Joolz,
I could have been that lifting the box and the suspension travel (with the added shaft going forward) was just too much for the joint. To check if joint is under pressure/ stress. You could jack up the car, disconnect the knife edge and move the arm up and down (around the area the car would see under everyday use. And watch and turn the shaft to see the worst angle/ stress on the joints. As the car was lowered then the wheel bearing end would have been moving more forward. Now you have raised it then that should have reduced the stress / movement.
Chris

And theres another problem...... Gearbox is positioned higher then Original and more to the back, giving extra stress to the joints and also more power released to them......

As doctors often say here in Holland with a deseas they can't do nothing about it....

You've got to learn to live with it

Maybe you should dedicate more time to your car and less to cameo roles in music videos.

I've been neglecting this thread for a while, but things have happened.

About a month ago I did the front end strip down I was promising, engine, gearbox, and axle, all out.



I started with stripping the steering rack, the wear on the guide bush was as anticipated, but being a tightwad I replayed it with a better 2nd hand one, fitted back to front. There was also a bit of wear inside the rack where the cups sit, but without buying a new rack there's not much that can be done about it. The pinion bearings were fine so that went back in. The whole lot was reassembled with plenty of grease, and the only new part used was an anti-rattle rubber.





The arm bearings were a bit pitted, but new ones are expensive so I decided these could go back in.



Once the engine and gearbox were separated, it was quite clear that oil had been escaping from the input shaft seal, and not merely getting to the clutch via the brake discs and the cutouts in the bellhousing. The whole clutch was very oily.



Now I knew the seal should be good, I replaced it when I assembled the gearbox. I tipped the 'box on it's nose and a bit more oil ran out which had been sitting in the clutch bearing guide tube. Then I left the gearbox like that overnight and no more oil leaked out. I thought that was a good sign.

I stripped the gearbox down, and swapped the bellhousing, output shafts, and rear cover onto the replacement. With the bellhousing off, I found quite a large collection of synchro teeth in the bottom. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I'm amazed at how much better it was working just before I took it out, compared with when it first broke, something I can only put down to the posh oil.



The replacement 1100s engine got built up with a new adaptor plate, the first to be fitted from the new production run, a slightly lightened flywheel and a new valeo clutch. It also needed the rocker covers, inlet adaptors, and alternator swapping over from the outgoing motor.




While everything was out, I took the opportunity to amputate one of the heater vents, it was never going to be possible to connect a pipe to it with the gear lever as it is.



Everything was put back together, which is blooming time consuming, and a new Valeo starter motor fitted. They're expensive, but make hell of a difference to how fast the motor turns over, and starting reliability has improved no end.

Oh yeah, and the new gearbox is fitted with a breather.




TBC

Brilliant work Joolz

I just remembered this following post has been in drafts for nearly a month, I've let this get really far behind. .

The incentive for finally getting around to all this was the PPC trackday at Mallory park. You'll have all seen the video of Pete Sparrow's car, well there should have been two 2cvs there, but we'll get to that later.

The other thing I wanted to do to improve performance was to swap the rear brake cylinders for some acad ones, in the hope of getting better balance. The brakes have always had a slightly longer pedal on the first press, and it had been suggested that the shoes needed adjusting. It also needed a rear wheel bearing, slightly annoyingly it was the one that I replaced just after Salbris that had gone again, admittedly it was very cheap, but I'd have expected more than 15,000 miles from it, and for reference it was one with a one piece center.

As is often the case, I ended up leaving myself with about 2 hours to sort the rear brakes, and things got off to a good start when the hub nut stripped half the thread off the stub axle. The bearing change was the inevitable battle, and I had to use the big press to get it out of the hub. I binned the idea of changing the cylinders as time was getting on, but changed the shoes on one side, the other pair from the set were fitted 9 years(24,000miles) ago, after a brake cylinder had leaked on them.

I used a brake drum with a cutout in it to try and adjust the shoes. I was surprised that the excentrics needed to be as far out as possible and looked like they wanted to go further, and I knocked the snail cams out until I could just hear the shoes dragging. The end result is that the brakes are no better, so I need to read up on the proper way to adjust them (rather than just tweaking and guessing) and give them another go.

Anyway, I'll try and make this concise. After all that engine and gearbox swapping I set off for Mallory park, and after about 10 miles stopped for a routine check under the bonnet. The gearbox was leaking oil already, this did not please me .
We carried on and hit the motorway, and after maybe 70 miles I wanted to see how much go the new engine had in it. I'd had it at full throttle for maybe 10-15 seconds, still someway off the red line, and I felt the power stutter slightly and then drop off. I backed off immediately and the engine still seemed to be running smoothly, a couple of seconds later I spotted the huge plume of smoke in the mirror . We pulled up on the hard shoulder, the engine didn't want to idle and there was as much smoke coming out of the breather as there was from the exhaust. I figured it was a piston/rings issue and that enough damage would already have been done for them to need replacing. Wanting to get to Mallory rather than wait for a recovery truck, I decided to see if it would make it the last 20 miles. It got gradually worse, and with a few miles to go it had burnt all it's oil and the oil light was coming on around corners, every time it did I dipped the clutch and held my breath until it went off again, and every time I had to wait slightly longer. I finally switched it off 1 mile short of the destination, when I thought it really wasn't going to make it up the next hill. We towed it that last mile, parked it up, and got pissed.

The car was trailered back to the workshop and the engine pulled out again. The oil around the exhaust port was a clue as to which cylinder to investigate. The post mortem pics;









The hole in the cylinder wall is about 3mm deep, I assume it must have been burnt away although it looks like cast finish. The big end is also partially seized, not sure if it's got pieces of piston stuck down the side of the bearing, or if it picked up as a result of oil starvation. Either way I'm going to consider this engine pretty much scrap seeing as I have others, and for now the original one has been refitted.

I would like to try and work out why this failed though, I wasn't being hard on it and want to know if there was an existing problem with the motor, or if something about the set-up killed it.

Joolz,
isn't that damage consistent with overheating leading to partial seizure and nipped or broken rings?
There's evidence above the (remains of) the top land of the pitting and erosion associated with detonation, also plenty of scuffing of the piston skirt and the Nicasil coating on the bore.
That gouge is probably due to a piece of broken ring being juggled around in its groove at TDC.

Seen similar on a 2CV engine, except that the gouged portion of the barrel was at BDC and about 20mm wide...

ken



Oh dear, what can the matter be? by slcchassis, on Flickr

Whats the other piston like??