Skoda Rally Blog

Today was the day a number of things were due to arrive – the main things being the now-serviced fire extinguishers, and also the ex-dealer stock un-run engine I’d bought as an insurance policy to get the car running again.  Mum had kindly agreed to stay in all day, so I went to get her the papers before I went to work, and I came back to a surprise – not only had my engine parts finally arrived from the Czech republic (pistons, bearings, liners, etc), but also my rear shock is back from Proflex, fully rebuilt!  Excellent.

During the day, the fire extinguishers were delivered, and the engine turned up.  I got back from work around half four, and unwrapped the engine.  And to say the least, I was displeased.  Despite speaking to the guy on the phone and being told that the engine I was getting was the one I’d seen on eBay, let’s play a bit of spot the difference, shall we?  Here’s the engine on eBay:

Bright and Shiny.

Clearly a newly-built engine; the flywheel (on the left) is bright and shiny and hasn’t been used.  The ports in the head (at the top) are clean, so it looks like this engine has never been run.  Which was as it was advertised.  This is what turned up.

PoS

Clearly not what was advertised.  Rusty, had been run, etc.  This is an old engine, maybe worth £50.  Certainly not worth anything to me.  Long story short (after a heated phone call and some eBay based complaint action), it’s going back for a full refund, but I’ll still have wasted £50 on delivery to me.  Displeased.

Still, move on, nothing to gain from dwelling on it.  As the pistons etc had arrived, Plan A is back on track.  The first part of this was to rebuild the diff to the correct preload.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have some advice from the ever-excellent Steph Rowson from Motorsport Transmissions and with his guidance and the parts from gripper it was straightforward to get the diff to the right preload; all it took was one plate in the diff being replaced with a thicker one (I’d ordered all the sizes they have as they are only £3 each), and once reassembled it was working properly at the right torque (which will drop off a bit as the plates bed in).  Splendid.  Next, getting the box back together, which was easy enough too, particularly as I have a proper Skoda workshop manual for it.

Now just a bit of time to do some work on the bottom end of the engine.  This was one I built in 2008 that had a cracked piston land; the bottom end itself other than that was fine, but I’ve changed the main bearings and put all that back together this evening, and it turns over a treat.  It’s now got an ex-works cam in, and at present that’s how it’s stood; tomorrow afternoon I’ll get a couple of hours to work on it so I’ll have the horrible job of getting the liners fitted into the block and shimmed correctly – it was a real pain in the bum last time.  Here’s hoping second time will be better.