Ok been awhile since an update...
Went and saw an engineer last week who signed off on all of the aforementioned items asked for by the DPI except he said the car is too loud and too low (the extractors hang low)
But first things first, had the long weekend so decided to tackle the job ive been putting off for ages and what neither the DPI or Engineer picked up on but I knew I had to fix sooner or later and that was the bushes in the K-frame which had crumbled, So made a start on Thurs evening.
Engine/Box/K-frame came out easy as thanks to the hoist (I knew It wouldnt go back together so easy)
While pulling it apart I found what could be the cause of one of my major oil leaks, DOH was hidden under my coolant hoses and ignition leads.
Removing the old bushes was pretty easy :/ I replaced them with Rubber
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Pulled the extractors and found #3 pipe was clean as! Hmm (also note the oil stains which is in line with the head gasket)
All the plugs looked good and about the same:
Suspected a leaky exhaust valve or maybe running lean due to faulty injector? Leak down test came up good on all cylinders except #2 which had a leaky exhaust valve... Also noticed bubbles coming from the headgasket and oil down both sides of the block from the head gasket down (that explains the oil spray on the extractors) So decided to pull the heads, lap the leaking valve and replace head gaskets.
But when I pulled the heads I found it had Copper Gaskets and a O-ringed block, I had bought a pair of Felpro composite gaskets in preparation during the week but these would be no good. Everyone is saying you can re-use the copper head gasket and you probly can... But I dont like the idea of having to pull the heads off again especially with the headstuds in a Torana bay. So decided to just wait till I can get a new pair to be safe.
I was a little confused about where the oil was coming from but some help from other members in another post (Bomber, Neil, Hutch, Struggler and Bpi Ive come to the conclusion the cylinders are leaking past the small gaps in the O-ring as the gaps are all in the area of the leak and its squirting a small amount of oil out the sides
Cleaned the carbon off the tops of the pistons, noticed a few small nicks missing from #3 (same cylinder with the clean exhaust port) is this signs of detonation from running lean, #1 had one small nick like this but the rest were spotless
CC'd the heads (60.5cc) measured the bore/stroke (102.5x88.5) H/G Thickness (40thou/1mm) etc and worked out the comp ratio to be 11.5 - 11.6:1
Cleaned all the gasket surfaces ready to be re-assembled once I get new head gaskets. Since I could not continue with that I decided to check out the chassis since I had a sneaking suspicion something was up as I had trouble getting the front panels to line up nicely and there was evidence of a repair to the front right corner.
Used a plumb bob to drop a bunch of points down onto the floor (masking tape with tiny dots on them) using a chassis diagram I found on these forums. The rear and middle of the car measured up very nicely and square across diagonals but the front was 11-12mm out of square (so 5.5-6mm off to one side, +/- 1mm given the accuracy of this method)
The ruler in this pic shows where the center line between the chassis rails at the front of the car should be and the line marked on the tape is where it was.
This pic shows where it was (same as first pic) where it is now (after some playing around with the porta-power) and where it should be (the ruler) Given I only had +/- 1mm confidence in my plumb bob markings I decided this was close enough.
Happy with the chassis I chucked the K-frame back in (heh wish it was as easy as that, involved rachet straps, swearing and lube And couldnt put the motor back together decided to give it a couple coats of fresh black since it was damaged in a few areas.
Mixed up abit too much paint so very rushingly masked and prepped my headlight surrounds (ie a quick scrub with scotchbrite) and a couple coats of black also.
And thats pretty much my weekend. Will grab a new pair of gaskets during the week, re-assemble the motor and refit motor/box then modify my extractors for ground clearance as well as fit new mufflers...