The pulley on the new alternator does indeed look small, but is exactly the same size as the original - as can be seen on the attached photo. The lenght of the new alternator belt seems quite critical because the adjustment tilts the alternator both outwards and downwards. With the original installation where the belt goes via the alternator pulley, the geometry means this tensions the belt well, but with my installation, the tensioning is effectively reduced due to the different geometry. I've tried to illustrate it in the other attached picture. I'm still hoping I can fit a belt that will do the job without changinge the mounting points of the alternator.

Thanks for your lengthy and detailed description of cork gaskets which I'm sure will help a lot of people. I still think Matra should have written a page discussing the sump gasket in the organge supplement for the 2.2.

As we discussed over e-mail a while back, I have decided to try your solution and fit the sump without a the cork gasket or the aluminum spacer which people in Germany are using, only with one layer of silicon sealant. I will do the job once the engine is in the car and I can more easily and safely suspend it from above with the RH engine mount released. In my workshop, the engine was unfortuately sitting on its dolly and not on an engine stand where I could rotate it.

The weather has been too hot for working today, but I have been doing some galvanic derusting of the gearbox linkage parts. I'm rather satisfied with today's result - the third picture shows the zinc paint I used a while back on the top linkage creating ugly bubbles on the surface of the electrolytic water, the fourth the linkage parts as they looked when taken right out of the water, and the last one showing the end result after wire brushing.

Hello Anders,

I originally wondered why you needed to measure for a new alternator belt, as I thought it should be the same as the original, but now I think about it, of course you do not have the water pump pulley any longer.  However, the pulley on this new alternator looks smaller than the original?  Is that correct?  If it is, please be aware that this will cause the alternator to rotate at a higher speed, with subsequent higher wear on bearings, brushes etc.



Cork sump gaskets were fitted on many old cars (and I mean pre-war or fifties cars) when the oil used was not the same as we use today, thicker mono or multi-grades compared to the synthetics we now use.  The sumps were mostly unstressed tin plate just hung under the block with the oil level well below the gasket line; the engines had low pressure oil systems, and the cars were not so fast nor the road holding so good, to create lengthy oil surge on corners.  This gave the cork sump gaskets a much easier time.

The correct procedure for fitting a cork gasket was to soak it in water which made it swell, then fit it and tighten the bolts which squeezed the swollen gasket against the faces and made it seal.

Using oil on a cork gasket is really no good at all.  It won't soak in or make it swell, and it won't form a good seal with either surface, or prevent oil soaking into the cork.

Now the engines also never produced the heat they do today, so although the gasket would slowly dry out it would usually not break the seal and what little oil was thrown against the gasket was too thick to seep through the cork gasket, so there was little leakage.  Plus old cars were almosted expected to leak a little anyway, and the roads were often dirt, and drives were gravel so they absorbed the small leakage without too much problem.

Now consider a modern car, with a much higher oil pressure, and a synthetic oil which does not have the wax content which made old oils thicker, plus higher running temperatures, and you have a different situation where cork really is now an unsuitable oil sump gasket.  Especially in a car like the Murena where you can generate quite some oil surge on cornering!

Add in that the Murena engine and sump have to be rigid together because the power unit is mounted on the sump and gearbox, NOT the block, as with this Simca Type 180 engine in it's originally designed installation in the Chrysler 160/160GT/180, and you can see that the Murena needs a different solution.  If you use an original Murena cork gasket with metal inserts then it needs a small bead of silicon gasket sealer around the edge on both sides of the gasket or any other good gasket sealing compound such as Hylomar etc.  Even then there will be some small leakage where the oil soaks into the gasket and eventually seeps out on the outside!  I have tried a silicon sealer, and Hylomar on different engine builds to see which might be better, but both eventually suffer from a small seepage through the cork, particularly since I always use a fully synthetic oil which is the best oil but will slowly soak into and through the cork.

You stated that you searched the manual for anything about how to fit and seal the sump gasket, but think about it - you won't find anything in any Murena manual!  Why?  Because they never produced a full 2.2 engine section in the Murena workshop manual.  All that was ever provided were some orange supplemental pages about a few things that were different to the engine when fitted in the Tagora (or Chrysler 2-litre/180/160) and since those all had an unstressed tin plate sump hung below a block that was mounted conventionally, it means their gaskets were never subjected to the movement and vibrations that in a Murena will break the seal if the engine is not kept totally solid with the sump.

That is why the spacers were inserted into the cork gasket in the first place - so the bolts could be done up tight and would hold the sump solidly with the engine block without destroying the cork gasket, and prevent movement between the two which will destroy a Tagora gasket in no time.  The Tagora 2.2 engine manual has nothing about sump gaskets obviously because their engine mounting and sump are totally conventional and don't need anything special.  Anything in a Chrysler 160/180/2-litre manual about fitting sump gaskets will similarly be useless for a Murena 2.2 sump gasket.

Maybe now you see why my solution with no gasket and simply silicon sealant is, I believe, the way to go.

Roy

For various reasons my work stalled on the car, but I managed to start progress again recently so here are some pictures. I'm currently working on the engine water pipes to ensure they fit correctly with my electrical water pump installation (I'm struggling fitting the booster pump). I expect to refit the engine in the car sometime next week or the week after depending on the amount of family activities preventing me from working. Vacation time = working time (on the car)  

I generally use 1.5 sqmm og 2.0 sqmm plain copper depending on the load, multi stranded wire, e.g. https://www.vehiclewiringproducts.co.uk/c-48-cables/c-198-single-core-pvc-thin-wall-cable/p-975-25-amp-2mm-sq-28-0-30

I would like to replace some wiring, mainly for the electric windows but since I'm buying wiring anyway I might as well get some extra in. I was told I should make sure it's the correct gauge and I haven't been able to find out what gauge(s) are used...
Also I noticed some available options are plain copper and others are tin plated or something? Is there any advantage or disadvantage there?

I should point out (for all owners) that the brake reservoir cap has two wires to it, one that goes to earth, and the other goes to the warning light on the dash.  So if the fluid level drops below a certain point, the float contacts should join, to earth the system, and bring on the warning light.  Similarly, there is a two wire loom down to the left front caliper and originally you would connect one wire to the pad and the other to earth (there is a tag on the bracket behind the hub).  Now if you are no longer using these wires to the pad, then you could bring that bit of loom back into the front compartment (where it originally comes from) and attach it to the vacuum sensor.  So you don't need to make any wiring alterations at all!

As I stated before, if the pads have the aural warning buttons fitted, then they provide a better more reliable low pad warning, and for all pads not just one or two, simply making a noise as they touch the disc.  They are soft material and won't damage the disc, unlike the steel backing of the pad, which, if you wore the pad down completely and had metal to metal contact, will damage the disc.

Roy

Thanks Roy, I do like the dea of linking it to the test button and hadn't thought of using the brake reservoir circuit! It's almost next to it so will go this route.

The system was designed with a vaccum storage tank and a one way valve, so that the vacuum created in the manifold when the engine is running creates a vacuum in the tank, and providing the system is air tight, it should retain that vacuum for some days without the engine running.  So the first thing is that the one way valve must be in good condition to retain the vacuum side air tight.  I have seen or known of some one way valves that are not sealing and therefore once the engine is not running, the air will simply come back in from the inlet manifold.  In one case, a piece of debris had got stuck in the valve and prevented it from closing.  So first check that the one way valve will open under suction, but close as soon as the suction stops.

As long as the one way valve is good, then the next most likely places for vacuum leaks are the rubber joins in the pipework, and the white shuttle valve at the front.  The rubber joints in the pipework get hard with age, and crack or split, but you can replace these joints with new soft, tight fitting rubber hoses.  The white shuttle valve at the front that controls which side of the double acting servo the vacuum is directed to, is known to leak after some years either because dirt gets in or the valves become gummed up and won't move or seal easily.  Usually I have found a strip and clean should cure these leaking valves, but I know some have had difficulties getting them to work correctly, but now there is another option as a Murena owner has designed a more modern system, which is available through Matra Magic if you don't wish to do it yourself.

Finally, the double acting servo under the front can leak after years of use and normal wear and tear.  It may have a split in the diaphragm or it could be the seal around the lift/lower activating rod.  This should also tell you that the seal for the double acting rod should be a service point that you check and clean occasionally and lubricate to prevent that seal wearing!


Strictly you don't wire it to the test button, you wire a sensor to the warning system, and the test button is simply part of that system.  If you are fitting the vacuum sensor in the front compartment, then you already have a suitable wire to the brake fluid cap, so simply link it there, or use the now unused left front pad warning wire.

If anyone has a Murena with the low vacuum warning light in the instrument panel, which is the early 1.6 cars (and possibly some of the very first 1981 2.2 models, although I'm not sure if they ever had one?) then all those cars need is a low vacuum sensor inserting into the vacuum sysem and connecting to the provided orange warning dash light, to use that already fitted system; but if you have a 2.2 or later 1.6 where that light has been used for the choke warning light instead, then the ideal is to use the red warning light provided for the low brake fluid and low pad material warning, which saves having to fit any additional wiring and an additional warning light somewhere else.

Now, the low brake fluid/pad warning light is also provided with a test button which is to check the bulb is still working, as normally you might never see that bulb lit if the car is used frequently and the system does not leak, certainly not often anyway if the routine maintenance is done and you note visually when the fluid is getting low, alerting you to check for pads nearly worn out, or a potential fluid leak.  However, in the case of a vacuum sensor linked to a warning light, it is probable that the light will illuminate when you first turn the ignition on, if the vacuum has dropped, so that in itself will check the bulb is working.  As you say, when you start your engine, the light comes on, then flickers and goes out, as the vaccum builds.

So if you connect the low vacuum sensor to the low fluid system, (the black & red wiring is for this system) you can use the test button to check the bulb any time as normal, but if you use the provided low vacuum warning light already fitted in the early cars, then there is a simple way to test if that bulb works, assuming the system is air tight and still has vacuum, so the warning light is out when the ignition is turned on.  Simply operate the head lights a couple of times without the engine running to deplete the vacuum in the system!

Roy

Thanks for the input Roy. Couple of questions if you don't mind?
How long should I be aiming for for the system to maintain a vacuum (if I don't use the lights when engine off)?
Would it be prudent to wire it to the brake light test warning button?

Thanks in advance
Terry

Not just German cars as I have seen the sensor fitted to other Bagheera too.

As I have pointed out many times, keeping the head light vacuum system air tight is very important, because any leak into it, means the engine will run weak and weak mixtures can lead to stalling as well as engine damage.

So as I pointed out once before on the forum here, it would be useful if that vacuum warning was still set up, as it could alert you to a fault with the vacuum system and possibly prevent a cracked head.  Since my 2.2 Murena had the choke warning light instead, I had considered getting a vacuum sensor and as it is just an earthing contact to bring on a warning light, I would wire mine to the existing warning light system, as I have already done with the header tank low level float sensor.  So the dash warning light becomes ever more useful as it would then alert me for low brake fluid, or low coolant, or a leak in the vacuum system.

Originally it was also the low pad material warning light, but since only one or two pads out of the eight were connected and they didn't work that well, now that the pads have the aural warning button, that function is better served by that mechanical system which is far more reliable and covers all eight pads.

Roy