Lockdown love

Barry's lockdown has been mostly spent working on his Delta.

We've mentioned his diff cradle on a previous page, but Barry's work has included making a gearbox cooling duct, and making a fuel tank filler pipe protector, plating many parts and replacing all copper brake pipes. This lucky Delta has been getting lots of love.

Barry's 8v had a slight weep from its head gasket, to address this he removed the head, and after stripping of parts sent it away for a skimming. Barry also had the valves and their seats reground, new shims were fitted and the perfectly finished head was refitted with new bolts and a new head gasket. With everything fitted back and the engine running, Barry found that the gasket still weeped. Bugger!

Barry's engine resting in place, looking innocent and trouble free.

this cylinder block was going to cause a lot of work.

Barry's 8v cylinder head rebuilt after its return from the engineers.

Lots of work done, and beautifully prepared

With the continued leaking Barry realised that the block itself must be warped, so with the patience of a long time Delta owner, Barry took the head off again. The newly skimmed head must now be flat, so he figured the block face must be at fault and that would

now have to be machined flat.

It's easy to write about removing a Delta's engine, but it's not a simple operation.

Barry enlisted the help of an ex Prestocar engineer, and together they pulled the engine out.

Sparkie and Barry removed the engine in manageable sections, head off, then gearbox, bell housing and diff etc, stripping it down so the block could be man-handled.

When they had the block out and stripped, they discovered the block was a 16v item, this was fitted with the correct 8v cylinder head in Barry's 8v.

It's impossible to know all the history our Deltas have had, for whatever reason it had been

fitted Barry was pleased the 16v block was there, it features improved oil galleries

and piston jets over the 8v block.

The stripped block and crank were sent away for treatment, the block was washed and the top mating surface skimmed, the bores were lightly

bored out and honed. The block was hot washed and thoroughly cleaned again. The crank was good, so it was given a light refinish.

When the block was returned Barry gave it a repaint in the correct grey,

he scientifically dried the paint in his back garden's spring sunshine.

Here are two boxes of items very familiar to us all,

those here are very clean too. Bearing shells yet to be fitted.

That looks like a new water pump box up above.

Barry was putting together an expanding list of items required from Tanc Barratt,

added to this was a pair of balancer shafts, Barry found his were worn enough

to require replacing.

It was also discovered that the 4 con rods were a bit bent! One rod was worse than

the others, Barry was able to obtain 4 rods from Keith at Autointegrale.

The Tanc order included bearings for the new balancer shafts, oversize piston rings, a new oil pump, big end bearings oversize, all seals and good quality gaskets. A new water pump was ordered, but the alternator could be refurbed locally.

Barry plated or painted every possible item before refitting, the re-installed engine is up to Barry's usual standard, perfect! Every bolt hole was re tapped, every bolt thread cleaned, Barry washed out and repainted the oil cooler too.

While the engine was away Barry repainted the car's inner wings and strut tops. He prepped the areas and base coated them in Nero metallic, when dry a light de-nib and a final coat of clear lacquer. The refit also included new inner and outer cv joints and new front wheel bearings.

Oh yes, and a new crank pulley which jumped onto Barry's garage floor and broke

one of its teeth off, what are the chances!

Cleaned and painted oil cooler fitted, it's a pity the turbo and

its lovely pipework, shown above, will be hidden.

Here are two last examples of Barry's work on his Delta,

showing us a standard we should aspire to.

Thank you for your information Barry, we wish you well.

The detailing in Barry's engine bay is fantastic!

I would need to drive around with the bonnet off like that

all the time!