Two years now since I've put a hand on the Seacraft. Where does the time go?
Just out of curiosity I've been mucking around with Leyland V8s for a little while now. They seem to be well suited to to the size of the Seacraft as well as being lighter than a red six, and more powerful. I have yet to confirm the weight though, and I am suspicious they are somewhat heavy due to the crank and rods (3.5" stroke). The front pulley and balancer is also very heavy.
After doing some research I bought two engines rather cheap two years ago. Knowing these are sleeved bores, I was hoping that I'd at get one runner out of the two and not have to go to the expense of the machine work in replacing sleeves. Well one block needs sleeving badly due to it being left outside uncovered (idiots). The other is ok but needs new pistons as these engines suffered from cracking piston skirts, of which I found several sitting in the sump. Parts are readily available, except for pistons (of course). I have the option of fitting 173 pistons (3.5" bore also) but will have to ream the gudgeon bosses out about .009" to fit the Leyland rods. Comp height is .110" lower but I will have to check on comp ratio as I'll be going from dished to flat top pistons.
Anyway as luck would have it a complete engine and trans came up rather cheap too, so I jumped at it. It was out of a P76 and had been overhauled. So far I've found issues with spark plugs, excessive carbon on the (std) pistons (enough to lock the motor up), and a very slack timing chain. Crosshatching in the bores is still evident but I'm suspect in that it only had a quick hone with new rings. It is still running the standard pistons and I doubt they are are NOS o/s units. I'll be measuring up the bores as I think they went out too far with the honing, hence all the carbon from burning oil. BTW the way, it has turned out to be a Leyland Terrier truck engine fitted with low comp pistons, so they're going in the bin now. Two out of three aint bad..................
Today I confirmed the hone job was a fail with the piston to bore clearance being in excess of .006". That combined with piston ring end gaps of .030" and oil being drawn down the inlet valves, it must have been burning a lot of oil. I now understand why any old spark plug was being chucked in as they must have been fouling up quite a lot. Now I'm up for .020" o/s pistons.
Crank, cam and lifters are in mint condition. This engine hasn't done much work. Going by how dirty the inlet ports were I'd say it was dusted and suffered from early ring and bore wear with the later hone and re-ring job being a failure.
From what I can gather these "Terrier" V8's came about after Leyland stopped producing the P76, and had to find a place to put all the engines that were all ready manufactured. This was from 76 onwards over a 2 to 3 year period. The old guy how owned the P76 must have got this engine fitted as a new replacement some how, as it is serial numbered as a "Terrier" engine and is fitted with the low comp pistons. Water jackets and associated cooling system parts are in very good nick for an alloy engine.
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