Well after a year and a half in a commercial vehicle workshop with a cracked head, work carried out by reputable head refinishers, a second hand head bought for a Town Ace which I had skimmed and pressure tested and turned out to be a pre 85 head probably off a car! I'd had enough.

I had the T.Ace trailered back to my home and started rebuilding the motor last Monday... the reworked head was wrong although identical in the drillings etc. the inlet manifold and valve cover were quite different as was some of the pipe work which came with it.

The engineering shop had broken the sprocket for the cam shaft and hadn't told me. I couldn't get a replacement easily as I didn't have the chassis no. of the vehicle from which it came. I did have my original sprocket and cam, which was now quite rusty as the commercial vehicle workshop technicians had left it lying around unprotected.

Luckily the head repair shop had sent back my partially repaired head, some cam followers and a cam which wasn't mine, but they were trying to make up for the parts they had lost! This cam was also rusty, but better than my own.

I removed the cam from the second hand head and measured the bearing dia. It was identical to the original. The only difference I could see between the cams was that the width of the lobes on the T.Ace was 12mm and on the spurious head's cam were 15mm. And of course the sprocket was not tapered and didn't have a woodruff key, instead located via a post.

After reshimming the cam, which of course I'd already paid to have done along with the skim etc. I noticed that the engineering shop had not only relieved me of £170. but also some parts, they'd fitted the first cam bearing cap without the hollow dowel locators! I removed two from my semi repaired head and fitted them.

Fitted the valve cover (rocker box) only to find that the cam bearing caps were deeper and wouldn't allow the valve cover to seat.

I decided to use the valve cover which came with the second hand head. The breather pipe exited right were the wiring loom runs. So I dropped the loom and then found that my cast alloy induction pipe wouldn't clear the new valve cover!

I ground out the oil baffle from my original cover then rocked it in place to show where it was fouling. I used a drift to lightly dent the oil strainer above the cam cap bolt heads but had to grind off a sixteenth of an inch of the rear most cap bolt heads (not in situ)! The valve cover sat properly.

Had to make a gasket for the cast induction pipe to manifold joint as the head set didn't have one.

The injector run off pipe ran the opposit way on the replacement head and so I had to make a pipe to run from no. 4 cyl. to the pump.

I can't tell you how relieved I am to have done this work myself as every outfit I've used have failed miserably to perform. I can't imagine the bodge up which I would have ended up with.

Tonight I decided to run the van a few easy miles only to find.... no fuel! I know for sure that there was fuel in it when the engine blew. So it seems that the garage I used (and know well through the motor trade) was capable of doing one thing properly.... nicking fuel.

The thing that made me decide to pay for the van to be brought back to me was a chance meeting with some of the guy's from this site at the WoodVale rally in August this year, 2004. John N. said "get it back, you can use mine as a referance if necessary! And Kieth was eager to help.
Thanks guys.

- (#12944) Andy Shaw, 22 Aug 04 18:57

Good news Andy, glad you got all sorted!

- (#12944) David Miller, 23 Aug 04 01:31