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.

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.

I sorted through a box of parts today that were burried in the trunk of the Rapier. Seems our little Rapier came equipt with a dual single carb setup, that’s been horribly cobbled together. The water pump looked like it spent the last few decades as a boat anchor. And I’m a bit puzzled by the hackery on the water pump pulley. Best that I can figure, is that a different water pump was installed and the pulley was the incorrect depth. Odd stuff indeed!

I posted up a query on the Hillman forum, and my suspisions were correct, it is indeed a late model Alpine waterpump, with an early model Rapier pulley. Jim Leach, from the Pacific Tiger Club Seattle, was kind enough to set me up with a couple of pulleys to mate to an original style water pump. Hopefully I’ll be able to source the correct water pump down.

Up to this point, i had managed to bury our rapier behind a tons of other projects. With the engine parts fiascos and lack of information, my eagerness to get the thing going had worn thin. But then, a few nights ago while surfing the web, i stumbled onto a Sunbeam Yahoo Group. i posted a question about our car there and was forwarded to another Yahoo group that covers all Rootes group vehicles, but mainly the ones of the Hillman persuasion. After my first post on the Hillman group site, i was inundated with emails from extremely helpful folks regarding all the concerns i had about our car. It seems there truly is a internet forum for everything.

One of the first questions i had was where to locate head bolts. The head bolts like everything else were rusted and unusable. I had called Kip motors to inquired about the head bolts, and i was told, “they are no longer available”; needless to say, they weren’t very helpful.
i had the short block nearly completed, and the only thing that was holding me up was new head bolts. I’m not sure why, but for some reason i thought that the hardware on the Rootes group vehicles were all BSF. This thought is what had halted my progress on finishing the engine build over a year ago. So, you can imagine my embarrassment, when i was told that all the hardware on the entire vehicle was SAE fine. SAE FINE!!!! you’ve got to be f’n kidding me. All along, i could have gone to my local Home Depot and purchased the hardware i needed to complete this motor. Man, what a meat head i am. SAE FINE….Rrrrr!!

So the following day i head over to the local nut and bolt supply and pick up a bunch of 4.5″ long 3/8’s inch SAE fine thread bolts and washers. But of course, just when i thought i was home free and easy, i discover that the bolts are a 1/4″ to long. classic…

i was able to spin the bolts down on the lathe fairly quickly, but i had this nagging suspicion that this is how things are going to continue with this car.