Why this Lagonda Rapier is too valuable for any cockups!

[@bill8by5]

what a pleasure to see the Lagonda. What an old piece of history!!! AWESOME!!

[@barryphillips7327]

Would LOVE to see this engine running when in the car, Glad to see Vintage/Veteran cars still with us instead of BORING EVs 🥱😡😠🥱

[@nmetcalfe506]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnKbi51raZ6Gfqc is one of the better videos for understanding the sound and character of an in low petrol rapier engine

[@Mmmmetro]

I’m reliving my experiences with the old school methods you’ve been explaining. My proudest moment being a straight six Rover block, hand honed everything, ran as sweet as a nut. Patience is king.

[@Airgunfunrich]

When checking ring gaps with flat top pistons I was taught to put one ring on the piston so when you have your ring in the bore push it down with the piston upside down until the ring on the piston is touching block, ensuring the ring to be checked is square in the bore

[@jamesplotkin4674]

Learned this technique back in HS. Not only square, but a bit less importantly, the same distance down the bore. Consistent measurements assured.

[@andrewhardy4457]

I noticed the piston circlips are the stamped "eye" type. Being stamped they have a rounded edge and a sharp one. Years ago I rebuilt a perkins 4203 engine and didn't check the orientation of the circlips. Apparently they should be fitted with sharp edge towards the bore wall. I didn't know. Sure enough a few years later a circlip ended up in bits and scored up the bore either end of the gudgeon pin. Had to fit another liner etc. You probably know anyway.

[@gazza116]

yes kubota were very specific which way the machined surface went, makes sense though the machined surface isnt going to compress and pop out.

[@phil5175]

Spot on with your comment butt I doubt if Lea knows that. Have you seen the state of that boring machne. He needs to spend some money on the shop equipment rather than his expensive toys.

[@viking.200]

@@phil5175 yes, a lot of the tools are on the old side maybe some KZbin earnings can go to some upgrades, but they got a good start place and upgrades will help them a lot in the long run. Have a good day.

[@matthewharlowehrscyclespor668]

This is a good and sound way to gap rings without special tools. Our gapping tool is quite expensive for a hobbyist. I started with this file technique decades ago. I moved on the rotary gapping tool. We now have the "state of the art" device to take care of that task. It is not a tool for those that will build 2 or 3 motors a year. You have done a service for those that want to work within their means. Great job. Have a deluxe day! looking forward to seeing you Friday!

[@1magnit]

Your pins are tight in the pistons because they're cold. Put them in hot water or better still your parts wash. When hot they're loose. If they're loose when cold they'll be even more loose when hot.

[@terencehawkes3933]

Thank you for showing us how you are working on that Lagonda engine. Quite informative

[@STANLIZ4]

Very interesting again, like the diy gapping technique, interested to see the wet/dry nut/split pin alignment technique

[@frasermitchell9183]

I'm surprised to see the gudgeon pins for those pistons sliding in/out when the piston is cold. When I rebuilt an engine with new pistons, one had to warm the piston up slightly, to release the gudgeon pin.

[@glennpowell3444]

That Lagonda crank is amazing.Very large and heavy throws on it.I bet it is very slow to rev but once it has you are away like a washing machine drum on fast spin.Huge inertia.

[@nmetcalfe506]

As much as it would make sense that it would be slow to rev I can assure you from personal experience it revs like a fucking bike, just more scary

[@tomotoru1]

@@nmetcalfe506 I agree with you !🙂

[@333brooky]

love the old school ring gapping seems the right way for an old engine like the Lagonda!

[@danmoyer4650]

You really do need to get Paul to teach you how to properly handle the camera to eliminate all the distracting waving about. The difference between Paul's footage and yours is striking.

[@TheBlibo]

Hi Love that lagonda crank it makes a modern one look like a bent bit of wire Must feel like a privilege to be entrusted with a piece of history

[@fusion-star]

I would have liked to see the process of the crank installation

[@bondisteve3617]

Ageless!...Unbelievable...thanks V/Much.

[@markthompson8656]

Good morning from Wisconsin . WE had a all night rain on top of our snow last night everything is quite slushy. Thanks for showing adjusting ring gap in you garden shed I always want to see a proper procedure done. .

[@charlesjackman143]

Is Wisconsin in Sarcasmville?

[@samrodian919]

@@charlesjackman143 no Sarcasmsville is in the great state of Wisconsin!

[@charlesjackman143]

@@samrodian919 Ah! of course it's smaller than Wisconsin. Silly me! By the way, garden sheds are king in England. Everything that's good started in garden sheds.

[@samrodian919]

@@charlesjackman143 yes great things happen I'm my little shed ( 7'x 5' internally lol ) got a lathe with milling head a little bench chair and not much else but tools everywhere in the great original Essex UK ( no I'm not American lol) but I know Wisconsin fairly well as a friend of my wife's lives there (Waupun) and we've been there a couple of times, both in winter first time four years ago we were there for 21 days and it got above freezing just the once on the day we left to drive the almost 200 miles back to Chicago coldest was -18f. Bloody cold in any language!.last trip was a month didn't see any snow at all, did some 6k miles a road trip to Florida and back. The day before we got to Florida it had been almost 90 degrees lol and thunderstorms like you just don't see here in the UK. Driving rain you just can't see in, but you can't stop unless there's a rest stop or something because some idiot will still be going 70+ mph and plough into the back of you. I've never seen such atrocious driving ever before or since. I'll stop the rant now lol

[@charlesjackman143]

@@samrodian919 Great stuff! We were seriously thinking about moving to Wisconsin before all this tyranny of the last 3 years. It has many benefits. OK the weather can be challenging! But an Essex shed with a lathe is how we brits do it.

[@SimonWallwork]

This is a great KZbin channel.👍

[@colinscutt5104]

would love to see how they put that white metal bearing material in and how they finish it

[@samrodian919]

I've seen a KZbin video of a guy in the states who re metals Ford model T crank bearings,and all the tooling is specific for that crank. Interesting to watch

[@jsh6952]

You can search babbitting a Ford Model T or Ford Flathead engine. Very old method common to steam engines and ancient water wheels or windmills.

[@retired-pipefitter]

What happened to the American that was going to send you new machining equipment?

[@55peterf]

What a gorgeous old long stroke engine. Looks so strong and industrial! Would have thought the ring gaps would be a little bigger than you suggested at .005" Used to have a rule of .003" plus per inch of bore for liquid cooled engines and the bore looks to be 3" or more. Air cooled even more. Also a bit curious as to the gudgeon pin fit in piston . Always warmed the pistons up in very hot water prior to fitting to conrods and the pins would slide in beautifully and would be free floating when engine was hot. EDIT I miss heard the ring gap and thought you said 005" not 012". Apologies for that error.

[@kelvinrf]

Good morning from New Zealand. A bit wet at the moment.

[@tonytasker489]

Morning New Zealand. 🌄

[@bobawatsit]

Rule of thumb that will never let you down is : most plain bearings are 0.001" per inch of journal, so a 1 &1/2" journal is 0.0015 " water cooled piston rings are 0.001 ' per 1 " of bore, BUT ! you must multiply the bore x PIE ( 3.172 ) to get the circumference length, so a 3" bore x PIE = best part of 0.010" you have to double this for air cooled pistons rob NZ

[@jamesplotkin4674]

No mention of balancing that huge crank. Would be wise, wouldn't you agree?

[@MDAdams72668]

I have built plenty of winning race motors using the file method. A gap grinder is great to have and if you have the money buy one BUT this method will work just as well just takes longer and more patients

[@gavTFSi]

Rather than a split pin in the castellated nuts, would you not wire-lock them like an aero engine?

[@JRattheranch]

I'm not slating you for that method of filing the ring gaps! That's exactly how I was taught to gap them 60 years ago and every ring had to be done individually to each bore! The only difference is that I was taught to rub chalk on the file!

[@samrodian919]

Not strictly necessary if the rings are of cast iron, but chalk certainly helps stop the file from loading up for steel rings.

[@geoffoliver6788]

Hi Lee, regarding your last vid on energy use, get some quotes for solar panels i think you will be surprised, im pushing 70 but i can still see the "white metal "on the floor where my Father worked.

[@ianmosdell]

A great job there and so interesting

[@johnball4826]

I would like to see a far more detailed video on the Lagonda engine, specially all about White metalling. It would be a nice change from the usual stories about Cosworth engines. I hope you get more vintage work. It is far more interesting!

[@johnengland9796]

hi, did you check the orientation of the circlips .. they will be under load and pop out if the wrong way around.

[@miceinoz1181]

Damn! I still do ring end clearances this way! You mean there is a better way?

[@ASelman]

Nice engine. How are the thrusts set up on it? Did you get any pictures of the old bearings and crank? The wear can tell a story, but to me that is some kind of aftermarket crank, but I am not familiar with the inards of a that legonda engine. I have a couple of 1930s Meadows engines that'll likely need similar TLC once I open them up and see how they are set up, and then rebuild similarly, so this has given me a bit of a spur to dig them out of the back of the shed and get on with it. For gap measuring, just use an inverted piston with a ring in it to push the test ring down the bore. It stops square, easily & quickly. For filing a simple tapered jig to hold the ring flat and lightly squeeze it in and block holding the needle file nice and square works well, unless you have a wheel turned ring-gapper tool that makes the operation a cinch. Is next weeks lesson on hand scraping bearings or even face scraping to flatten the block or head if you have a power cut? All nice and theraputic if you have all the time in the world, and a good referencing tool...

[@nmetcalfe506]

As the supplier of the crank I can assure you it’s completely original by our estimations it just hadn’t been in anything for a good few decades took me a fair while to clean it up but just depending on use will affect the clearance sizes. But for all rapiers it is best to use original cranks as ones that have been made more recently from original drawings are rather more susceptible to failure

[@nmetcalfe506]

@Springvale Studios, Ipswich, Suffolk, East Anglia, UK. you are quite right on all fronts and in terms of the aluminium castings I am unaware of any that exist or ever have existed in a physical sense

[@damianbutterworth2434]

Hence the expression " that bastard file took too much off my rings."

[@ericlee3421]

Really enjoyed that well done guys.

[@jsh6952]

We call that white metal bearing babbitt bearings or the process is called babbitting over here in the States. It is an art we are slowly losing to time.

[@catxls1835]

How many rubs to remove a 1000th of an inch Paul. Only joking mate😁! Great video as always!

[@christophercullen4889]

The two head men at Burum Enginges Pual and Isaac I would like you to watch Scott Speed Jr videos he works forTotal Seal , he a qualified oil technician. You will add H.P to your performance builds . Kit from Down Under

[@vicar19]

Brilliant channel, I love the work you do. Subscribed and loved.

[@dodgydruid]

Back in 90, I used to do Dorking market and one of my loyal customers a terribly suffering old gent with his missus would talk for a bit and in the end I asked him about his many apparent injuries and he says to me "Oh I used to work in the car business" so I am thinking he must have had a major industrial accident or something and said so and he was "oh no, I was Aston Martin's crash driver" and he explained to me how he would be paid quite a lot to literally drive cars into brick walls, other cars, off high edges and at some speed too and he had broken every bone in his body more than once. He bought a huge house and lived in quite some luxury on what he was paid lol

[@donwest5387]

Don't you check the piston pin end gap?

[@midnighttoker8203]

Lee's OBVIOUSLY Count 10

[@ambydaly5713]

There must be a torque tolerance for the crank shaft big end journals? If so you can go to that torque setting to see if the split pins line up? Then you don’t need to touch the nuts.

[@nmetcalfe506]

All documentation provided by lagonda and the car club since has always offered a single value never a tolerance range

[@kevsimner]

Just out of interest, who did you use to remetal the bearings? They guy we used to use retired and I'm looking for recommendations.

[@paulmuff9883]

Nice to see the white metal bearings as I did my own white metal ( Babbitt) bearings on my 1934 SS2 , very satisfying but took me about 2 weeks to scrap them all in 😂 , happy days 😀😀

[@andrewbranford2032]

How do you gap the oil control ring if it's solid and too tight

[@stevem7868-y4l]

Its not the way ive done ring gaps, but your way seems better, although i would of used gaffa tape in the vice

[@thomashodges6104]

I have not seen u rebuild a Trump Spitfire 1500cc motor.

[@fredflintstone8048]

Wet / Dry papering the bottom face of the rod nuts in order to have the castellations on the nuts to line up with the holes at the proper torque.. Now if that doesn't prove to you that the quality of the work that this shop turns out is impeccable, nothing will prove it to you. Some other shop would have either tightened or loosened the nuts a bit in order to get a cotter pin inserted.

[@colinscutt5104]

Well said

[@samrodian919]

It's NOT a cotter pin, it's a SPLIT pin! Cotter pins have a taper that goes onto a flat on a shaft, like a bicycle pedal onto the crank and is pulled tight by a nut on the thread on the end of the pin protruding through the pedal side.

[@ernieleithes6545]

@@samrodian919 americans call them cotter pins dont ask me why i cringe every time i hear them call them wrong .

[@fredflintstone8048]

@@samrodian919 The term 'cotter pin', and 'split pin' are synonymous. They both describe the same object. Look it up if you doubt. This may not be the case everywhere in the world, but it is in the US and we beat the UK by sheer numbers.

[@fredflintstone8048]

@@ernieleithes6545 Yeah, and many in the UK and other countries have a fit that we pronounce Solder as 'sodder'.. It's a very old habit, so I would suggest people get over it. Everyone in the world has some habits that they gain from their cultures that defy logic and or good grammar. My best advice is to find something more significant to worry about. If that's a real problem for you, you have a very good life indeed! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@samrodian919]

Lee what's the cc of that Lagonda lump? And what's the stroke? That looks one hell of a long stroke crank, it look to be best the part of 5-6 inches! Nice to see an old engine having new Babet bearings made for it, there can't be too many guys out there doing this sort of work anymore.

[@nmetcalfe506]

Depending on whether it’s standard or not it’s either 1104cc or if not standard normally 1087cc and sometimes bored out to 1497cc the stroke is a bloody good question despite owning 7 and dad running the register neither of us can actually remember the length but all I’ll say is when our race car the Eccles special (history on Google) is at 7500 rpm the piston speed is estimated to be about the same as a dfv at 11k

[@samrodian919]

@@nmetcalfe506 thank you interesting. I'd have thought that was over 2 litre with that bore which looks to be around 65-75 mm and stroke . Come on Lee tell us what the stroke is!

[@nmetcalfe506]

@@samrodian919 my grandfather is coming over to work on the cars with me tomorrow and I’m almost certain he will know just about every measurement there is so worst comes to worse I’ll let you know in the morning

[@squeakmillward]

why use castleated nuts? Is it for authenticity? surely nylocks or locktight would be a better option?

[@ernieleithes6545]

I have never seen a nyloc used on a big end thats as you said kept original and a postive method .

[@theondebray]

Oh this makes me feel ILL watching this, but not for reasons you might expect. As a kid, I 'helped' mum clear out the attic & burned a whole lot of old papers & books, including my grandfather's Lagonda papers & workshop manuals. Only years later did I realise what I had done. 😭

[@ColinWatters]

My father worked for the BBC and did the lighting on Dr Who and Z-Cars in the 1960s as 70s. He had a stack of engineering scripts that were printed on one side only. As kids we used them as scrap paper, mum used them to write shopping lists and even to light our coal fire.

[@richardhartley1705]

👍👍

[@tdevosodense]

White metalled??? Whats that ?? 🤔

[@havingalook.]

That's just proper engineering 👍 wet and drying the nuts down to achieve the torque setting, how many other 'engine builders' would just nip that nut a fraction to line up the hole 🤔

[@paulnolan1352]

Good luck wet and drying, a hand file is the proper method.

[@havingalook.]

@@paulnolan1352 so glad you know everything 👍

[@paulnolan1352]

@@havingalook. yes, perhaps but look at your original comment and it shows you don’t know everything.

[@twowheelflyercr]

Why do engines cost so much ?

[@KensSmallEngineRepair]

Fettle? I learn new words every day here!

[@peterjackhandy]

Outside the fettling shop on a cold morning was where you'd find a queue of brass monkeys back in the day

[@boosthit811]

Biggest crank webs I've seen. Mist create a serious amount of windage

[@huwzebediahthomas9193]

Loooooong stroke block, small pistons.Tall block. Steam engine bearings. Wow.

[@toniarudd8947]

If it works don't knock it

[@richardhintonracing]

Not at all -that is a good tip.

[@phil5175]

What happened to the American that was going to send you new machining equipment?