2022

• 20220118 - Honk

A new year and a new horn switch from Moss Motors. I began the session today by cursing Lucas for making a horn without set screws to hold the wires. I took my complaint to Brad who tenderly pointed out the set screws cleverly hidden under the push button. Yup, I felt like an idiot all over again. Assembly was more difficult than necessary involving the snaking of wires through the narrow channel between the scuttle and the dashboard. Fortunately, all the holes matched up and the only mystery was where to attach the ground wire. This was left for another day...

• 20220329 - Jeremy

Nephew Jeremy graciously offered to kickstart the somewhat stalled Singer restoration at his dad's 70th birthday. We picked today to meet and despite complex logistics, did get to First Rate Auto only to miss Brad who was out running errands.  Jeremy was reassuring about what had already been done and listed a short path to getting the motor running which really will be THE watershed event. We didn't DO anything, but his encouragement meant a lot. Brad and I have scheduled 4/4/22 as the day the motor will run. Here is my partial text to Brad on April Fools Day: "A gentle reminder from Skip about the Singer to: 1. Order a 12 volt battery that will fit into the metal battery depression in the sheet metal. Remember, this is a Positive Ground situation. 2. Arrange for gas, oil and water plus anything special for the carbs, etc. for Tuesday. 3. Fashion some sort of makeshift muffler or super ear plugs. The muffler substitution I found is from a Ferguson Tractor, Walker #21035.

• 20220404 - Great Expectations - Sad Results

• Not surprisingly, Brad was slammed when I arrived just south of 8:30 a.m. Not to worry, I had plenty to do, cleaning up electrical circuits and laying out the plan for the day. 

• I fastened the instruments back into the dashboard, identified 3 errant ground wires, tightened the limp generator up against the fan belt, tightened several nuts and bolts in preparation for the big event.

• Brad ordered a new battery after taking measurements of the battery pan. It arrived quickly, and he freed himself to get the engine running.

• First he added oil, then antifreeze. 

• I had identified two open holes in the exhaust manifold. The photos I found showed a tube junction between these two threaded holes, however, I could not find this part. After some time, I found a single treaded part with a copper tube that had been flattened at one end sealing it. I had found the plug but not the union. I fussed and sorted, decided to tear my garage apart AGAIN when accidentally I found a second piece under the car that matched the first. Instead of joining the two plugs to the manifold, someone previously had clamped shut each tube. They fit perfectly and thus were mounted. Later tuning will determine if the union needs to be restored.

•Then I discovered another mystery hole in the block. No threads, but as Brad shown his flashlight in this hole, he could see the timing chain! Why would there be a hole which might spew oil out of the block? Next, I spotted another random piece I couldn't identify - a copper tube extending to nowhere from the front Solex carburetor. Again, just by chance, I found one of the last mystery pieces of rubber tubing attached to a 6" piece of copper tubing that just fit from the carb to the mystery hole. Wouldn't the oil still be slung past this tube? No threads in the block or other holes suggestion outer flange. Brad showed his brilliance once again: he scored the copper line with a tube cutter and put into that groove an "O" ring that prevents the tube from being sucked into the block and interfering with the timing chain!!

• We had previously installed another starter pull because the previous one had broken. This one was close to two feet longer than necessary. Brad cut it and estimated the distance to the starter switch and connected it for future use.

• The next task was to attach the rusted pipe that attached to the exhaust manifold. This short piece was helpful in that it mated to the manifold but problematic in that it was rusty and ended beyond where Brad expected it to connect to a muffler necessitating a curved piece of exhaust pipe before connecting to the muffler. He first thought he could bend it, then reconsidered. I had a reference to a substitution for a Walker (Massey Ferguson Tractor muffler) alternative which he quickly ordered to be delivered on Thursday! The problem was to find 4 bolts that would connect this exhaust piece to the manifold...AND to find a gasket that would fit this connection. After much scrounging I found the bolts, and Brad ordered the gasket material and after two+ tries, he fashioned the connective gasket.

• We had the wiring, battery, coolant, lubricant, spark and were ready for the big moment. First, Brad wanted to check that the cooling system was sound. He brought over a sophisticated vacuum system, and the cooling system passed. The next step was to "fire the sucker up"!

• ...and before we could hook up the battery and confirm the wiring, we noticed antifreeze seeping out of both sides of the head. Tightening this and that didn't stop the flow, and we both realized that the cooling juices were leaking from around the head gasket. Damn!

• There was nothing for it but to drain the antifreeze and pull the head to diagnose the problem. The head had not been planed, so maybe that was a solution. Brad was sure the torques were correct, so, was liquid gasket material to supplant the head gasket a possibility? Maybe. A new head gasket? Not bloody likely. We were bummed, to say the least!

• I was tasked with taking everything down to the point we could pull the head. I pulled the valve cover, and with great difficulty, pulled the manifold with the carbs attached, pulled the radiator, pulled the generator, the fan and the pulley. Brad got the BIG screwdriver and popped the front of the head (somewhat dinging the once new head gasket), and then we are faced with pulling the timing chains and the oil delivery line. This feels like a GIANT step backward...3+ years backward...

• I paid him $1300+ for the work thus far and wandered home with the task to find out if the head had been planed and if I could come up with a new head gasket. The answers were "no" and "maybe". All I found was the old (original) head gasket. 

• He and I are both tied up for several days...

• 20220411 - Red-Faced - Torqueless and Flipped

• I found the old head gasket in my garage and took it over to First Rate expecting the worst - that we'd have to heat up and expand the old gasket to replace the "new" leaking one.

• I quickly discovered that the leakage probably had nothing to do with the head gasket. Brad had neglected to torque the head 3+ years ago. One of the nuts wasn't even finger tight! How embarrassing...

• Without further comment, Brad got his fancy digital SnapOn torque wrench and torqued the head from 55-66 ft. Lbs.

• While he was doing this I pulled out the article from the Singer Newsletter entitled "Valve Timing for Dummies" and read it over 4 times. And though he didn't seem interested, I read it to him. The issue was that I wasn't sure we were at Top Dead Center (TDC) which is the essential starting place for valve timing and insuring the timing chains are in the appropriate location on the sprocket. He used my hand crank to rotate to where he thought TDC was, but to prove it to me, he got this little 5 x 7 box with a flexible probe coming off of it, unscrewed  the most forward spark plug and stuck the probe into the hole. With the flip of a switch, the little box turned into a black and white TV and the probe into a camera. We were looking at a live video of the top of the front piston!! Unfortunate for Brad's sinking self-confidence, it was not at TDC. With a bit more jockeying we could both tell that it could go no farther in the cylinder. 

• We then carefully pulled the timing chain sprocket off and jumped sprockets with the dual timing chains until we had a smiling face as the article depicted and were able to rotate the cam so the first two lobes were "up" (at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions). As he tightened the sprocket back on, I was totally happy, but he pointed out that it was now jammed up against the cap which contains the forward end of the cam. The sprocket couldn't even turn! Yikes! Was it the wrong cap? Did we need washers to push the sprocket forward? Then I had my second brainstorm of the day - the damn sprocket was on backwards!

• Off came the sprocket again, and very carefully (not to drop the chains into the bottom of the engine) he refit them in the proper sprockets before respindling the assembly. There was now room to spare between the back of the sprocket wheel and the cam cap.

• The last procedure was to bolt it to the shaft and bend the locking tab...which broke upon bending and with the help of gravity hurtled towards the bottom of the engine. Brad fished it out with his long skinny magnet.

• I was able to fashion a new functional locking tab from an extra piece from the old drum brakes.

• I replaced the fan belt pulley and tried to bolt on the fan, but two of the studs had ripped out the threads from the soft aluminum material. I got more Brownie points for figuring out that these, too, could be reversed because there were deeper threads on the nut side than the pulley side and thus the reversed stud would grab more threes internally. This avoided having to drill and tap a larger stud - even if we could find one with British threads!

• In reassembling the radiator, I noted the passenger side has lost its rubber bushing at the bottom. I will have to make new ones at home.

• Next was refitting the cast iron cap to the front of the head which covers up the timing chains using nasty black mastic in place of gasket material. Brad had damaged the new head gasket as he pried off this cap to reset the timing and check for the leak a couple of days ago before discovering the head had not been torqued. I tried my best to smooth it down but was finally forced to use a dead-blow hammer to get the cap in position to accept the 4 mounting bolts.

• Once the cap was in place, the valve cover was next, but I realized the cork gasket had never seated properly and so surely would have leaked oil. Back to the nasty mastic after scraping off the old stuff with a razor blade.

20220412 - Turbulence all round, yet some progress

• I found some old rubber boots (the kind that fit over steering knuckles and grease fittings) at home, and they perfectly fit the cushion needs of the radiator.

• My early attempts at reassembly were problematic. I had all the nuts and bolts but had to refer to photos taken during disassembly multiple times to remember where they all fit. For instance, there is nothing intuitive about how the generator fits on this automobile (or so my pea-sized brain decided today). Then I had trouble with the intake and outflow hoses and later with the 4 bolts on the mounting bracket for the radiator.

• There was discord in the shop as one of the mechanics was fired. Everyone seemed to have troubleshooting problems.

• I did make some progress and should be ready tomorrow to test for leaks again. If those tests are successful, we'll move on to the electrics and see if we can get the engine to fire up.

20220413 - Nuts - on so many levels

• I did resize the rubber cushion for the driver side of the radiator frame at home, and it fit well as did the 4 frame bolts that make the radiator mounting solid. I guess this is made stronger to support the bonnet wings and side sheet metal parts.

• There are two nuts that attach to studs welded to the bottom of the radiator through the frame. Since the first disassembly they either resided on the frame or directly under it. That's where I found one of them this morning and attached it with no trouble. The other one had vanished. I spent nearly an hour looking for it, and after three sortings through my spare nuts jug finally located one that would thread! Maddening to be the victim of British Standard Fine hardware.

• Later, I was victimized again by the two nuts which anchor the distributor to the block. I should have screwed them in place before sending the engine to the various machine shops. I guess I was afraid they would lose them! Again I went through hundreds of nuts trying to fit them in the ultra tight space under the distributor strictly by the braille method. I finally forced one to fit for a few threads before it refused to go further. Exasperated with the time and effort, I pulled the distributor, attempted to clean the buggered threads on the studs and the buggered threads on the old nuts. Over an hour on two nuts! 

• I needed help to get the V-Belt over the generator pulley, and that saved me having to pull the generator belt pulley. I must remember to tighten the belt pressure before firing up the engine.

• The real victory of the afternoon was pouring in fresh antifreeze and finding only a minor leak around the upper cast iron  delivery port. This was stemmed by just tightening the 4 bolts fastening it to the head. At the end of the day I noticed a small leak from the two central square openings that will be covered by the manifold. Is there a water channel behind this area? We shall see...