Classic Mini Cooper S 1275cc short block assembly
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- čas přidán 25. 12. 2021
- Last week we ran into a slight issue with our 1965 Mini Cooper S where we ordered the wrong rod bearings halting our progress. So, we were getting prepared to pivot. However, our new bearings arrived in no time so Davin got back to work putting our little short block back together. Conversations about dial-up internet notwithstanding, things went relatively smooth this holiday week.
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Great job.
The timing cover on a A Series engine is known to leak from the pully seal. Best slip the pully on before doing up all the cover bolts so the cover is centred.
The tip on reboring out the holes for water pump was worth watching the video.
A trick and old motorcycle racer taught me. Liberally coat both sides of a paper or cork gasket with white lithium grease. The grease swells the gasket and it is removable reusable infinitely with not gasket scraping. I have done it for over 50 years with never a weep or leak.
Thanks for being a normal person and not a personailty. Great build, big engine work is hard to come by ;)!
I am 71 years old and I HOPE to learn something every day!!!
I started this car thing when I was 12 years old.
Have done just about everything mechanical and fabrication wise.
Built drag cars from the ground up, ran an A/Fuel dragster, 98% Nitro,
STILL LEARNING!!!
Interesting on the water pump locator holes. I used to work at an aluminum diecast plant (9.5 years) and those cores inside the die that leave cast holes were always a flat end with no radius. To me it seems that the core for that hole was worn and they continued to use it. We rotated dies in machines though and always had them inspected and replaced. Since the smallest die was 8 tons and takes about 8 hours to remove it, replace cores or injector pins, re install it, heat the die and get it running castings again.
Incredible! Thank you for sharing!
I had same problem with aftermarket w.p. had to do the same
My first car..mini cooper 1.3 ..I will have another again some day.. unbelievable fun
It's fun to see the 1275 rebuild - back in the 1970's I had the entertainment of overhauling a couple of 1098's - narrower bore - thus the rods were skew cut, and because the bores were offset
from the center - rather than evenly spaced - there were 2 different types of connecting rods - to account for the fact that the bores were not centered over the crank throws -
add to that a 5 ring piston (3 compression rings, 1 standard oil ring, and a non-rotating oil ring in the skirt) with fully floating piston pins on an engine with a roughly 2.5 inch bore.
I didn't see another piston like that until I worked on marine diesel engines - but they were much, much larger.
This has been a fun series to watch mostly because it's not focused on building up some giant, hillbilly 700 cubic inch V8 or whatever that's been done to death. Amazingly, there are different engine types out there that aren't 1000HP monsters!
I sure am enjoying this rebuild! I've never seen the guts of those Mini engines, and I am fascinated to see the differences between it and similarly sized bike engines that I've worked on. Thanks for bringing us along with you for the rebuild!
I was more concerned about all of that lint flying around when he snatched off the cover than the coffee cup that was knocked over!
clearly you have your priorities wrong :)
The Morris Austin engines having the distributor positioned at the front were renowned for stalling when driving in heavy rain. A cheap but useful trick was to install a bread plastic bag over the distributor, pop all the leads through the bag to keep it dry.
That is so true, exactly what we did on my wife's first car. Engine kept going after that but the mini bodywork just rusted away.
Or a Marigold Yellow washing up glove. It had four fingers for the HT leads and a thumb for the coil!
Well here is my RockAuto tip of the day for you Davin. In a pinch, when you do not have any acceptable gasket material Cork or Paper from your local auto parts store, a shoe box can be used as an acceptable sub-statue for things like Thermostat housings and water pumps. Does not seam like it will work, but it does due to being compressed thus making it harder for water to soak through, as long as you add a sealant of some kind.
Back in the early 80s I had to go back to work in the Rockies from the coast. Didn't have any wheels but, there was an old Renault 10 in the driveway that needed some 'reassembly'. It is a wet sleeve block but, there were no gaskets available. Good thing the old man still smoked because that's what we used. Cut out gaskets from his smoke packs. Put the engine together and drove it back and forth to the Rockies a few times...
I like the shoe box though, great idea 👍
I was happy to see you install at least one piston with the handle of all hammer, like us ordinary people 😉. Enjoying them build, thanks for the videos. 👍
Love watching your rebuilds, please get back on the 37 Ford race car and the 440 I'm dying to see that car finished
Loving this series. Watching an American working on a mini engine is like watching a Brit working on a flathead V8. Two different cultures colliding. It's all about the love of the engine, respect.
When you put the head on just remember to put the little hose between the water-pump & head. They are a #%%%$#% to put on later. Billy J... Queensland, Australia.
Great to watch this build. A 1275cc Mini engine was hot stuff in the UK when I was young.
Don't forget to put the put a solid rubber (rather than compressible) bypass hose onto the water pump (with hose clips) before mounting the head. I took my first head off an A-series when I was 10 years old.
It's funny seeing this - back when I was about 17 I was rebuilding a 1275 Cooper S that had rotted out subframes and a blown engine - I got it because it seemed cool and given the state it was in was very cheap. Never thought I would read someone describing it as a "classic" about 40 years later - although it was definitely a fun car to drive.
This video ended right after changing pillow position 😎👌🏁 .... am too addicted to redline.
Never put sealant on both sides of a gasket. Gasket material is made to be resistant to the fluid it is sealing, so all that is accomplished by sealing both sides of a gasket is to make it harder for the next guy to disassemble. With that being said, from a procedural standpoint, this show is spot on. This from 50 years mechanical experience, from small engines to a Cat dealership mechanic's position.
Always so clean and fastidious. Great job.
One tip about the water pump. Put the bypass hose on before or as you're putting on the head. It's a pain in the butt if you wait till after the head is on.
Hi Dave enjoy the video,you can time the distributor quite easily.The drive shaft has an offset slot on the top, if you put the shaft in with larger side of drive towards the bottom and the slot approximately at 45 deg it should be spot on.If you need to go a tooth either way this is easily done by screwing threaded bar into hole in drive slot,lifting and turning either way Hope this is some help.Cheers Mike.
of course we learn when we are in front of a professional , thank you for bringing this amazing project
The oil clearance, gasket selend and lubrications tips are great thanks.
It's amazing how the name of "The Right Stuff" is so apropos. :o)
just a tip on the distributor drive shaft installation,screw a longbolt into the centre to lower it into the engine to time it to the camshaft,dont ask me why lol.
The best engine restoring channel in this world.
I'm a retired motorcycle mechanic and sure love to watch you work. I still learn from your videos.
I first got on the internet in 1995.... Certainly wasn't the content on there like today!
I was raised with Plastigage, never had a problem. It will reveal taper in the journals, too. Using ID mikes and snap gages is an art and takes a fair amount of experience to get the feel right.
Couldn’t agree more. Buy somthing, it doesn’t have to be big, and stop criticizing someone who is doing something. Yes they’ll do it wrong but that’s how you learn and I’ve learnt a lot! 🙄
Telescoping gages, measured over the tips with mikes, are very accurate if used correctly. Place the lightly tensioned gage in the bore at a slight angle so it’s set a little larger than the bore you’re measuring and push through. It will “find” the largest diameter and hold it, (they’re clever little devils), then carefully mike over the tips for a reading. Repeat three times for an average and you’re there. Takes a machinist “feel” but that’s the way it’s done.
I love these videos. And I also love how you consistently tell us all to get into the shop. More often than not, you're the inspiration I need to get out there and do SOMETHING, even if it's just cleaning a bit. So, thank you.
I am an amatuer mechanic and can figure out a lot of things to repair on vehicle. Rebuilding a motor like Davin is doing is something I would love to learn. My father taught me most of things I know on cars.
This has been a great project to watch. Thank you for discussing Plastigage. I never planned to work on any cars again, but had catastrophic failures in two cars at the moment even used cars got very hard to find, so I'm re-learning stuff I thought I knew, and learning a bunch of new stuff. This channel is one that keeps me motivated to finish the second vehicle and get it on the road (the first one is going again and is somehow much more satisfying to drive).
Happy New Year!
You’re doing great as usual. This is better then watching cable news.
Always enjoy watching your Rebuilds, the attention to Detail is phenomenal!! Engines look like pieces of Jewelry..
Your videos are right to the point. Can watch yours all day.
Great project, I have owned 7 Minis over the years but have never rebuilt one of their engines. Your videos are always a joy to watch. Keep up the good work!
Nice job Davin and crew. Coming along nicely.
Really enjoyed the series and I also enjoy the way you present things. Thanks great series so far! Happy New Year
Great detail and preparation in your work, as a British guy I had countless minis back in the 1990’s. With various engines, 1275cc 1293cc and 1380cc capacities. I’m going to agree with some of the other comments, your Crank tolerances are awfully tight, these engines usually have closer to 00.25 - small amount of crank lash is expected and they do like to run hard when built properly. I wouldn’t use any gasket sealant on the Oil side - addition of an Oil Cooler is worthwhile and I always used a break in oil for the first few hundred miles, then regular changes - good quality Oil is a must to keep the gearbox happy. Good luck with the rest of the build 👍🏻
happy new year for all. tank you for the classes ....
I love your hard working and this type of videos thanks to you and to the camera man …….. best wishes…..
So much care and thought is put into these builds, anyone that would give you grief about which gage to use is just splittin hairs. If you're assembling something to within 0.0016" tolerance, there is bound to be slop in ALL measurement methods. What it all boils down to is experience with each tool. The perfect tool in the hand of an amateur is useless. Any of the three gages mentioned here in the hands of a professional, like Hagerty, will do just fine.
Great content as usual! Love these builds. Thanks!
I agree - I've seen professional machinists use telescoping gauges to a tolerance of .0001" with excellent results. The technique matters!
We use the Right Stuff that comes in caulking tubes. They make a 6 inch and a 12 inch tube. Another thing is that Perfect Circle and Speed-Pro both recommend using WD-40 on rings when installing. They say the thinner lubricant helps to seat the rings. Check into it!
Definitely lovin this series. I'm about get out in the shop aka the driveway and finish putting this lift kit on my truck.
After more than a handful of decades on the good side of dirt, it occurs to me that the old car
hobby may very well be the best one to partake in, for a number of reasons - but the most
important reason may be because "they're never *really* done", are they?
Even if we've just completed part or whole of a project, we're still *thinking* of what else we
could try or do to it - or what else we could have done better or differently or whatever,
all in an effort to better the car (even if it winds up sometimes that we didn't eventually).
It's a positive, constructive passion, it really is.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!
-Ed on the Ridge
Really loving this rebuild!
Put together with far more care than it would have been originally.
I rebuilt my first engine a few months back with the help of this channel and some others as well and I cannot thank enough. My biggest fear was leaks - well, good thing important seals like on the crankshaft are spot on. I just saw the other day that the crankcase cork or paper has been seeping a minimal amount and I was wondering how the heck. I was about to replace it with another one and probably watch it seep again. On this video I learned that paper/cork gaskets don't replace fully the manually applied silicone but work together instead, great 🙏
One thing you can do is become fastidious on checking for level surfaces. Every component of an engine starts to distort under the constant heating/cooling cycle it goes through daily. Get a quality straight edge, a few of differing lengths, and start check for flat surfaces, remove the high spots gently then assemble to proper torques.
Pleases me no end seeing a 1275 MOWOG (made out of wild otter guts) Austin Healey motor being built. My first car was an Austin Heaely Sprite Mk 4, it had the same motor which I rebuilt 2 times over the years I owned it.
Loving this build
00:04 "there was no internet in 1995". Although not what you would recognize today as the internet, there certainly was an internet and email that used it. Lots of my work was done through a dial up connection. Just think if we had all invested in popular internet businesses back then?
Best lesson learned in weeks; modified drill bit. Like a gun tap or an end mill. Awesome 👍😎!
Really enjoying this video series. I have gotten snap gauges to agree with the bore gauge. No doubt they are slower and require more care, but they can be made to work. Agree that plastigage is the last resort.
Hey Davin! Great to see the mini engine going together so well. That was a well-spotted misfit on the water pump, could have cost a cracked body otherwise (I did an almost identical build for a customer back in 1975, and I think we managed 95 bhp at the flywheel using a 40 DCOE side draught Weber carb back then….) Have a great 2022 buddy! 🙏😊🇬🇧
did he have the gasket in situ when he found the pump sat high?
8:15 visible confusion... :D I know, I should get out to the shop and do my stuff... :D Nice tips, keep it up!
Great video, cheers Davin
No sé inglés pero me encantan sus videos maestro. Saludos y que Dios le bendiga.
The green block is looking cool. 😎👍🇨🇦
Have fun with that 12g333 gearbox. You’ll need to grow an extra set of hands with the gear retainers or custom made tools using tig wire and, vacuum hose and tweezers. And for those needle bearings do it dry and use a rubber band to hold them in place using dental picks and don’t use grease in fact do the hole thing dry because it will be swimming in oil once you put the thing together
Also minis don’t go well with RTV silicone. What happens is the gears mash it up So fine it get sucked up by the oil pick up and can get to places you don’t want it to go. Use the permatex aviation for-a gasket never dry stuff that’s
Agree. The only place RTV should be used on the mini is on the rubber half moon seal between the crank and gearbox front main bearing. Everything else should be Permatex #3.
Brilliant stuff as always.
Great comment about how others are watching and will learn something ! GREAT COMMENT ! I'm subscribing.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate these videos.
Great Job! Keep up the good work.
Old man tip of the day: Paint is a good sealant...paint some more after assembled...
I have at least 6 projects but it's in a unheated garage and I'm old. I know , lame. But I'm trying to get out there. Great video Gentleman. Have a happy New Year.
thank you for you deep heart work
I agree, a snap gage is not as good as a dial bore gage.
16 tenths is the term you're looking for....LOL
Love the show from Australia mate 🦘
Love it mate! G’day from Australia 🇦🇺!!! Uppa!!!!
Really been enjoying these episodes and I love seeing more mini video content. Thank you for the time and effort you put into this. I noticed, the spray shield/washer on the timing cover side crank pulley was put on backwards. You may end up with some oil leaks out that timing cover in the future. The washer that lives under the pulley should be facing the other direction.
Plus he tightened the timing cover before putting pulley on. I watch all your videos as well keep up the great work!
There is a lot of stuff he didn't do, just on the timing gear and cover end 😳👌
"Nooooooooo" lmao
I lost count how many times I've done that.
Davin does it right..I enjoy these rebuilds..thanks
Enjoyable video thanks guys 👍
Great vid!!!
thanks for the lube explanation
I prefer red high tack on gaskets......works great for me
Tip on your Silicon RTV. My dad use to work for Dow Chemical in the corporate headquarters in Midland, Michigan and he told me that the RTV that smells slightly like vinegar should be stored in a freezer for the longest shelf life. It works quite well, I have Caulking Gun Tubes that have been in my freezer for over ten plus years and other than the tip hardening up, is still usable. This works best on the tubes that have an actual cap you can seal the end up on, but I have also used it on the large tubes and just used a Saran Wrap type of plastic to seal the ends. By the way, I love the color Green, but the English chose one of the ugliest greens i have ever seen for that poor engine block.
Plasti-Gauge in my experience works really well and that’s with tight tolerance motorcycle engines. One thing is critical though and that is the Plasti-Gauge must be fresh and pliable. Old or long open packages of it will dry out, shrink and give you a false tight reading.
Yes that’s a very good point Guy, best regards for a happy healthy 2022 🙏😊🇬🇧
My project car is sitting covered in snow right now because it lost oil pressure. I guess the engine will come apart next. And I will probably use plastigauge as I was taught in the 70's and have used on hundreds of engines since. Dad didn't have "fancy" gauges like that when he taught me to use it. We have since gained them though.
I’m sure someone’s said this (but I can’t search the comments), but Austin and British Leyland weren’t famous for checking tolerances (or anything really). What they were famous for were Friday Cars, famously light-weight, low equipment, and lethal!
Cool little motor! Hope everything goes well with the rest of the build. I can’t believe it has a double row timing chain, for a whole 75hp 🤣🤣🤣
ME: Early Video Drop? Hagerty: YESSSSS!
I was always taught to put sealer on one side and grease on the other side of a gasket. Makes getting it apart, in case you need to in a way that will not destroy the gasket. I have never had an issue with any leaks doing it this way. I also target the side that would be harder to scrape to put the grease on.
Another fine EPISODE of the Short Attention SPAN garage... blink and its over,..
You do it right. love learning from Hagerty. love the barn finds too
Been watching your channel for some time now but haven't beenf a commenter,however, I disagree with your assessment of what you call "snap gauges" and I call telescope gauges. I've been a machinist for over 40 years and used them for accuracy to the tenth and 99% of the time you can measure the telescope with outside mics and be spot on. Also the correct method of using them is to let the spring out and have it tipped at approxametley 10 deg then lock and tip perpendicular "once" and remove to measure. I will never second guess your mechanical knowledge or experiences however you just neeeded a little coaching on that one. Keep on smiling.
You guys are awesome
Thank you for your kind words!
I like. Keep up the good work.
this guy is awesome
"So, whatcha got here boys...is four Briggs water-cooled engines in one block...put in a car..."
С новым годом!)
It’s a telescoping gage and they are deadly if used right. 42 year T&D maker.
Thats it, they work well when used right. I put a Ford 250ci crossflow straight-six together using almost nothing but one of those gauges, feelers and vernier calipers. Damn thing went like the clappers and lives on to this day in a speedboat in South Australia - the new owner was very pleased with it!
A great video....
As im sitting on the coutch when its minus 42 out side looking at my jeep project threw the window . Dam i need a garage hahaha
I have built thousands of engines (probably half of them minis) and I check every single bearing with plasitgauge. It is not absolute, but it is the last sanity check to make sure nothing has gone cattywompus. However, I will mention that telescoping gauges can be very accurate if they are used correctly instead of the way most people use them.