Advice please on possible winter project

[JMF894]

Guys,

I'm considering taking out the engine on the 450 this winter. The reasons for this are two fold:

1) The car has clearly had an incident at some stage involving a coolant type leak which has resulted in splash stains in the paint in the engine bay. This will allow me to resparay the engine bay.

2) I will be able to clean up the engine block/heads etc and paint it.

So my question is this: Is it worth disturbing everything purely for relatively minor cosmetic reasons? I've had the car for 1 year now and it is clearly (touches wood) a good one having spoken to previous owners and done around 4k in her now?

Everything works and she goes pretty well too.

What do you all think?

Cheers

Jimbo

[Wedg1e]

One could argue that it's possible to take the heads off whilst leaving the engine in, and stripped that far there wouldn't be much of the engine bay you couldn't get at to clean/ paint.

It's certainly not a 5-minute job either way

[JMF894]

Fair point but that would still leave me with the problem of painting the engine bay, and stripping down the heads (and putting back together!) may be beyond me as opposed to simply taking out the donkey in one lump....................

Jimbo

[Wedg1e]

Sounds like you've made your mind up then

[heightswitch]

Engine and gearbox lifts are relatively straight forward so long as you have a decent engine crane. The Rover lump is light...You should be able to lift an engine in a good days work as a novice.

N

[vampire222]

If you end up taking the engine out consider giving it a makeover too, or having a specialised company do that for you. Your wedge will thank you for that!

[combine]

It may turn out to be a bigger job than you expected but if your sure then go ahead. I hate it when its a really nice day and the wedge is in bits !

[adam quantrill]

Personally I think you're mad, wedges are for driving not polishing ;^)

Putting that aside another tip is to make a cradle to take the engine - I used some 2x4 to make a rectangle with heavy-duty castors on each corner - coach bolts all the way through hold it together.

Also I hope you mean the rocker covers not the heads as your job will be much bigger doing the latter.

While the lump is out you can also paint all those niggly bits of chassis.

[JMF894]

Hmmmm food for thought gentlemen.

Jimbo

[Tasmin200]

If it ain't broke....

[mrzigazaga]

Tasmin200 said:

If it ain't broke....

Fiddle around with it until it is.......

[Convert]

mrzigazaga said:

Tasmin200 said:

If it ain't broke....

Fiddle around with it until it is.......