I searched the forums, but have not found any current threads. I am looking for a current post, or referral for an engine rebuilder for my XK140 engine. I am in the Los Angeles area. The engine is free, has nice cylinder bores and is STD on the pistons, had never had the block decked from what I see, has STD rod journals. The cylinder head has 2 guide sleeves that need replacing. The car was stored for the past 25 years. Any help will be appreciated.
Andy
How much of the work are you willing to do yourself?
My preference is to do almost everything myself, but farm out any small jobs for which I don’t have the machinery, cylinder boring for example, and get firm price quotes.
My bores were done by a local shop that bores everything from motorcyles to Caterpillars. They were perfectly happy to do the Jag block for $20 per bore, and I provided one new piston for them to measure first.
LA must have dozens of such shops.
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I am happy to do as much work as I can. Not being familiar with this engine I am looking for a rebuilder with experience in this engine. The engine is still STD on the cylinders and bore, and they look very good, the rods are STD as well. I have not removed the crank yet. I want to get it back on the road, and I would like to do only what is necessary, I believe experience is well worth the added cost here.
As Rob says, it’s perfectly possible to do a lot of the work yourself. These are basically very simple engines from a much simpler age, and pretty well over-engineered.
I would strip the engine yourself, then take block, head, crank and rotating assembly parts to a machine shop for measuring, chemi clean and crack testing. Reboring, and even sleeving, is pretty straightforward work - probably the most contentious area would be weld repairs to the cylinder head. Any machine shop that works on classic motors should be fine with all this.
Being in Cambridgeshire, UK, I can’t help much with recommendations, I’m afraid.
Yes, get a manual and you will find these engines are perfectly understandable.
Some specialty shops will want you to write a blank check, then do everything that is unnecessary, and hand you a bill for $10-15k.
For the valve stem sleeves, find a local shop that is familiar with DOHC heads. Lots of cars have them now. Make a personal visit before committing.
If the oval water ports are corroded, commonly in regions where they don’t use corrosion inhibiting anti-freeze, you need a good welding shop familiar with aluminum that will keep the heat low. And search the archives of this forum and the XK engine forum. Head welding has been discussed many times.
Block decking is almost unknown among XK engines, and be aware the front cover was originally matched with the block and machined together.
Cranks often are fine with just new bearings.
Pistons might be ok cleaned up with just new rings.
There is no need to spend a pile of money if you know what you are doing.
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The cylinders look decent, I noticed a bit of pitting where the rings were, the car was parked 25 years. The pistons appear to be STD, 4 are “G” 2 are “H”, the block is stamped near each cylinder with the G, H and all pistons are numbered 1-6. I have not removed the crank. The cylinder head is in very good condition in the water jacket areas, the car has anti freeze when parked. I need 2 of the lifter sleeved replaced/repaired, one is moving with the lifter, the other is starting to. The damper needs to be rebuilt.If the main journals on the crank look ok I may be inclined to hone the cylinders, re-ring the pistons and replace the bearings STD. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated. My plan is to clean the car up drive it.
Rod bearings are std. I feel the rod journals may be usable, I need to replace all the timing chain dampers, I will want to have the crank, flywheel, clutch and damper balanced
Bear in mind that if you want the bare block “cleaned”, it is now done with heat instead of chemicals…(CA eco laws). Since I was to have my block bored and align honed, the oven treatment was not an issue for me. But my machinist said the cleaning regimen does require boring/honing and crank journal align bore afterward because of the amount of heat used.
I used a crank guy in Santa Fe Springs on Sorenson rd…Lopez, IIRC, and my balance guy is in N. Long Beach on Cherry…I will look for the name…
I have posted about this before so do a search of this site.
You can do a pretty good job of cleaning everything yourself with some ingenuity and patience.
Oh, bad luck guys. In the UK it’s still a very effective chemical process - for now
I’ll send you a PM with some shops in the area.
“Revco” is the balance guy in N. Long Beach…Lopez Crank IS correct for the shop on Sorenson, Santa Fe Springs…you should see the exotic cranks the guy has in his shop at any given time.
I had a lot of work done on some NOS (std) 1964 289 cranks by a guy called Armondo (Custom Crank Repairs??) in Santa Clara a few years back, outstanding work. I gather he’s not quick, though.