> No, it is not a difinitive test. However measuring crankshaft
>end play is. These thrust washers limit the sliding or walking of the
>crankshaft from end to end, It's these washers that hold the crank in
>place font to back. I'm sure someone here can give the spec for crank
>end play for your engine. Be aware that worn presure plate fingers, and
>TO bearing can casue the drop you are seeing. I had it on mine until
>the clutch, presure plate, and TO were replaced, after which there was
>very little drop in RPM.
>
>Rich
>
You can usually get a good feel for the condition of end thrust bearings by
prying the crank pully fore and aft on the outside of the engine. This is
a "should do" thing when shopping at wrecking yards.
>It is a common mistake when building an alpine motor not to use
>thread sealer on the side cover bolts. All the bolts that go into the
>head go directly into the oily engine cavity. The result is an engine
>that just weeps oil, and it looks like it comes from the sump.
>
>The alpine has no front or rear seals, so an engine that does'nt
>lay down at least a little oil is very rare.
>
>Jarrid Gross
The Alpine motor is kind of a disaster when you start to look. The
pressure relief, the timing chain oiler, the exhaust manifold mounting, the
front motor mount plate thingy, weak bottom end, severe displacement
limitations... It is a good thing those Alpine transmissions and rear
ends are so great to compensate!
I suppose it makes the cars even more interesting in a perverted British
Sports Car sort of way.
Frank Marrone MK I Tiger B9471116
marrone(at)wco.com 1966 LTD
Series I Alpine "fix me"
Yamaha Seca 900
ed.uvm.edu>
Sender: owner-alpines(at)autox.team.net
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: Michael Fisher <fisher(at)tomahawk.DST.BATTELLE.ORG>
Sorry Ray but I think you are missing some physics of the problem. I do fluid
dynamics for a living and have studied this problem in great detail (along with
several engineer and physicist friends around the country). I did not believe
this myself until I looked at the problem and tried it on several different
cars. It can be mitigated by the ambient temp as I originally posted. The
simple soluition for you is to just try it. At any temp above about 50F, no
thermostat means overheating. My Alpine was constantly overheating when I
first got it running. The car had no thermostat in it. I thought that meant
it would run cooler. Well the local motorhead told me no way, although he
didn't know why. He said put the thermostat in and you will be surprised.
That night I did just that and guess what, he was right! The overheating
problems stopped immediately. That was in April of last year. As summer
approached the temp started climbing again which is why I went to the three
core radiator. Now I have no overheating problems at all.
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mike Fisher
fisher(at)tomahawk.dst.battelle.org "The leader has a sense of humor. He is not a stuffed shirt. He can laugh at 614/424-3620 himself. He has a humble spirit." 614/424-3918 (FAX) If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't Battelle be research. 505 King Avenue Columbus, OH 43201-2693 "In science we can't let some guy from Podunk have the same vote as Fermi."
'93 Volvo 940 Turbo Wagon (for mom and the kids) '85 Jetta GLI (to get me to work) '68 Sunbeam Alpine Series V B395017314 (just for fun) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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