Le Petite Van Gris Part 5

 

Le Petite Van Gris Part 5

 

What to do on a rainy day? Lock down continues as now we are stuck in the house waiting for the rain to stop another storm has left us awash. I have just returned from a few days on the Norfolk Broads with my brothers. They have an annual trip there to go sailing and fishing. I use it as a retreat to do some reading and writing and generally catch up on the events that I need to write up. This year, there was not much to write about so I spent the time playing with an outboard motor that was not running very well. It does now. It does not seem I have done very much but I have been working steadily on the van engine. It was an oil burner; there was as much oil outside of the engine as inside and burn marks on the piston. I would have to replace them.

 I had heard about a 730cc conversion done by Pete Sparrow so thought I might invest in one. I thought it was a bolt on upgrade like the 652 conversion but not so. After talking to Max at their workshop it turns out to be a much more engineered project with the crankcase needing to be modified to take the bigger liners, the camshaft re-profiled to make best use of the increased induction volume and some work on the ports to help the gas flow along with lots of bits replaced to ensure the rebuilt engine is in as good a shape as possible. This goes along with a price tag of £2 to £3000 and there is a waiting list of several months for them.  This lead me to the decision to just replace the barrels and pistons. The 652cc conversion I was told by Max was not worth doing. I did the oil seals as a precaution along with new oil cooler, fuel pump and oil filler neck. I have cleaned up and painted the cowlings and the inlet/exhaust manifold with heat resistant paint. The rocker covers got some paint too.

 When I received the new barrels and pistons I set about fitting them. The big and small ends had no play in them but when I removed the left side piston I found the small end bush was tight on the gudgeon pin and the bust was rotating in the small end eye of the con rod. I had a replacement bush but that would not grip so I had to go back to the original split bush, tin it with enough solder to stop it slipping and reamed it out to get a nice fit for the new gudgeon pin. Not the best thing to do but if it does get noisy I will need to get an oversize bush fitted. I put together a simple ignition circuit, got the points to work, managed a spark with the old ignition coil and some spare HT leads and we were in business. I made a stand for the engine to get it off the ground. I had half an old gearbox that I could fit the starter motor to along with the main 2CV electric cables and the starter motor worked too. I turned the engine over for a few minutes to prime the lubrication system so that it was well oiled before I started the engine. I dropped a bit of fuel pipe into a can of petrol then connected up the battery and tried starting it up. The carb primed with fuel and after a few revolutions with the choke it fired up. There was no exhaust system fitted so it was noisier than usual but not ear shattering. I ran the engine for a minute. I then asked Gita to take this video of the engine running.

 Success I now have a serviceable engine for the van while I wait for the big one. So not much done in the last month?