One in the Eye for Gravity.

My brother in law Bob kindly came round tonight to help me lift the engine while Fiona removed the dolly and then pushed in the stand - thirty seconds and it was done. I was delighted that the engine stand doohickey held. Here is the proof:

Last night I removed the inlet manifold (though I sheared two hotspot bolts in the process). This meant that tonight I could attempt to take off the last of the tinware. Using a combination of a large screw driver and a mole wrench I managed to loosen all but four screws. These stubborn individuals are responsible for holding the two halves of tinware together at the front of the engine (i.e. the flywheel end). They have been soaked regularly in WD-40 but to no avail. I did some delving and discovered that in the wonderful world of penetrating oils (probably more of an island than a whole world) that WD-40 is not considered the best. In fact in one test it seems that nothing could a 50/50 mix of acetone and ATF (automatic transmission fluid). I'll make some up and report back later...

Temporarily flummoxed by the tinware I decided to turn my attention to the engine oil. As I said in an earlier post, in the 27 years the car had been sitting the oil had turned to jelly. This jelly - or joilly as I like to call it - was too thick to come out the engine's drain plug. However removing the oil sieve left an orifice large enough for even joilly to flop through. Here it is collecting in a basin. Lovely. When I have collected enough I will see if a spoon will stand up in it or not...