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I described
in Bulletin 3 how we removed the head from cylinders 1 to 3
to attend to a leaking injector sleeve. The head was sent
away to Blane Engineering of Killearn to have this remedied,
but they told us after a pressure check that in fact two of
the three injector sleeves were not watertight. They asked
us to provide new injector sleeves, but these could not be
sourced either here or in Australia. However, we were
fortunate that a spare cylinder head had come with the bus
and this head was dropped off at Blane for testing and all
three sleeves were found to be watertight. We would have
preferred to use the original head, as the engine ran well,
but the inability to source new sleeves left us with two
options; either have new sleeves made or have the spare head
prepared for use.
Blane Engineering took the spare head, skimmed the joint
face, machined the valve seats, cleaned and ground the
valves and changed over the inlet guides on the old head to
exhaust spec on the new head. With work completed in early
January we decided to get the overhauled head fitted which
would allow us to finish the engine ready for installation
back in the bus.
A new head gasket was fitted from our own stock of spares
and the new cylinder head went on without any problem.
However, as so often happens it is the apparently
straightforward jobs that take all the time. The studs on
the side of the head for locating the exhaust manifold and
the top water manifold were found to be too short! Either
this head had come from an Albion model with different
manifolds (which seems unlikely) or someone had replaced the
original studs with shorter studs. The latter seems more
likely as so many Sydney Albions ended up with small
independents or private owners who may have adopted a
make-do-and-mend policy. Either way, we couldn't use these
studs as there was hardly enough thread to allow the nuts to
bite when the manifolds were fitted. So after much heating,
coaxing and encouragement (vocal and otherwise!), the old
studs were removed, new ones fitted and the manifolds
replaced.
To finish off the job, the injectors were all checked in a
nozzle test rig to ensure that both jets on each injector
were clear and that they were opening at the correct
pressure of 175 atmospheres. Only one injector was found to
be incorrectly set and this was adjusted accordingly. The
copper washers were annealed and the injectors refitted. All
we have to do now is replace the hoses and we will have one
Albion EN 242 9 litre oil engine ready for refitting.
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