Morris Minor Owners Club

I'm begining to think that people like me with the mechanical knowledge of a rabbit should not contemplate building engines.

1098cc 1966 2 door saloon

I've got to the stage of fitting a new timing chain I bought a Duplex kit (it already had a duplex chain fitted but I broke the larger pulley getting it off ). Now the confusion I notice on the parts manual that 2 timing chain tensioners are fitted. Mine didnt have any when I de-assembled it. Do I buy the two tensioners mentioned and if so where do they go or are they not needed?

Once again thanks in advance

The rubber ring 'tensioners' are only used with a simplex timing chain.

I hope you have a torque wrench and follow the torque settings in the book, breaking the timing gear suggests a bit of a brute force approach.

It needs to go together "just right" not as tight as you can get it without giving yourself a hernia .

Anyway, go for it, you wont regret it when it is up and running and you can say "I rebuilt that engine".

Got a torque wrench - makes a good hammer used two levers to get the pulleys off and could not get them to budge so 'tapped' lever with a hammers hence the broken gear wheel.

When I installed the crankshaft tightened to correct level I could turn the crank easily with my hand. Now with the pistons in (checked the piston ring gap) how hard should it be to turn the engine? maybe I am just getting paranoid.

If anyone lives in Badenoch and Strathspey in the Highlands please let me know so I can pick your brains also

I also broke the same timing gear sprocket doing exactly the same as you.It tells you in the manual to lever the gear off using 2 large spanners,this is what I used and it came off in 4 bits.

Pistenbroke, I live in Aviemore so must be somewhere near you PM me with your phone number. I've just rebuilt 2 1098's so if you need a hand get in touch.
If I get stuck I do the same as everyone else on here - ask.
Obviously the engine willl be consideralbly more difficult to turn with the pistons connected but if you were supplied with the pistone by the machine shop and youve checked the ring gap they should be fine

I've also managed to damage the rim of a timing sprocket trying to lever it off. Luckily I was planning to replace it with a duplex kit anyway.

pistnbroke wrote:Now with the pistons in (checked the piston ring gap) how hard should it be to turn the engine?

They can be quite stiff after a rebore. Are you sure you got the pistons in OK without damaging the rings? I presume you've been slathering lots of oil on everything as you assemble it? I remember when I rebuilt my Land Rover engine it was so stiff at first that I had to jumper two batteries in parallel to get it to start. It loosened up a fair bit in the first few minutes of running.

It should turn easily -even with pistons in. Withe the flywheel on - you should easily spin it over with two hands. Be sure to line up the camshaft sprockets correctly when fitting the new chain. And as other have said - there are no tensioner grooves in the duplex sprocket.

This isn't such any easy question really.
Probably if you do a physical job ,like shovelling coal, it is easy to turn over a rebuilt engine.
I press keys for a living now and while I could turn over my rebuilt engine I wouldn't describe it as easy, just possible.

Oh well what was I saying about rabbits and engine building. The engine was tight I forgot to counter sink the new bolts provided with the timing chain kit - thanks Bill
Engine now built up - waiting for green paint to arrive and hope to have it in and running in a couple of weeks when I've got some more time off
Thanks to you all for the advice and encouragement

Well done Bill! Disaster avoided I think!