Engine rebuilding

As with many of our services our engine building facilities have grown over the years and we can offer a very full range for vintage, historic and classic motor cars.

Cylinder Head:-Decarbonising & removal of sediment/corrosion deposits from waterways. Helicoil repairs to female threads for studs & sparking plugs.Bead blasting & polishing of cylinder components.

Porting & Polishing:- Cleaning of inlet & exhaust ports & optimising port shape for good gas flow & cylinder filling, polishing of ports & combustion chambers. Checking & equalising combustion chamber volumes for power & smooth running.

Removal/Replacement of valve guides:- Valve guide wear can cause a loss of power, valve & valve seat wear – New valve guides, in the correct material can be made & fitted, also matched to port shape to give optimal performance.

Re-Cutting of Valves & Valve Seats:- Re-Cutting of the sealing faces of both valves & valve seats both in road-going engines & competition engines can give improved performance – With competition engines the cutting of 3-Angle valve seats can bring about significant improvements in valve-to-valve seat sealing.

Removal/replacement of valve seats (Where Possible):- Valve seats wear & eventually valve seat recession causes difficulties with tappet/ valve clearance setting with the result of lost performance – Where possible, fitting of new valve seats rectifies this problem, also this process can be used for the conversion of engines from “Leaded” fuel to “Unleaded” fuel, along with valves & valve guides.Note:- due to age, proximity of valves to each other & original materials used, not all engines can have this work carried out.

Repair of water corrosion by welding & re- facing:- Over many years cylinder heads & cylinder blocks suffer from corrosion progressively thinning the water jacket that provides cooling for the engine, also silting up & frost damage.In some cases this type of damage can be welded up by a variety of specialist processes & then the components in question brought back to their correct dimensions by machining. Cold stitching & ceramic sealing can sometimes be used in particularly difficult applications.

Reface gasket faces:- Over a period of time, mating surfaces of an engine can become corroded, physically damaged or overheated, causing warping – In many cases our machine shop can reclaim these mating surfaces so that they seal together at least as well as they did (Sometimes better !).

Rebore/Re-liner:- Cylinder bores have a hard time & eventually wear to the point where there can be a loss of compression, oil & power – Bringing bores back to their correct dimensions along with the fitting of new pistons & rings can restore an engine to peak performance.

Engine “Blueprinting”:- A generic term used in the industry broadly meaning that every part of the engine is carefully cleaned, measured & “Hand Fettled” to ensure that every single part fits perfectly, all connecting rods are the same weight, all pistons are the same weight, crank bearing journals are polished & oilways clean & free flowing, compression ratios equal throughout all cylinders & many other detail items are checked & optimised to ensure a free-running, well balanced engine.