Alf’s Riley

[Alf892]

Leaving it to consider its behaviour failed……must be 4 weeks I’ve been soaking it.

So no option other than go cave man…..

[Alf892]

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I figured best way is start cutting and just keep on until you reach the right bit. Too a while

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Got there in the end. Head off….

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[DodgeRover]

What did you find once you got it apart?

[Alf892]

Haven’t stripped it yet……..by time I got head off it was Beer Time and I can never be bothered after work on dark nights. Pistons/bores look ok so just need to drop the water pump off the head and take it into work for a good steam off.

Might get done this week

[cuntbuster]

That's going to take a fair bit of welding back together, or you could just pop down to your local Riley dealer and purchase a new part.

[Alf892]

Got the head thoroughly steamed off. Still had trouble getting the remains of the exhaust manifold off around number 4……ended up cutting it around the stud and giving it a knock with a chisel

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Then had to heat up the stud to get them out…..all were too rotten/bent to reuse. Then just a case of removing the rocker gear and the valves.

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The exhaust valves all had a good hard coating on them but came up ok on wire brush

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The inlets were very tight…..no doubt the cause of the bent push rods. Not sure why but they were heavily stuck….we get this sometimes at work on lpg trucks and have to drench the inlet manifold with brake cleaner. A bit puzzling though as this ran nice at first.
Then this happened on number one….

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A quick warm up freed it off…….and it measures up ok so will be going back in with some pop marks to make it tighter

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So all in all not too bad…..I think a good old fashioned clean up and decode will see it ok.

It will help that I’ve got a cataract op on 14th Nov so won’t be too long before I can see what I’m doing again. Been a bugger since I had detached retina back in July……even really simple stuff like this can be really hard work

[cros]

I think I read that Edward turner saw that head on a visit to the Riley factory and did the Triumph twin, probably on the back of a fag packet.
My mate had the same hotspot problems on his RMA.

[PhilA]

That's all back when simple engineering was pushing the boundaries.
Nothing so complex on mine, which dates from the same era in design, but still had the same "one small grain of dirt jams the valve in solid" problems.

Had my retina shot at with a very bright green laser also. Felt like James Bond.

Mother in law said cataract surgery was good but apparently make sure you got sunglasses to hand all the time.

Phil

[Alf892]

Yes…..looking forward to being able to see properly again. And reaching point in this job where I need to be able to look at stuff.

Did a bit on this yesterday. Exhaust valve seats very unhappy looking

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But came up reasonably

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Gave them a quick wet test.

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Not bad……all need going over again but that is only time. Luckily no money required.
Also refitted number one inlet valve guide which came out with the valve and cleaned all the inlet valve stems up. Combination of a bit of filing and emery cloth and all good.

Just need to get hold of some pushrods and set of manifold studs and ready to reassemble.

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[DodgeRover]

Do you have a replacement manifold or will you be making one?