JowettTalk

Hi All,

We are in the early stages of the return to the road of a 1952 Black Javelin, LRW 957. This blog is intended to record our trials and tribulations along the way, and hopefully seek ideas and contributions from members as we go. The car has been off the road for at least 20 years and perhaps someone knows rather more of her previous history?

The new owner is Vic Francis, an ex-member in Yate, near Bristol and, as his colleague-in-crime, I am doing the writing bit!

Vic purchased the vehicle a month or so ago from John Tingle, who lives near Wrington, just south of Bristol. Vic and I have been helping John with the restoration of his green Javelin, which is now on the road. The black Javelin, LRM 957, has stood in John Tingle's barn for at least 20 years and is currently short of an engine and gearbox. We arranged transport and getting the Javelin down a steep grassy slope to the waiting flat-bed transporter was interesting, to say the least! Especially as she had absolutely no brakes! The rear brakes had been stripped and we had to force the front drums off with a puller, with the linings so firmly rusted onto the shoes that the linings separated from the metal shoes! Using a long strap and having the end wound around John's four-post lift as a steady, we inched her down to the waiting flat-bed.

Anyway, once we had the car back in Vic's garage and, with new shoes and cylinders, we soon had the brakes fully operational. On the plus side, the car basically is in very sound condition. There is no evidence of rust, the chassis is sound and carefully painted, the interior is clean, with a very nice veneered dashboard. Externally, the black paintwork is very good and all the chrome has been re-plated. The seats need a feed and unfortunately, the mice have been into the headlining, which needs replacing.

All she needs now is an engine and gearbox! Fortunately, the Severnside Spares Shed provided a gearbox that was known to be serviceable. So, the main thrust of this stage of the blog will be to record our search for an engine. Being realistic, we are not looking for an engine that will do fantastic speeds or cover enormous mileages. Vic, like me, wants to use the car to attend seasonal rallies, to take her out on shopping journeys and probably cover about 2000 miles a year. What is essential is solid reliability. An engine that starts on the button and runs well.

Starting with the basics, we needed a sound pair of blocks. We pooled the stocks we had to hand and eventually had about 12 block sets from which to select one good pair. From these 12 pairs, we selected, by visual examination, three pairs that looked likely candidates for more intensive examinations. For those with sufficient interest, I have labelled these A through C, against the Jowett casting numbers stamped on the blocks. A was stamped 23963, B was stamped 22811 and C was stamped 12396. From the numbers, you can see that A and B were Series 3 engines, with the extra casting webs, whilst C was probably a Series A or B engine. However, this block had obviously been back to Jowett's for an overhaul and carried the numbers RO 17644 N on the factory reconditioning plate near the rear of the engine. It had also had the oil galleries opened up to the larger size.

We took all three sets of blocks over today to John Airey at his workshop in Swindon, with the intention of carrying out air pressure tests, to check for hidden cracks. John kindly offered his help and he has the necessary blanking plates etc.

First, a more detailed visual examination. Block Set A turned out to have a serious crack on the centre LH head stud, the one that caries the liner locating plate. We had missed it previously. It could probably be saved with deeper drilling and tapping, and a longer head stud, but for now, was put to one side. We then looked at Block Set B, but this showed lots of what seemed to be very professional crack welding, but the head studs were clearly not well aligned with the head, which started jamming as we tried to slide it on. Not a big problem, but not a good start!

Turning to Block Set C, we seemed to be on safer ground. The head slid on both sides cleanly and everything looked ready for the air test. John Airey uses a dummy rubber gasket and blanks-off all the water ports. The liners need to be fitted. Then, using a pressure gauge and a tyre valve fitted to a water transfer pipe, John cranked up the air pressure. Using a brush soaked in soapy water we checked all around the crankcase half for air leaks. 4 Bar and no leaks! Excellent! Then the other half crankcase was coupled up, with the same good results!

Time to thank John and return home, with at least one pair of blocks having passed their first test!

Next time, we shall hopefully commence building-up the engine.

Hope this was interesting?

David

Sure is. There must be a hundred crankcases lying around which should all have the same treatment. We should salvage a few that we know are needed. We do not throw the others away but get the low hanging fruit closer to making jam by moving onto the next stage.

Hi,

Here is a short update on progress towards a serviceable engine. Having selected what seems to be a good pair of blocks following the successful air pressure test last week at John Airey's workshop, we are commencing the engine build-up. The crankcase had been back to the factory at some point, and they had opened-up the oil galleries in the block. John drilled out the final 'choke point' just where the larger oil feed pipe that feeds the oil into the block from the later pump. For some reason, Jowett's had omitted to open this up. The first step was to select a crankshaft. We had two candidates. First was a late 'black-sided' shaft. The journals were reground to -0.060" on the big ends and -0.040" on the mains. Measuring up showed that there was very little wear, indeed the shells almost looked serviceable! If anything, the measurements showed the journals to be almost oversize!

The second candidate was an oval web shaft, re-ground to 0.010" on all the journals. It was stamped 'Laystall' in the usual oval and had a date of 09/62. After measurement, the wear was around 0.0015" on the re-ground sizes. There was very little wear on the lip seal face at the wear. We need to do a 'bong' test and also check the run-out on the centre main, but this seems to be the best candidate, despite the slight wear.

From the selection of blocks sitting in Vic's garage, we have some good STD cylinders and pistons, that have been cleaned and show very little wear. Two heads have also been cleaned, the valves lapped-in and have successfully passed an overnight test with petrol in the combustion chambers. John Airey helped with 'converting' an OS head to be suitable for the NS, by drilling and fitting a stud in the front face for the water transfer link. We have selected a good late camshaft and tappet followers. For some reason, we seem to be short of push rods, but a visit to the spares shed should correct this! All the push rods we have to hand seem to be suitable for a hydraulic set of tappet followers. We have also found a good hydraulic camshaft, but we will not be using this....just too much hassle!

A late front timing case has been chosen, along with what seems to be a sound late rear timing case cover. You have to be careful to find one with plenty of 'meat' around the oil pressure take off tapping. There are some with very thin walls and they are prone to cracking here. We plan to use the conversion to 'O' rings in the redesigned gasket for the rear cover, to avoid the very troublesome propensity for oil leaks here! We will also use a 'spin-on' oil filter conversion. During assembly, we will select a good bell housing, with hopefully minimum run-out around the rear seal housing.

We have ordered some rolls of gasket material for the simple gaskets, which we shall fabricate ourselves. Plenty of fun coming up with a marker and a 9mm punch! Tonight, we have a shopping list for JCS, for stock items like shell bearings, lip seals, liner shims, NZ head gaskets etc. etc. and will eagerly await the postman later in the week! By the way, I only recently learnt that the liner shims need to be annealed before use!

Fun to come and I will keep you posted.

Any tips will be very welcome!

All the best,

David

Hi,

Update from yesterday. The block set that we had decided to use, stamped 12396, had performed well in the pressure test last week but had a rough set of liners, so these had to be extracted and will be replaced with a better set, from another, frost damaged, engine.

Vic had asked a neighbour to manufacture a puller and we used this to pull out all eight liners. There was a slight problem with the design of the bottom plate of the puller. To work with a Series 3 engine, with the extra webs, we found you need a puller that fits snugly into the open bottom of the liners, otherwise the circular plate can foul against the extra webs.

After much gentle huffing and puffing, we had the liners extracted and now Vic has the job of cleaning and honing the bores. The matching pistons are +0.020" and look in good condition, with very little wear. We are eagerly watching the post for the delivery from JCS, so that we can commence the rebuild.

Looking at the long line of ' not this time' blocks, cranks etc. etc. that have been growing in Vic's car port, we realised that we have eight sets of engine crankcases and their various internals that have all been 'harvested' for useful parts! The residue will be laid aside in the Spares Shed. This shows how much sorting and sifting you have to perform to get a good set of parts that look likely to be successful candidates for a rebuild.

Till next time!

David

Thank you for these interesting posts. Please do continue to write this thorough and interesting diary.

Nick

Can you please give a picture of your liner puller. I am making one engine out of three parts engines & am following your progress closely.
I am also learning quickly that engines have all been modified some time in the past , so expect the unexpected,

Hi David,

Yes, I will post a photo of the liner puller, but when I have made a bottom plate that will work with all designs of crankcase. As I mentioned, our original plate that Vic's neighbour turned up was a lovely chunk of brass, but too thick to work with a Series 3 set of blocks...it fouled on the internal webs!

We have now received the delivery from JCS and the next stage will be assembly!! Vic has cleaned both block halves and gently honed out the bores in the blocks, so that the liners slide in and out nicely. The heads are ready and tested. A new distributor has been purchased and the spin-on oil filter adapter is on order. The actual set of pistons and liners that we will use will depend of whether we have been supplied with broad or narrow lock notch big end shells.

Vic has selected a serviceable late-type oil pump, and we shall make sure that oil sprayer fitted to the body of the pump is clear. Having one blocked in the past cost me a set of timing gears and the helical drive wheel for the pump!

If convenient, John Airey has said that we can visit his super workshop in Swindon and assemble the crankcase halves with the crankshaft, which has been carefully cleaned and all the oil ways scrubbed and blown through with compressed air. As we do this, John has offered to check the balance pipe seals for any leakage.

I can remember discussing Javelin engine assembly with David Birch, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago. He was one of the last technical apprentices at Jowett's before they closed. He reckoned that, with everything laid out ready, assembly of the full engine took them about 15 minutes! He had been in the factory at the time when they were having a terrible time with gearboxes, having dropped Meadows. He spent days and days lapping-in gears and his hands were covered with oil for weeks. He still suffered from dermatitis when he spoke to me, about 4 years ago! No H&S then! He was a lovely man, full of interesting tales about Jowett's, especially in their last years at Idle!

On a personal note, my Javelin has been suffering from a serious 'stutter'. She would be going along ok, and suddenly it was through you turned off the ignition! A brief pause, less than a second, and she would pick up again. I checked the fuel lines, renewed the shut-off pintles in the carburetors and replaced the plugs. Still there! Finally, I replaced the rotor arm, changing a black one for the ( claimed!) improved red one. Went out for a run tonight, and relieved that she has her MOJO back! Came storming up my test hill, so hopefully that was the problem.

Next outing should be, weather permitting, to Berkeley Castle on Sunday, so we shall see!

All the best,

David

Make sure the gauze on the oil pump pick up is fine so that the oil sprayer does not block . No gasket goo on oil pump as this will get sucked in and block the hole.

Hi all,

I should start by correcting what may have ruffled a few feathers, by one or two reading the previous posts. As you will no doubt be aware, in Severnside we have a spares shed, which is the repository for lots of 'come-in-handy' spares. These have mostly been very kindly donated by section members, not least myself. Some readers may have been thinking it might have been seen as unfair that Vic Francis, who as a past member, has been able to draw on the shed's resources.

I should correct this misapprehension, as Vic and I have recently been able to purchase quite a quantity of spares that, as yet, have not yet been donated to the shed. This includes all the engine blocks mentioned in the previous blogs. I think Vic's 'draw' from the shed has, to date only been a couple of cylinder heads, parts of a front Javelin exhaust pipe and a gearbox, all of which had been donated by myself in the past.

Once we have Vic's Javelin back on the road, it has been Vic's and my firm intention to 'donate the mass of spares that are now sitting in Vic's car port to the spares shed. Both of us don't have the space! This includes at least seven engine block sets, and several gearboxes. I have already donated to the shed all the useful body parts and rear axle from the Javelin that we recently had to send into the sky. I think this mass of parts, weighing about a tonne, will redress any imbalance. Vic has also declared his intention to rejoin the Club when he drives his lovely black Javelin out of his garage.

So, don't fret! Remember we are a friendly club!

Returning to an update on progress. As you will recall John Airey had very kindly offered to do a vacuum test on the completed block set, once we had the crankshaft installed. We had selected a good oval web crankshaft ( not from the spares shed! ) and JCS had come up trumps with a set of new old stock shells. Both mains and big ends were +0.010". No problem...just stick them in the cleaned halves of the blocks and away you go? No..nothing associated with Jowett's is that easy! The front and centre shells were fine. However, the rear main bearing shells wouldn't fit into the crankshaft! The thrust faces were at least 0.012" too wide overall! We examined the old rear bearing shells and noticed that someone had previously rubbed the thrust faces down with emery cloth, so that they fitted the crankshaft, with about 0.002" clearance.

The crankshaft has obviously been reground by -0.010" all round and what should have happened is that, upon regrinding a shaft, the thrust faces should be opened-up to fit the new replacement bearings, which are supplied in oversize as 'fatter'. Obviously, the shaft has not been reground properly in the past. One solution would be to have the shaft reground again, but we didn't want to lose valuable mileage on the shaft, or risk descending into the un-nitrided part of the journals. ( Depth of nitriding is about 0.015" to 0.020" ) Copying what has been done before, we reached for the fine emery cloth, a Jubilee Clip to hold the shells together and a nice flat steel plate! Ten minutes later, on my kitchen worktop ( don't tell my wife! ) and we had the shells dropping nicely onto the rear bearing journal.

Over to the Swindon workshop and John Airey was ready and waiting to help. After a quick clean round of all the mating surfaces of the two crankcase halves, we tried a dry run, without the crankshaft. The locating dowels were too tight and we needed to give them a polish. Once clean and oiled, we could slip the halves together quite easily. Time to fit the main shells and the shaft into one half of the crankcase. Opps! The rear main shell again started binding on the shaft, once it was snapped into the half of the crankcase. Once more with the fine emery paper, until we had secured the 0.002" clearance between the thrust faces and the shaft. John's experience helped here, as he also scraped the high spots on the white metal faces of the shell shoulders until we had a perfect fit. We also checked the run-out of the centre journal with a dial gauge. This was averaging 0.002", which John reckoned is just within limits for reuse, bearing in mind the centre journal may have some ovality.

Turning to the balance pipe, we had new 'O' rings and some pipe sealant to hand. The oval web shaft webs have a tendency to strike the balance pipe, so we had to check this and correct by putting a slight dent into the centre of the pipe. You will find lots of balance pipes with dents due to this.

Then it was a case of assembling the two halves of the crankcases, watching, with the crankcase halves supported vertically, that the open end of the balance pipe enters the top balance pipe opening centrally. We put some sealer along the top faces of the crankcases, above the camshaft journals, as oil can leak here. Also, remember to fit the long centre clamping bolt and any internal special nuts for the clamping bolts. I won't tell you what we forgot!

Once the dowels have entered, it's a case of judicious gentle tapping with the rubber hammer to bring the halves together. Then you can start tightening the clamping bolts. We reached 20lbs/ft on all the bolts and stopped. We had fitted the flywheel and found, sadly, that the crankshaft was absolutely clamped!! At this stage, John said "Don't worry". It was a test of faith to continue tightening but, bit by bit, when we reached around 60lbs/ft on the bolts, she started to rotate. When we reached the final 75lbs/ft, you could rotate the flywheel with one hand! John explained that Jowett's line bored the crankcases with 75lbs/ft torque on the clamping bolts and that was where the line boring was supposed to align. Whew!!

With the crankcases now assembled and the crank turning smoothly, it was time to test the balance pipe. John has a test rig for this and we pulled 2 Bar of vacuum with the vacuum puller. The test was for the pipe to hold this vacuum for at least 10 minutes. It passed with flying colours!

Time to thank John for his help and deep knowledge, concluding what had been a very successful day. I returned the assembled block set to Vic's for the next installment!

Hope you found this interesting and keep Jowetteering!

All the best,

David

Hi All,

A further update. Things have been a little disorganised this end. I hope you don't mind me diverging on a more personal note, but you might get into the same boat? About 10 days ago, I was rushed into the Bristol Heart Institute with a suspected heart attack! I must congratulate the emergency services and the Institute, as there was absolutely no delay in admitting me and within 20 mins of arrival in the 'Blues and Twos' ambulance, I was in the operating theater and receiving three active stents from the top consultant, all at 2.30am! Well done the NHS! Home after three days and now cleared for driving again! Phew!

However, looking back on the experience, you just never know when this might occur! Of the three arteries feeding the heart one was completely blocked, one was open and the third had a slight blockage. My only warning was chest pain that evening. There was a second visit to the operating theater before I left the hospital to enlarge the stents by balloons that they fiddle up through the artery from the wrist! All very high tech! I couldn't fault the care I received, second to none! Apparently, the NHS view is to 'Fix when Faulty', not to do lots of population screening!

Now I have a new regime to follow, with lots of exercise and a fist full of drugs each day. Fortunately, the ultrasound showed little damage to the heart muscles. The strange thing is that beforehand my blood pressure was typically 120/70, with a Cholesterol reading of 4, having taken statins for years! Pulse rate of typically 52. You just never know! If you experience severe chest pains, don't delay, get the paramedics there asap!

Anyway, back to working on the engine for LRM 957 today. Vic had ensured the cylinders were sliding easily in the block and that the crank was rotating easily and not fouling the balance pipe. While I was in hospital, he had used an aluminium epoxy called Devcon to build-up the rather corroded bottom edges of the block, on the outer edge of the crankcase, where so many blocks corrode. He has done a good neat job and it is hard to see what is new metal and the original. All filed down flat and smooth. I think we shall do another couple of the better spare block sets destined for the spares shed, as the Devcon has a short shelf life.

We set about setting the correct liner protrusion above the block of 0.006". We had new shims from JCS, ( strangely some of the thinner ones seem to be brass? ) and eventually got one side done. Vic had some new liner locating castings in stock, but these needed fettling to make them fit properly. They were just too large in every dimension. We used a smear of Wellseal under the shims to assist sealing.

I was short on time and we will return to do the other side later in the week.

Hope you are enjoying this damp summer we are experiencing?

All the best,

David

Good to see you've come through with flying colours David.
Don't overdo things.
Tony.

I do not think the NHS policy of 'fix when broken' is correct, it is almost the same as my 'If it ain't broke, do not fix it.'
I will ask my doctor what investigation can be done.
I had a similar statement from the oncologist attending Jenny who said if we gave everyone a CT scan everyone would go home worried.
I have the same feeling when I put a Jowett on the lift. It finds so many issues. Probably even more now there is no MOT.

Hi All,

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, my doctor says that the NHS hasn't got the resources to give everyone an MoT, so be very aware of anything unusual and listen to your body. It's a bit like not ignoring that noise from the front suspension, when you know there is a bush that needs replacing!

Anyway, back to the engine yesterday and the day's job was to get the pistons fitted. The first problem we had was the new big end shells supplied from JCS. The shells that we had taken out had broad lock notches, but the replacements had what seemed to be the narrow lock notches. The original set of con rods only had recesses for the broad notches.

The solution seemed to be to swap over the con rods for a set with narrow recesses. After some fun time with hot water and the circlip pliers, this was accomplished. We chose a set of four con rods that had both the narrow and broad recesses. We offered-up the new shells from JCS, only to find the lock notches were too wide to fit the narrow recesses, by at least 2-3mm. Stumped, we turned to the phone and sought advice from members.

The results from our discussions were either to send them back to JCS for a refund and hunt for some replacements, or just fit them to the broad recesses and hope for the best? Thinking about it, they couldn't spin in the big ends, as the lock notches would still hold them still, and the side cheeks of the crankshaft would locate them laterally. So, on they went and fingers crossed!

By the end of the day, all four pistons were in and looking good. We had used plenty of oil and checked that the ring gaps were equally spaced around the pistons.

Next time, it will be time to get the heads fitted and then she will be starting to look like an engine!

Take care and hope you are enjoying the sun that has, at last, started to shine!

Cannot believe that we have passed the longest day already!

David

Hi All,

Vic and I returned to work on the engine for LRM 957 today.

We needed to fit locking washers to the big end bolts and torque them up, before turning to fitting the heads.

Obviously an easy job, but remember this is a Jowett! Another thing to remember is that this engine is going to be a real 'bitsa'. All the components have come from different engines and have never been together. It is a real test of interchangeability! And so it proved today!

Correct washers fitted under the big end bolts, and torquing-up went ahead well, until we were fitting the bolts to No.4, the rearmost piston/con rod assembly. Rotating the crank showed that one of the big end bolt heads was fouling on the crankcase, just below the base of the liner and sufficiently serious to lock the shaft and prevent rotation.

Was it us, or had someone else had a similar problem? Remember that we had the components from seven engines stored in the garage. Looking at the various crankcases showed at least one with severe 'scuffing' in exactly the position we had the fouling in our crankcase. Both crankcases are Series 3. Also, we found a spare big end bolt head with marks of damage.

Obviously, there is a situation where this fouling can occur, on a given unfortunate mix of crankcase, crankshaft, con rod and bolt. Has anyone else encountered the same situation? Our solution was to 'relieve' the head of the big end bolt sufficiently until it cleared the crankcase. We checked the clearance and felt comfortable with a clearance value of 0.020". Our reasoning for feeling happy with this was that there should be minimal flexing at the rear of the crankshaft?

Unfortunately, sorting this out had burnt up quite a bit of our time and fitting the heads will have to wait until next time! Two steps back and one forward!

Hope you are all enjoying the promised good weather!

David

Can you post pictures of where the scuffing occured, pls?
I mainly use Unbrako hex socket screws for the bolts and Loctite as the shake proofing.
But will check tomorrow. I seem to remember the original bolts were ground off , but will check tomorrow.