Cleaning The Pistons and Con Rods

Spring 2016/17 was spent cleaning everything up. Little to report. It was just a slog. Sorry - not many helpful photos......

With the con rods removed, I tried soaking the pistons in four different solutions to loosen up the baked on oil and carbon: petrol, diesel, 'Gunk' and 'mek' - a very nasty chemical used for cleaning in the aircraft industry.

Mek performed the best. Petrol was okay. Diesel not so good and Gunk was useless.......it just STANK!

Meanwhile, con rods, caps, cranks, bolts, nuts, and circles were all cleaned in Jizer -  a recommendation from Richard's wife - Helen.

In March 2017 I researched, then bought, an ultrasonic cleaner. I got the biggest that my budget would allow: a 9 litre model. Any smaller and I probably wouldn't have been able to fit parts in it.

Test Fit of Carburettor - March 2017

Once parts and been initially cleaned in Jizer, I ran them through the ultrasonic cleaner using a diluted cleaner intended for carburettor cleaning - as I planned to clean the carburettor in this way at some point and it would also be be suitable for the pistons. The results were very pleasing. 

All parts cleaned in this way were rinsed, dried with compressed air, (and a hairdryer!) and, since they were now prone to flash rusting, then given a generous coating of WD40 before being stored in clean tubs - all labelled up of course. 

Through this process I realised that the liners from my DX2 engine were too worn to use. The DX engine liners also looked badly worn and, anyway, one of the liners still had a piston stuck in it. 

I was sharing my woes with 'Badabec' on the CCC website forum and he generously offered me his cast-off set of pistons and liners from his D Super 5 - left spare following his own major rebuild. I collected them from Peter - for that is his name - at the D Section rally in June 2017. It was nice to put a face to a name and Peter showed me the ingenious heater valve modification he had made using an in-line heater valve from a taxi.


Soon after the rally I had the pistons and liners assessed. Although there was a bit of lipping on the liners (at the top of the piston stroke), the feedback was that they would need little more than a good hone - which I had done. I ran the pistons through my ultra sonic cleaner and they came up very well. With the liners honed, I took a wire wheel to the rusty outsides.

By mid July I was good to go: I would use the pistons and liners that Peter had given me. I only had to resolve a nagging doubt about cylinder head gaskets and I could start to rebuild.........

Ducellier 7558B Alternator - Strip Down and Overhaul

Time to refurbish the alternator.

The main job was to change the brushes and check the bearing. I also wanted to see what I could do about the terminals as they were in a very rusty state. Some research showed that the refurbished alternators that you can buy seemed to show lovely clean terminals - so I guessed there would be a way to get at them and replace them.

I'd been waiting for the warmer, drier months as I'd been planning on trying baking soda to clean the alloy body shell. 

Grubby......26 October 2015

I'd already removed the fan blade, bolts and mounting bracket back in 2015 so that I could clean and zinc plate them.

Fan blade, pulley and Mounting Plate Removed - 26 October 2015

Now 2017. With the pulley already removed, disassembly was fairly straightforward. The front end of the casing slid off the spindle. That should have allowed the rotor to be pulled free - but the back 'business end' refused to budge. The end plate has a small plastic plug and I wasn't sure whether this was to lubricate a bearing within, or to use to 'drift' the spindle out.

Cover Over Lubricating Point? 28 May 2017

I took some advice from the CCC Forum and, by part-reassembling the pulley end (without casing), it gave me some leverage against which to persuade the back casing to relinquish it's grip.  With the end cover free, I peered inside, curious to see what was there. No bearing, just a bush - and fairly gummed up with dirt, too.

Bush and Brush at the 'Business End' - 28 May 2017

The brushes were removed.....

Location of Brushes

A Brush.....

Next job was to remove the stator ring. I tried to undo one of the nuts holding the black plastic rectifier cover on and the 'positive' post sheared. You can see how rusted it was. That would need to be fixed..... Removing the plastic cover revealed it was every bit as mucky inside as it was out, with the rectifier clogged up with dirt. That can't be good for conductivity or cooling........

Grubby Rectifier and Soldered Wires - 28 May 2017

Unsoldering the three wires and opening up the clamps, I was able to remove the diode carrier assembly/ rectifier. This also enabled me to pull the stator ring off the rear casing.

Removing the rectifier enabled me to get at the terminals on the casing and - importantly - to replace that broken post. There are a range of different sized bolts and washers used for the terminals but, by digging through various pots and tubs I managed to find equivalents for replacement.

The bolt for the 'negative' post is crimped into the body, but luckily for me, the 'positive' is insulated from the body by sitting in a plastic holder. 

I was able to find a suitable replacement bolt that would fit. 

New Positive Post in Insulator

On the front case I removed the cover and bearing beneath. The bearing looked absolutely fine.

Front bearing Removed

Removing the bearing left the body halves free to clean. I was careful not to blast the passages that hold the brushes as they need to slide in to take-up gradual wear. I was similarly careful to avoid the bush on the rear end as i did not want any burrs or rough spots. Soda blasting leave parts dusty, so I gave them a good wash and dried them with compressed air. I was really pleased with how well the soda blasting worked. The parts came up really clean and without any obvious signs of damage to the detail. (SEE FOOTNOTE AT END).

Clean Body. Crimped Negative Post (bottom LHS) and Hole for Positive Post

I cleaned up and gave the stator assembly on the rotor a fresh coat of green paint as it was peeling in several places. One of the stator wires broke where it had been slotted down into the 'comb' (cooling fins) of the diode carrier so I soldered a new length on.

One thing I didn't do was replace the slip ring. One track was significantly more worn than the other and the slip ring really needed replacing. I couldn't find reference for a replacement intended for a Dueller 7558, and so trying to take measurements as best I could I looked for a near equivalent. I drew a blank and removing mine to get a better idea of shape and measurements would have meant destroying it. I left well alone. Perhaps this is a job I will come back to. As consolation I gently rubbed the rotor shaft down with some very fine wet and dry to remove any burrs  - though there was nothing obvious. 

One Worn Track on the Slip Ring

I carefully dismantled the rectifier, laying out all the pieces and diodes in order.  Everything was cleaned, including each diode. The two alloy 'combs' were soda blasted. 

Rectifier Pieces

Four 'washers' inside each Diode Cradle

The rectifier was re-assembled. Somewhere along the line I got confused and muddled the diodes up! Exactly what I didn't want to do! They all looked the same: one flat side and one 'nipple' side. All the same colour. I did a bit of Googling......

"There are always 6 main diodes, which are often arranged in two groups of three. Diodes within the groups are identical but the group connected to the negative terminal is likely to be assembled from diodes whose body is their anode connection. This is simply for the convenience of being able to bolt all three to the same heat sink. Diodes connected to the positive terminal have the reverse configuration".

Ah. That explained it....... The larger flat sides go against the finned heat sinks, but to maintain current polarity, one set have to be a 'reverse set'. I used a volt meter to test which was the positive side of each and, based on the way they needed to fit back in the assembly, paired them back up together. The Volt meter also suggested that none of the diodes were blown as they only allowed current to pass in one direction. We shall see......

Re-assmbling the Rectifier.....

I began the major re-assembly. All the parts were laid out ready.

Ducellier 7558B Alternator - Main Components

Terminal bolts were replaced. Greasing the bush, I reassembled the rotor and stator loosely on the back end. I was then able to slide the rectifier over the 'positive' and 'negative' posts.

The front bearing was replaced with it's cover and the front end then slotted over the rotor. The whole thing was loosely reassembled with its three bolts and nuts. I made sure that the rotor spun freely on it's bearings and did not catch the stator ring. When I was happy, iItighten the body back up. 

With the body back together back together and the stator ring correctly located, the brushes were then replaced. I re-soldered the stator wires to the rectifier. The black plastic cover plate and the various nuts and washers on the terminals were then added.......

Shiny New Terminals!

All Shiny

I dug out the mounting bracket.........

Shiny Zinc Mounting Bracket

.......and the fan blade and pulley:

Zinc Fan Blade and Painted Pulley

All done. It just remains to be seen if this alternator still works! 

UPDATE - MAY 2018:
Although I was very happy with the results of my baking soda cleaning, a helpful soul at the 2017 CCC D rally offered a view that soda blasting leaves the surface 'open' and more liable to pick up and hold dirt marks. Vapour blasting was offered as a better alternative as it leaves a 'closed' surface. At that time (May 2017) I hadn't investigated vapour blasting but did eventually use it on my cylinder head with impressive results. To cut a long story short, I dismantled my alternator all over again in May 2018 and had the casing vapour blasted! I re-assembled it again about 12 months to the day after my first attempt. To be honest, it looks just like it did when I soda blasted it. 

The pulley has been added and painted and the whole thing now looks like this:

Pulley Added

After Vapour Blasting - May 2018

Before: grubby......26 October 2015

Getting Organised (Part 2) - Shelving in the Garage

During the many years that my car was left, unloved at the barn my spares, and the few bits already taken from the car (roof trim and indicators - that kind of thing), had been stored at a council lock up I rented on the other side of the town where I lived. These had been transported to the lock up in shallow, stackable cardboard vegetable crates - secured from a well know high street supermarket chain. Probably eight or nine crates.

The Lock Up. Body panels stored in the rafters

When I woke up and decided to restore my car, the first plan had been to bring the car back to this lock up and work on it there......somehow.....I was going to figure out a workaround for the lack of space and electricity later on.......

Anyway, with space clearing in mind, I retrieved the boxes of bits to the wooden shed at the end of our garden. I was always worried about them being stolen from the lock up, so this was no bad thing. I also took the wooden work bench I'd been storing at the lock up and, by cutting 18" off the end and 4" off the back, manage to shoehorn that into the garden shed too - turning what had been a bike and lawn mower store into....... you've guessed it: a Man Cave!

Zinc plating action in the Man Cave - April 2016

I managed to do some initial work on car bits in that shed (and fill a couple more veg crates with more bits removed rom the car) but it wasn't very satisfying and the car itself was still many miles away. One of the best things I did though, was to empty all the boxes out over the lawn and to catalogue everything. EVERYTHING. Every rusty nut, every perished grommet (almost). I maintain this as a spreadsheet to this day. One or two things still go astray, but generally I can lay my hands on the things I want or remember having.

When we moved to our new, bestest, house in May 2106, the garage here served as a holding point for our household belongings as we settled in. The workbench and DS veg. crates were un-ceremonially dumped in a corner. Low down the list of priorities.

DS Bits - August 2016

As the garage gradually began to clear, I started to trickle in all the other big bits and pieces that had been left at the lock up - seats, wheels, wings and doors. It couldn't happen soon enough as I was worried that someone would break into the lock up and sell everything for scrap. There was a lot of stuff....

Wings and doors went into the new shed at the end of the garden. Leather seats and soft stuff were quickly relocated to the spare bedroom before Gayle could object. Veg crates stayed on top of the workbench........

I got by for a while with the veg. crates stacked on top of each other, but it was inconvenient having to get at that crate right at the bottom..... I needed a better solution. 

I had brought with me a couple of cheap DIY store shelving units and had inherited several home made shelf units made from angle in my new workshop. Initially I was using these for little odds and ends, but felt I could make better use of them.

After a little bit of planning and measuring, with a day at home to myself, I set about turning these into some more useful storage down one side of the garage. I dismantled everything and re-assembled to optimise the space.

There was a lot to accommodate.

Some of the inherited angle was very hefty and I used this to make an extra strong run of shelving with strengthened shelves for the heaviest pieces - such as engine blocks. Deep bins underneath for those handy to have spare gearboxes.

All the shelving was fixed to the wall and stood on feet to minimise the chance of the legs buckling. As part of the wider reorganisation I found a safe home, away from the kids, for the engine crane. I chained it to the wall to stop it falling over.

Most spaces are filled with DS things of one sort or another.

And a lot is still in the workshop too.

A Quick Word About..........Stereolab

Well what a surprise! My mate Jerry has just texted me this. I'm not sure who to credit it to. I suspect it came from one of the old weekly music papers:

The Groop - Summer 1991?

It features the early core members of a band I would possibly rate as my favourite - certainly consistently up there in the top two at any particular point in time. The Groop - STEREOLAB. Formed in 1991 and active through the 90s and 00s, Sterolab soundtracked my life and accompanied me on many of my Ds fries in the early and mid 1990s.

'SYE 29 something'. The car doesn't have clap-hand wipers - so is possibly 1965 to 1967 vintage? Tim's got the door open - so was either being cheeky or they'd arranged to use it for a photoshoot.

The band line up dates the photo as probably summer 1991. Is that DS still out there I wonder? I've not seen it at rallies.

Anyway, more about Stereolab: the photo shows Tim - ex of McCarthy (another great band) - his French girlfriend and sometime McCarthy contributor Seaya (aka Laetitia)  in the foreground - and Gina Morris (a friend and NME journalist) in the background. Together with Russell (from Moose), Martin Kean (The Chills) and Joe Dilworth (Th'Faith Healers) they formed an indie superGroop. Oh, hang on. This says it far better:

From south London, England, Stereolab wear their John Cage and John Cale influences on their sleeves, but within a short time-span have amassed an impressive body of work. The principal mover is Tim Gane (12 July 1964, Barking, Essex, England; ex-McCarthy), who was at first joined by his girlfriend Laetitia Sadier (b. Paris, France), Martin Kean (ex-Chills) and Th’ Faith Healers’ drummer Joe Dilworth, also a Melody Maker photographer.

Gane gave the band its name, after an obscure offshoot of 60s folk label Vanguard Records (it has also been stated that the title was taken from a hi-fi testing label). At their early gigs they were joined by Russell Yates (Moose) on guitar and Gina Morris (New Musical Express journalist) on vocals. Too Pure signed them, allowing them to keep their own Duophonic imprint. By the time of the release of the ‘Low-Fi’ 10-inch in September 1992, Mary Hansen (b. 1 November 1966, Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, d. 9 December 2002, London, England) had arrived to lend keyboard and vocal support, and Andy Ramsay replaced Dilworth on drums. ‘John Cage Bubblegum’, which some critics have noted as an adequate description of their sound, was released in the USA only, on Slumberland, via a limited edition version containing a stick of gum. By the time The Groop Played Space Age Bachelor Pad Music was released in March 1993, further line-up changes had occurred, with Duncan Brown joining on bass and ex-Microdisney guitarist Sean O’Hagan also guesting. This set was the closest to ambient soundscapes, à la Martin Denny or Arthur Lyman, that they had yet come.

Stereolab left Too Pure for Elektra Records at the end of 1993, once again retaining the Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks imprint for their domestic releases. Duophonic would also issue material by Arcwelder and Herzfeld, the latter featuring another former McCarthy member, Malcolm Eden. The double LP Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements straddled both indie and dance music markets. This was more minimalist than ambient, and maintained their reputation not only as a competent rock outfit, but also as an important fixture of the experimental dance axis. The addictive Music For The Amorphous Body Study Centre continued to embrace subjects outside of pop music convention, on this occasion acting as a soundtrack to the work of artist Charles Long for an exhibition at New York’s Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. The excellent Emperor Tomato Ketchup (the title was taken from a Japanese cult movie) was another mix of melodies that crept under the skin. It is almost irrelevant that many could not understand the French lyrics, such was the strength of the songs.

Stereolab, with all their influences, from the sparse sounds of Moondog to the gentle side of Nico’s Velvet Underground, remain hauntingly original and one of the most rewarding acts to emerge from the 90s. Ever prolific, they have released several albums including the dance-orientated Dots And Loops and Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night, indicating a willingness to experiment with their established sound. Gane has also collaborated with O’Hagan as Turn On. Tragedy struck in December 2002 when Mary Hansen was knocked off her bicycle in London by a lorry and died from the injuries sustained.

Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze

Cleaning the Engine Block

I used a wire brush on a drill to clean all the rust from inside the block - trying hard to get into all the nooks and crannies.

Removing the Liners Revealed Rust in the Block

I used a Dremmel (actually a cheap Dremmel copy) for those hard to reach areas around the bend. I also used a grinding head to remove the flash from when the block had been cast so that there would be better coolant flow when it was all re-assembled.

I used a gasket scraper to clean up the head top surface. There was some pitting where the gasket closed around the water ways. I also used the gasket scraper to clean the flat circular surfaces that the liners (and their delicate paper gaskets) would close against. These surfaces had some really stubborn stuff on and it took quite a bit of effort in the confined space to clean up the flat surface and vertical edges. It's vital this is done properly: if any bits are missed, the liner and gasket will not sit flat and so not seal properly when the engine is assembled. If this happens, coolant will find it's way down into the sump.

Flash Removed and Top Face Scraped

I used a wire brush on a bit of coat hanger to clean out the oil gallery. I removed the side plug and plug at the flywheel end, but not the alloy plug at the timing chain end. These have to be drilled out and replaced: I hadn't managed to find a source for the replacements and from advice I had taken decided to leave that one in situ. 

With the inside of the block cleaned I set about cleaning the outside.

Cleaning The Block - 4 December 2016

The domed cover over the oil breather was removed, as was the dip stick tube, the remaining hex plugs and the petrol pump mounting bracket. Again I used a wire wheel, wire brush to clean. Anything that got in the nooks and crannies.

With the initial cleaning done I hoovered everything out and also used some compressed air in all the narrow channels.

Dismantling The Engines (Part 2)

With the DX engine dismantled, I strapped it up and suspended it from my crane. Freeing it from the engine stand I lowered it  - still upside down - onto a couple of blocks on a work bench.

Using a block of wood and hammer I was able to remove the liners from three of the cylinders. Theses came out reluctantly and with the gift of large amounts of rust. 

Piston Liner Released

The fourth liner came out with the stuck piston still attached. With the piston and con rod still in place, there was no scope to push out the piston from the bottom of the liner. Working from the top end meant hammering on to the crown of the piston itself and meant that the piston might not be usable afterwards. it would all depend on how readily it yielded......

I placed the liner over the jaws of an open vice so that the con rod hound free below. As my hammer blows on the piston got more and more forceful I split several blocks of wood. The piston wouldn't budge. Taking a tip, I bought a plastic fence post driver from my local DIY store. And had soon smashed that into splinters. I bought ANOTHER fence post block from my local DIY store. Splinters. I tried heat. I tried freezing. I tried heat AND freezing. I tried going away for half and hour and then suddenly coming back to tackle it. Nothing worked.

That Troublesome Piston Soaking - December 2015

What finally worked was giving up for the time being. I put the piston/ liner combination in my appropriately numbered tub (that felt good), and tried not to think about them anymore. I moved the engine block to a bench in the other garage and turned my attention to the DX2 engine I had pulled from my DS.

The procedure for stripping the DX2 was pretty much as before, except that this time I had to remove the clutch and flywheel before I could fit the engine to the stand. The clutch was straightforward. The flywheel was more stubborn: I had to replace the clutch assembly bolts back into the flywheel and then use a bar to brace between them to stop the flywheel revolving. With that done it was placed on the engine stand for stripping. 

DX2 Engine - Preparing to Remove The Oil Pump - 18 November 2016

As before,  once stripped the engine was placed on blocks on a bench and the liners removed.

On Blocks - Removing The Liners - 18 November 2016

With this being my second engine strip, I didn't take anywhere near as many reference photos. I was, however, equally careful to put the parts I removed into labelled pots and tubs. 

Pots and Tubs

A few surprises along the way:

• the tappets were badly worn and pitted
• The bottom end of the engine was very glued-up with burnt engine oil.
• The sump was similarly full of sticky tar. 
• The main and big end bearing shells showed significant pitting and wear tracks
• There were linear marks on the bearing shells where contaminents had gone through the oil ways and onto the bearing surfaces. 
• Pushing the pistons through the liners revealed that there were broken top piston rings on two of the pistons (!)
• There was some pitting on the engine block top surface

Water damage - Pitting In The Block Surface

The next step would be to clean everything up.........