Project Slowly Underway: Berrien 295

[vanapplebomb]

091 starter fail. Heavy gauge copper wire between solenoid and motor was so coroded that is crumbled into pieces when I touched it. So, I turned it in as a core for a rebuilt unit.





Also got a new cross shaft because the stock one was pretty tired. One of the forks showed a lot of wear where the throw out bearing rides against it. Aftermarket replacements are pretty beefy, I was actually surprised.

[vanapplebomb]

Talked to Jim of Jims Buggy Parts today about the transmission. Sounds like he is willing to do the work for me. Next Saturday I am going to run it up and drop it off. At a minimum will need the intermediate housing replaced. May need bearings/syncros as well. We will see what it all amounts to. May as well get it done while its appart.

I have the rocker assemblies, pushrods and lifters waiting to be installed on the engine with fresh cam lube until I get the transmission squared away. Once I get the trans back I will slap in the lifters, pushrods/tubes, and rocker assemblies with fresh lube and fire her up and run it in.

[vanapplebomb]

Tomorrow I will be dropping off the transaxle at Jims Buggy Parts to get the intermediate housing rebuilt/changed out and get anything else that needs attention sorted out. I'm pretty excited

[vanapplebomb]

The other day I made a 1/4" thick aluminum plate to use at the fuel sender location on the tank so I can run a fuel level sight tube and a safety rollover valve. Aluminum plate was free scrap from a buddy who has a metal fab shop. Safety rollover valve is just a generic for many GM vehicles that I picked up at Autozone. Gasket I cut from a sheet of fuel safe rubber. I got the compression fitting kit for flexible tubing at the hardware store as well. Just 3/16" od green translucent fuel hose for small engines. The compression fittings for flexible tubing have brass sleeves that go inside the tubing to give the soft tubing some support and substance to compress against. I personally don't care much for extra electrics of buggies...minimalistic vehicles after all. Since the rollover valve takes up the large hole for what would have been the sender, I had to drill a small hole in the top. One end of the tube goes to the top, and the other end to the bottom. Let's you see how full/empty the tank is. One of my buddies actually filled his tank one gallon at a time and marked the tubing with a black Sharpie marker at the level of fuel after each gallon was added.

A side note, this tanks filler cap was vented. Easy to plug. Just pop the cover off from the no drop string, heat up a soldering iron, melt some solder on the tip, and put a drip over the little hole. Hot solder melts it's way into the plastic and solidifies to seal the vent hole.

[vanapplebomb]

Fuel tank ready to bolt on to frame.





Also got some longer studs to mount the engine to the bell housing.

[MadMike]

How many Gal.? is that RC Fuel line a 'Manual Gauge'??

[vanapplebomb]

10x30 fuel tank. The sump on the bottom puts is right at ten gallons, so a bit more than a standard 10x30. The fuel line is just generic 3/32id X 3/16od small engine (weed eater, chainsaw, etc ) fuel line. And yeah it is just a sight tube to visually see how full the tank is, or as you say, a manual gauge. That's a good way to describe it. Nust have to use a sleeve inside the poly tube to use compression fittings. I used a brass sleeve in the top, and a trimmed down accelerator pump jet nozzle from a scrap Solex carb for the bottom. The small drilling dampens the flow of fuel in the hose so it's more stable and not uselessly sloshing around.

[MadMike]

Great work Dirk, wish my bugs tank was bigger,it's only 6 gal.

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[vanapplebomb]

Hey, ya work with what room ya got, hu?

Dropped off the four wheels at a local powder coating joint in town. 40 bucks a wheel to burn off paint, sand blast, and powder coat. Just doing a black job. Im not interested in anything flashy. Just something to protect them. Should be ready mid week this coming week. Hopefully have the front tires on by the following week.

[vanapplebomb]

Rims are all powdercoated flat black. Front tires are mounted.

[vanapplebomb]

I started working on setting the rocker geometry. I lost about 45 thou width due to my deck hight/compression modification. A 30 thou and 15 thou shim below each rocker base would bring it back to stock. That said, I expect to add a little more than that, but it is a starting point. I have found that the rocker tips wipe from near center to the edge of the valve. At least that is what I found from inking the last couple T4 valve adjustments I did. I don't particularly like that, so adding a little more hight to the rockers by shining moves the contact wipe towards the center. I will start with 45 thou worth of shims to put it back to stock, but I expect 60 thou will be closer to center based on what I have found in the past with these engines.

Mike, the rust bucket rims I got from you cleaned up ok. Just some pitting let over from the rust. One is definetly worse than the other, but who cars, it isn't a show car, just an odd road beater.

[MadMike]

Hey Dirk,, the pad is supposed to spin the valve so a bit off set is the sweet spot,,
glad them wheels worked for you

[vanapplebomb]

The offset along the axis of the rocker shaft (front to back) to spin the valve you speak of is correct. T4 engines are different from T1 engines in that the offset is predetermined by the machining of the end blocks, width of the rockers, and stud spacing on the heads rather than shims like T1 engines.

The top to bottom contact wipe is what I was referring too. Sorry for the confusion. By the way, turns out 45 thou worth of shims under the end blocks put the contact wipe right in the sweet spot. I was suprised that's all it took, but hey, works for me.

[MadMike]

Type IV is a totoaly fourin to me I'll shut up now

[vanapplebomb]

No problem mike. these are the rocker assemblies. One per cylinder. Notice how the only thing holding them together are the zip ties thru the end blocks. They fit nice and snug over stepped studs in the head, and that is what locates the rockers side to side, no shims or clips like Type 1 engines. Much simpler. These are good for stock to mild engines that don't see sustained high revs. If sustaining high RPMs, it's better to use the hydraulic rocker assemblies. They are more stable at high RMPs because they do away with the long coil spring and replace it with a pair of stif spring washers and a solid spacer. The rockers below are just the standard solid lifter type with the coil spring.






Another favorite feature of mine are the slip thru lifters and pushrods. Super easy to change seals if a leak develops. Just remove the retaining wire, take the rockers off, pop the tube out, replace the seals, pop it back in and bolt down the rocker assemblies. Out of habit I use a high temp silicone grease to lubricate the o-rings. I don't use any sort of sealant on them. I'm not sold that it does any good. Some people use Teflon paste pipe thread sealant to lubricate the o-rings at assembly, and that also seams to work really well. Like I said, I just use high temp silicone grease on the o-rings. yoy can buy o-ring/ball valve silicone grease at plumbing/hardware stores, or just use cheap dielectric silicone based ignition system tuneup grease...same difference. One is fda approved, the other isn't. Haha

Slip in lifters...






Pushrod tubes and o-rings. The o-rings come in the gasket kits. New Viton o-rings can be had at any industrial supply venders when you need to replace leaky ones. You really only need those at the head side, but may as well get Viton all the way around when replacing them.








Once the Pushrod tubes are slipped in, just slide the pushrods in and pop on the rocker assemblies. Just make sure that the notches in the end blocks face down. You need them to face down so you can snap the pushrod retaining wire into them once both rocker assemblies are in place. Also, the wire doesn't go into the pushrod tube, it bears against the perimeter of it. Big mistake some people make. If it is in the pushrod tube, it runs on the reciprocating aluminum pushrod and will wear thru it over time.