Since the Rapier 1.0 did not have the engine installed when I purchased it, i thought I’d better get some reference shots, so I took some photos of the engine bay today. All in all it looked fairly original, or stockish. The only real fun things I found were some cobbled linkage, and an odd exhaust hanger fix. Tomorrow I’ll start to yank the little thing out.

While preparing the engine tin for paint, I noticed that the windage tray on the oil pan had a broken seam. A quick ZAP with the mig and it was good to go.

I had a chance to go over the all of the engine tin once I got it back from Crown plating. For the most part, the tin pieces were in good shape and not real banged up. Some rusty pitting on some bits, but overall not terrible. The old issues that I could see that I would have to resolve before I started painting, was a cracked braze on the side cover vent tube and a broken weld on the oil pan splash guard. I had a bit of time to repair the vent tube, but the oil pan would have to wait.

With the tin nice and clean, the brazed crack was easily noticeable. I soaked the tin in brake cleaner to degrease the cracked area, and blasted it with an oxy/ace torch. After a few blobs of braze, the tin looked good as new, and ready to paint.

I dropped the clutch friction plate and pressure plate off at Six States to be redone. They seemed to think that they would be able to overhaul both for under a hundred dollars….fingers crossed! The pressure plate didn’t look terrible, but being so old, the spring tension concerned me. The friction plate, however, was in sad shape; oil soaked and unevenly worn.

After returning home from Six States, I spent some time on the internet researching parts suppliers and engine coding information. I made a great discovery when I happened upon the Hillman Club of South Australia website and found this engine code page which linked to this page from Team.net. It was all the engine number information I would even need, thank you MR. INTERNET! But the discovery soon proved to be bitter sweet. It seems that the engine in our 1959 Rapier series 2 ( B1008462 H LSX) was originally from a Hillman Minx Series 111A De-Luxe Special (09/23/59). Major bummer, especially since the motor was suppose to be original.

Seems my gasket kit did not come with a thermostat housing to block gasket, so I had to make one up from some cork gasket stock. I also took the time to size up the studs that hold that housing onto the block and pre-fit everything together.