Still struggling to find any time for the car, house hunting, preparing ours for selling and doing stuff for my mate have all eaten in to my time and energy to the point where an hour on the rod is a major event. I did get to look at the oil consumption thing, it's taken a lot of working out to get to the issues but I think I am there now. Just as well as I had discussed selling it, I was at my wit's end with things. So now I have new heads with much better flow, thicker oil and a reduced oil pressure spring. I had been seeing 120PSI, which while impressive is not what you want on an old Rover V8. The book says 30-40 PSI at 2400 RPM, I am still a bit higher than that when hot but it's a hell of a lot closer than it was. Long term followers of my exploits may remember that the oil pump originally fitted to the Rover lump would not clear the steering rack so I swapped it for a pump from a 1970's Buick Grand National that uses the same engine block but gave me the clearance I needed. The Grand National clearly has much better engineering tolerances and runs much higher pressure. The smoke stopped immediately, I don't know where it was being forced through but there is no visible smoke at all now, although it does still smoke a bit when cold - no doubt a result of no valve stem seals, they didn't worry so much about hydrocarbon emissions back in 1973. I could sort it but it will be ok for the IVA test which specifies only that there should be no visible smoke, I will warm it up before I get there.
I have done a bit more on the headlining, it's very slow going, it's not fun but it has to be done. It will look ok and it will be compliant. I have this idea to put in wooden cross supports to stop the liner from coming down in the heat of Summer, wooden ones will be easy to shape and will give a sort of retro period feel to the thing. I can see it in my mind's eye and think it will be quite cool. Sort of a juxtaposition to the modern LED lighting I intend to fit, I like that sort of thing.
Anywayz, more pressing matters are the two rattly tappets at the front left of the engine, they make it sound really horrible. I have no idea why that are playing up but I have two new ones on order. They are dead easy to get to on the Rover lump, you just have to drain the coolant, remove the carbs still on the manifold, take off the rocker cover and remove the rocker shaft, the tappets can then be removed, you don't even need to remove the exhaust or heads. I'm just writing this while I wait for it to cool down so I can get on with it. It's only rattling one side so it won't take long, I can't help wondering if the pushrods are bent or something, they weren't rattling when I had the engine running before the last strip down. I will work it out, it runs really nicely and will be even better with preload on those two.
I had a minor mishap, I had to go and get some more petrol, it drinks it like you wouldn't believe. When I came back the farmer next door was having his combine harvester repaired, I didn't hear the petrol dripping on to the floor but I soon smelt it. The jubilee clip that held the pipe on to the tank had come loose and as I was pouring petrol in, so it was coming out. Fortunately I spotted it quite quickly and sorted it out so it doesn't do it again.
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