How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Jordan Baker]

Spent some time on getting the intake and exhaust manifolds restored and cleaned up. I ended up using the intake from the wartime engine and the exhaust from my replacement engine. The exhaust manifold on the wartime engine was very badly pitted whereas this one was in excellent shape. Ran both through the sandblasting cabinet. A lot of junk was cleaned out of the intake around the heat riser box. I only snapped one stud on the exhaust manifold and even with some decent heat to the stud it would not come free. So I drilled it out and retapped the hole. I’ll replace it with a new stud. I’m thinking I’ll paint the exhaust manifold in a high heat black

[Jordan Baker]

Today I moved the running engine over to the cart. It’s now way easier to work on it and move it around the shop. I have also been working away on repainting the engine in grey. Using a combination of wire wheels in the hand grinder I was able to strip away all the old orange paint and get down to bare metal. I then used a few different products to degrease the metal. So far it looks great and I can’t wait to start bolting everything back on.

[Jordan Baker]

Engine is finally all painted. I went with a grey rocker cover. The oil pan is black. I will need to punch out the front frost plug and replace it with a new one. The two on the side had pin holes when I started poking around with a screw driver.

Next up for painting is the timing gear cover then installing a new seal. I also removed the large pulley harmonic balancer from the wartime engine and will be putting it on this one. That way all the pulleys are matching.

My plan for later in the week is to get most everything back onto the engine. Although it always seems to take twice as long. So we will see what happens.

[Jordan Baker]

Today was mostly spent going to and socializing at the OMVA swap meet in Acton. I also picked up my set of new tires thanks to Gord Yeo. Once I’ve gotten the engine back together and the transmission done I’ll be doing my wheels.

Once I got home I spent a bit of time in the shop and loosely installed the intake/exhaust manifolds. I need to still tighten everything up, but I was getting hungry and a little cold in the shop. So I called it a day and came inside for left over Easter dinner food.

[Jordan Baker]

Today I finished installing the manifolds onto the block. I then began adding the throttle linkages. On the original block there was a small shaft for holding the return spring. On the block I’m using there wasn’t one. However there are threaded holes for side mounts in the right position. So I decided to make up a threaded shaft that can simply screw into the hole. Once done it will easily do the job. I wanted to put in a small grove for the end of the spring to sit in. Since I don’t have a lathe of my own yet I rigged up something in the drill press. I mounted the shaft in the drill press, then my dremel in the vice. I put a small diamond cutting bit in the dremel and turned it and the drill press on. I then simply turned the vice in and let the spinning things do their thing. Everything worked great and the part will was I do what I wanted it to do.

[Bob Carriere]

On my engine, I bolted a small L bracket to the side mount holes and drilled small holes in the bracket to accept the curved end of the spring. I also added a spring directly below the vertical linkage and made a clip, held by one of the oil pan bolt, to attache the bottom section of the tall spring. This overcomes all the linkage friction and brings back the carb to idle when the throttle is relelased.

Start practicing going .....vroom vrooom vrooom.......

Cheers

[rob love]

I remember those days of turning things on the drill press. Once I finally picked up and installed the lathe a whole new world opened.

When I got the job at the Shilo museum, I would bring stuff home to turn. Then one day I sliced my thumb open pretty good...it happens, but if it's company material, then it should be done on company time and company machinery. So I scoured the DND catalogue of material for suitable lathes, checked DRMIS for available ones, and got a very very nice Afghanistan veteran: a 7-1/2 HP Colchester with digital readout that only served over there for less than a year, was shipped back and was languishing in the Montreal supply depot. I now have a favorite lathe.