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Having got the head off it was obviously in need of a bit a clean up, but (fortunately) it all looked in reasonable shape. Even the push rods seemed to look sound - apparently this can often be a problem.
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The valves looked in reasonable condition and the seats didn't appear to be burnt.
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The valves and cylinders did not appear to have much carbon deposit, so that wasn't the reason for the running on.
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The ports were all cleaned up and had new seats inserted for the exhaust valves and new stainless steel exhaust valves and guides. All the valves were ground in ready for reassembly.
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The head was cleaned up and painted, initially with red oxide and then a gloss black - that will make it look good! Reassembling the rockers proved a challenge. The bushes were an odd mix and appeared to include some fabricated from copper tubing! A few hours hard work and new bushes were made up and everything put back together.
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Now to look at other potential problems that could be causing the overheating. The radiator was flushed through and there didn't appear to be any blockages. The car had an old 10" Kenlowe fan fitted in front of the radiator and after some discussions with Revington's it was decide to fit a 12" Pacet fan to suck the air through the radiator.
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The kit came with a temperature sensor on the lower steel pipe to the radiator. This automatically cuts the fan in at 86 degrees and out at 76 degrees. There is also a manual override switch. The new pipe and sensor are a bit close to the steering rack, but eventually it all fitted. As a final measure we also fitted a new radiator cowling and used the old one to fabricate a lower cowling and create a 'tunnel' to force the air through the radiator.
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So a bit of a tune up and time for a test drive. The engine certainly runs a lot quieter, probably due to the rocker bushes. The fan cuts in and out when the temperature gauge gets about three quarters up the range, but for most of the time the car is moving, the gauge sits just above the halfway mark and no need for the fan. The engine struggles a bit when cold and unfortunately still runs on so we probably need to recheck the timing and mixture.
And just to prove 'sods law' still applies the fuel pump packed up on the way home!
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