Yesterday I was able to spend some time on the Beta engine but accomplished the square root of bugger all, although I have expanded my knowledge of bolt thread pitches and sizes. Peter had very kindly sent me a spare pressed steel bracket that contains the timing pointers to match up with the holes in the OE camwheels, and I had butchered that to my satisfaction such that pointy pieces of metal no longer interfered with the bolts on my adjustable camwheels. Verifying that fact was to be the sum total of my achievements for the day.
I was intending to fit the top and back water rails, camwheel bracket, engine stabiliser/water rail bracket, oil breather and make a stab at getting the distributor approximately timed up. I was thwarted in all these attempts, mainly due to the interconnected nature of most of the parts mentioned. To fit the top water rail I knew that I needed socket head allen bolts to fasten it to the head but had overlooked that fact that I needed a long ball head driver to get at the bolts that shelter under the rail. I could have tightened the bolts down with an allen key but really wanted to torque them up equally and accurately and for that I need the long ball head driver.
At the same time as trial fitting the top rail, I fitted the camwheel bracket as they bolt up together. The bottom fixing (bracket to cylinder head) has quite a shallow tapping in the head. I tried using an M6 x 16 allen bolt, but that bottomed out before clamping the bracket. I then tried the only other short bolt I had (M6 x 10) but that didn't have enough thread in play for my comfort. So, on to eBay to grumpily order some M6 x 14 stainless allen bolts.
I next turned my attention to the back rail, and started looking for the sheet of gasket paper that I know I have. After fruitless searching everywhere for half an hour I gave up, frustration levels rising.
I then decided to trial fit the engine stabiliser/water rail bracket and see how it all lined up with the water rails for a trial fit. I'd bought new stainless bolts for this, an M10 x 30 and an M12 x 35, both in coarse thread. The M10 screwed in nicely but the M12 bolt jammed after a couple of threads. I tried various M12 bolts I had in fine and coarse pitch and none would screw in further than a couple of threads. By now small amounts of steam were starting to escape from my ears. I later learned, after trying out various taps in my spare cylinder head, that the M12 bolt has a thread pitch of 1.25 (fine/extra fine), but the M10 bolt is a standard 1.5 coarse pitch thread. Good old Lancia... Hit eBay to order M12 x 1.25 x 35mm bolts.
Casting around desperately for something to achieve before I had to come home, I tried the oil breather, freshly returned from the vapour blaster and with a new right angle rubber hose. I'd even had the spring clips electroless nickel plated. Except that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the spring clips to fit around the tube. I can only assume that the 'new' tube has a thicker cross-section than the tired old one. After grovelling around on the floor for the sixth or seventh trying to find the escaped spring clip I gave up and (eBay again) ordered some double ear Oetiker clamps of the right size. Completely flattened by now, I didn't even attempt to time up the distributor...
Not one of my more successful days...
