holes in the head/block castings. The thought was they developed the gasket to act as a restrictor to get the right temperatures around the block/head. It is a weird though.

To lob another idea into the pot, from the research of modern fuel in classic engines, it has been found that classic engines with distributors run better with about 5 degrees of extra static advance. So running by the manufactures settings is in effect causing more heat than optimum running (more power less heat). We all know a retarded engine gets hotter. Just a thought....

[Mikenoangelo]

Yes the holes in the gasket are far smaller than those in the head. The Augusta Newsletter reported some experiments to investigate the water flow which did indeed show that the flow could be modified but I'm not convinced that any of us know better than Lancia did when the engine was developed.

You could be right on the ignition/fuel issue but that will await the end of lockdown and remantling the car. When investigating the mixture problem I was very tempted to buy an Air Fuel Ratio gauge and in fact ordered one which failed to arrive as the importer went bust. I did get my money back. I had previously fitted one to a Twenty hp RR and found it very useful to control Mr Royce's strange carburettor. The Weber on the Augusta is also a bit odd as the "choke" is also a lean mixture control and to use that function it would be good to know what is going on. I recommended the AFR gauge to my ex business partner who has a Phantom 2 of 7.6 litres - the gauge he said, paid for itself very quickly - easy when you are getting 12mpg.

I cleaned up the valves this evening - the exhaust valves and seats of the two rear cylinders were noticeably more eroded than the others.

Mike

[Mikenoangelo]

When I cleaned the head with Fernox F3 descaler the brew was blue-green afterwards which I assumed was a part of the process. Once the head was dry I could see the same blue colour on the internal ports but again thought nothing of it.


Today on looking inside the block and scraping off deposits I found the same blue colour, underneath the deposits, almost like paint. I wonder if this was some early means of reducing corrosion? The block has not yet been chemically descaled so it's not that. Any ideas?


Mike

[Kari]

My guess: The colour of the anti-freeze backed onto the hot exhaust channel.

Regards  Karl

[Mikenoangelo]

Gasket ordered from Bob Johnson who quoted £96 and 2-3 weeks delivery.

I looked for a source of new big end bolts and found that the MGs from TB to TD, and the 1950’s Wolseley 4/44 which use the XPAG engine have a bolt which is suitable, being M8 x 1mm pitch, a size which was used in the UK from the 1920’s to the 50’s and known as System International (SI). The only variation being that the MG bolt has a filet radius under the head whereas the Lancia bolt is relieved at that point, a slight countersink on the seating on the rod would solve that. They are available either as very high tensile (12.9 grade) which are very carefully torqued up to a measured amount of stretch and do not need locking nuts, or in a more normal (presumably Grade 10.9) variety with a castle nut and split pin. I dismissed the extra strong variety as there is no way to set the torque so accurately since no torque wrench will fit through the crankcase side panel. (Picture 46). Unfortunately the other variety when I bought a set turned out to be a disappointment as they were not accurate in diameter and a slack fit to the rods. So at the moment I shall content myself with checking the existing bolts, which seem OK and not stretched or otherwise dodgy.

The head  is away to have the face resurfaced in honour of the new gasket and the exhaust seats ground. The valves and guides seem good, the guides new and the valve stems a very good fit so nothing needed there. However I’ve just been advised that the number 4 exhaust valve head can fall off due to the excess heat in that corner and that there is a stainless steel Nissan valve which can be fitted so I’ll mull that over.

The next job was to look at the water pump body for corrosion, to replace the ball race at the pulley end which was noisy at tickover,  and check the bronze bearing and seal on the spindle at the impellor end.

They are a bit fiddly to dismantle and at least one special tool is needed. The bearing is retained in the pulley by a threaded disc which has four peg holes to take a tool rather like those used to take the disc off an angle grinder. Luckily I had an adjustable version of this which worked well, provided the pegs are kept tight into the holes. A hydraulic puller with claws long enough to bite on the solid part of the pulley removed the pulley from the bearing.(Picture 47)

Next to remove the ball race from the housing another tool was made following Morris Parry’s design with four short pegs on the rounded end which fits into the plug. The pegs were cut from the shank of a 4mm drill bit and were pressed with drop of Loctite into slightly undersize holes in the end of the tool. I found that putting the pump body in the chuck of the lathe and pressing the peg spanner with the tailstock allowed the plug which retains the bearing to be unscrewed. The bearing was then pulled off using another puller which by chance was exactly the right size. (Picture s 47,49,50,51)

So with it all dismantled I found that the alloy pump housing was fairly corroded but that although the spindle is worn a little by the traditional asbestos gland seal, the rest of the spindle and the bronze bearing are sound. As the gland does not leak in use I shall leave that alone and just replace the ball race. This is an odd size, but available from Simply Bearings. KG Brand 98305 Deep Groove Ball Bearing 25x62x12mm. I would have preferred a higher quality SKF but the KG seems to be the only one around and for £6.24 plus post and VAT I can hardly complain. A similar size double sealed bearing is used on the crankshaft of a Vespa scooter and seemed a good choice for the pump. However these are C3 grade which means a relatively slack clearance for use in very hot situations and I am told would probably be noisy at radiator temperature.

The corrosion of the pump casing is not terminal (he said hopefully!) so I shall use JB Weld Original metal filled epoxy putty to protect the corrosion. I have even used ordinary Araldite in similar situation before so the JB Weld should do the trick. (Picture 52)

Mike

[Dikappa]

Mike,

Following my experience with the aurelia engine valve drop, I would suggest renew them if a suitable replacement is available.  I would'nt take the risk as the extra cost is probably low in the total rebuild cost....

[JohnMillham]

Mike,

Following my experience with the aurelia engine valve drop, I would suggest renew them if a suitable replacement is available.  I would'nt take the risk as the extra cost is probably low in the total rebuild cost....

I agree. Mine are Nissan and needed very little modification to make them fit.

[Mikenoangelo]

John do you have the part no or model for the Nissan valve and what mods are needed to make it fit. It was your experience mentioned to me by Mike Rauhaage which put me on to this. Does it go with the original Lancia springs and valve collets and caps? It does seem a good idea while I'm in there. Thanks.
Mike

[JohnMillham]

Sorry, no. I didn’t keep a record of the part number. I had to modify where the collets fit to suit the Lancia collets. I remember taking an Augusta valve to Paines near Oxford and asked “what have you got like this?”

[Mikenoangelo]

I'll delve a bit myself on the valves then. I've used similar stainless grade valve (ex Austin 1100) in my Salmson and they last very well - so far at least 65,000 miles.

I’m thinking about the problem of the overheating corner of the cylinder head due to the integral manifold and tortuous water circulation in that area.  Having no spare cylinder head I don’t wish to make an extra exhaust port for cylinders 1 and 2 which has been used solve the problem but I have a couple of ideas to throw at you for comment.

First and very simply replace the usual copper/”asbestos” gasket at the flange joint to the down pipe with a sort of heat exchanger to draw heat from the flange on the head. This would consist of a sandwich of 3mm copper plates, three of normal flange outline alternating with three of similar outline but 12mm larger all round to form fins. It has the advantage of eliminating the insulating layer of “asbestos”.

Secondly and also rather simple, increase the coolant flow by fitting an auxiliary 12volt electric water pump drawing from the bottom of the radiator and feeding to the back of the cylinder block above the starter motor with an internal nozzle directed upwards at the 10-11 mm water passage to the head right at the back corner. The nozzle might also have a sort of venturi effect, pushing more water from the block into the head. This would enhance the flow, rather than possibly interfering with it if the additional water were fed directly into the head. One of these pumps  advertised has water pipes of 10mm bore and flows 9 litres of water per minute which sounds about right when compared to the output of the main pump which I read is 36 litres/minute at 2600 engine rpm The auxiliary pump could no doubt be electrically controlled to lower output if needed and or thermostatically controlled.

Any thoughts?

Mike

[DavidLaver]

My only thought on the cooling issue is that you're breaking new ground, so doubt there's a substitute for experiment.  As for which to try first?  The heat sink is a lovely idea.  Perhaps the challenge is knowing if its working.  How are you going to measure temperature at the spots that matter?

With the rest of progress greatly enjoyed from my arm chair.  Using the lathe to hold that tool in place was clever.

[Raahauge]

Mike, The valves are from a Nissan Vanette Serena 2.3 D LD23
Sorry, meant to have included that info.
Mike

[Mikenoangelo]

No easy way of measuring temp inside apart from adding a thermometer probe to the back of the head but experimentally an IR thermometer gives a good local reading of the outside of the casting.

Thanks for the valve info Mike

Mike

[GG]

Don't know too much about Augustas, so forgive adding to this interesting thread.

On the exhaust port issue - attached find a revision done in Australia, that looked pretty impressive. One can imagine that long periods of high speed running (expressway?) wouldn't make cyl 4 area very happy. This seems like a pretty good solution which I'm sure you all know....

On the choke mechanism - just learned that the early Aurelia B20 with two single barrel Weber 32DRSP carbs had an odd choke mechanism - where there was off, then fully out was choke on, but the middle position was called "ESA" or Economy-Super-Aspiration, and leaned the mixture out. Might be similar.... More detail here: http://www.lanciaaurelia.info/carburetors1.html

If there are more images of the crankshaft in the car, please post! Fascinating to see. Especially the center bearing housing.
Interested to see how you end up.

Thanks!