Getting ready for the road again

[Anders Dinsen]

My friend Jesper came over to play and work on the engine yesterday evening. We completed removing the cylinder head, moving the cam and followers over to the new cylinder head. Here are some pictures from an evening of fun!

[Murena1400]

Small thing to note, your fuel tank straps are the wrong way around, the short one is supposed to be below, the long one on the top. The rubber cover is actually exposed outwards, so flipped to your current configuration, and protects your hands during engine work.

[Anders Dinsen]

Small thing to note, your fuel tank straps are the wrong way around, the short one is supposed to be below, the long one on the top. The rubber cover is actually exposed outwards, so flipped to your current configuration, and protects your hands during engine work.

Thank you, Youri! You are absolutely right!

After studying the picture you DM'd me, I checked against this wide angle picture of the engine room just after I had taken the engine out.

/Anders

[roy4matra]

Small thing to note, your fuel tank straps are the wrong way around, the short one is supposed to be below, the long one on the top. The rubber cover is actually exposed outwards, so flipped to your current configuration, and protects your hands during engine work.

Thank you, Youri! You are absolutely right!

After studying the picture you DM'd me, I checked against this wide angle picture of the engine room just after I had taken the engine out.

/Anders

Whilst Youri is correct in this case, since this is a 2.2, it should be pointed out for completeness (and 1.6 owners) that on the Murena 1.6 the short strap at the top, is correct!  It appear Matra placed the inner fuel strap joint near the top on the 1.6 as there was plenty of room for access from the top, but then found that on the 2.2 model access from the top was limited and more difficult, especially when twin side-draught carbs. were fitted, so they switched them around and placed the joint nearer the bottom.

Roy

[Anders Dinsen]

The problem with the cylinder head bolt being offset was easily solved once I got the head off the block again. As expected, there was a small lug in the bolt opening which just had to be filed off. This particular head had corrosion around the water channels and was therefore welded for me several years ago at the same time as it had the combustion chambers and ports polished. The head is now back on the block, and I'm preparing for doing a compression test.

Before I get to that I have to finish assembly of a few items and I have a doubt about torque for some bolts and the chain guides.

The upper chain gear is fixed to the cam with three bolts. My German Tagora manual tells me to torque them with the "vorgeschreibten moment", but I can't find the specification in the manual. I have tightenend them "properly" with a short spanner but if there is a torque specification somewhere, I'll use that.

The other doubt is about the exhaust side chain guide. This has rather large bolt holes in it so it can be positioned properly against the chain, but I'm unsure how hard it should push against the chain. The manual, again, is a bit unclear:

"Die beiden Führungsschienen der Steuerkette befestgen, Markierun des Nockenwellenzahnrads zur Markierung des Zylinderkopfs ausrichten, hierzy die Steuerkette in Motordrehrichtung spannen (gespannter Teil der Kette auf der dem Kettenspanner gegenügerliegenden Seite, also an der Geraden Führungsscheine)"

(German is a wonderful language!)

This essentially instructs me to tighten the guides so that the cam is correctly timed, but does not say how tight the chain should run against the guides, i.e. how much play can I allow before I release the chain tensioner to the its work. I know the chain tensioner does the real work to keep the chain tight, but the timing is essentially controlled by the top end of the exhaust side guide and also has an influence on the chain tension.

Should I just tighten it so the timing is right, and be ok with that?

[roy4matra]

The problem with the cylinder head bolt being offset was easily solved once I got the head off the block again. As expected, there was a small lug in the bolt opening which just had to be filed off. This particular head had corrosion around the water channels and was therefore welded for me several years ago at the same time as it had the combustion chambers and ports polished. The head is now back on the block, and I'm preparing for doing a compression test.

Before I get to that I have to finish assembly of a few items and I have a doubt about torque for some bolts and the chain guides.

The upper chain gear is fixed to the cam with three bolts. My German Tagora manual tells me to torque them with the "vorgeschreibten moment", but I can't find the specification in the manual. I have tightenend them "properly" with a short spanner but if there is a torque specification somewhere, I'll use that.

The other doubt is about the exhaust side chain guide. This has rather large bolt holes in it so it can be positioned properly against the chain, but I'm unsure how hard it should push against the chain. The manual, again, is a bit unclear:

"Die beiden Führungsschienen der Steuerkette befestgen, Markierun des Nockenwellenzahnrads zur Markierung des Zylinderkopfs ausrichten, hierzy die Steuerkette in Motordrehrichtung spannen (gespannter Teil der Kette auf der dem Kettenspanner gegenügerliegenden Seite, also an der Geraden Führungsscheine)"

(German is a wonderful language!)

This essentially instructs me to tighten the guides so that the cam is correctly timed, but does not say how tight the chain should run against the guides, i.e. how much play can I allow before I release the chain tensioner to the its work. I know the chain tensioner does the real work to keep the chain tight, but the timing is essentially controlled by the top end of the exhaust side guide and also has an influence on the chain tension.

Should I just tighten it so the timing is right, and be ok with that?

Anders (and any others rebuilding the 2.2)  all the tightening torques have been on my website for years, since the 2.2 engine was not covered in the Matra Murena workshop manual.  However, they are in the Tagora workshop manual.  Take a look in the technical articles menu and webpage and you will find a file there.  Those small 6mm bolts are all quite low and you can overtighten by hand if you have a long spanner so be careful.

As for the chain guides, push them firmly by hand against the chain.  The straight section of chain should be tight anyway if you have pulled the cam around correctly to time the engine.  So push that straight guide firmly against it, 'firmly' here means you are not moving the chain from its already straight line.  As for the curved guide, push that firmly (with the same push as for the straight side) so that it takes all the slack out of the 'return' chain.  Whilst these might suggest the chain will wear the guide faces, in practice once the engine runs there will be a bit of movement anyway, and the faces of the guides are hard and if you examine them now you will see only a small wear marking on them.  Once you release the tensioner that will control any slight movement from the engine running.

If you left the guides not close enough to the chain and the chain was slack, that would actually cause more damage as the chain would be slapping the guide faces.

Roy

[Anders Dinsen]

Some progress made during recent weeks:

• I found the torque numbers, both on Roy's web site and in the manual
• All bolts torqued down as specified
• Cam chain covers fitted. I've used red silicone sealant. Also torqued down as specified.  
• Blanked off water pump housing fitted.
• New inlet and exhaust studs fitted. I found some 7 mm BMW studs which are the same length on the side going into the cylinder head, but a little longer on the outside. Also they have a nice torx head on top to help screw them in  
  
• Crank pulley fitted. That proved impossible to fit at first, but after "baking" in the oven at 160 degrees for 20 minutes, I managed to push it onto the crank a few mm with my hand, and then carefully tap it further down with a piece of wood and a small hammer until the centre bolt could reach the thread. I finally tightened it with my impact wrench.

Next job is to lift the engine off the rig so I can remove the sump, and clean and refit it with a new gasket.

I haven't checked the compression yet as I'm going to wait until the sump is clean and I have new oil in the engine.

I plan to deliver the flywheel to the machine shop for lightening next Friday.

Best,
Anders

[Anders Dinsen]

I had a nice trip to the machine shop and went on to pick up some hoses for the enigne room.

I'm changing a bit due to the electrical water pump and I have worked out how to fit the booster pump that will provide a constantly running flow of water through the thermostat housing, heater, and bypass hose (for warming up the inlet manifold on cars with single carburettors). Since the water pump housing and the pipe on the front of the engine both has 25 mm attachments while the booster pump is only 16 mm, I needed some 90 degrees reducers. I'll post pictures when I get around fitting it in the engine room as obviously I won't fit it until I have the enigne back where it belongs. That is a few months away, I think.

New brake lines shown in the picture.

The machine shop will work on my flywheel now. I've communicated with Roy about how much to reduce it and where. I set a target around 7 kg with the shop, but it's not too important, and we agreed on no extremes. I fitted a new pressure plate on top of the flywheel before taking it to them so they can see exactly where and how much to they can reduce the outer edge. I discussed grinding off areas were the pressure plate is not touching the flywheel with them, but I decided not to as it will become too complicated. So we agreed on only lathe-work and balancing. I'm looking forward to getting back and hopefully getting a chance to visit their workshop shop. It was all very clean and with a few big and beautiful engines sitting inside

Has anyone had expeirence with finding lighter pressure plates than standard? I think the sports clutch available from Politecnic is just harder, not lighter...

Still outstanding is to lift the engine with the crane so I can do the sump and sump gasket and doing the last bits on the engine room, some painting and other stuff. I won't have any more time this weekend, unfortunately...

/Anders

[Anders Dinsen]

It's been a while, but I'm still here

I'm still waiting for the flywheel coming back from the shop. They've been busy with other things, but there's no rush as I'm also busy with other work and hasn't actually worked much on neither the engine nor the car.

Back in November, I listed the sump gasket as my next job but checking the inlet manifold, I realized it needed more work done than expected to adapt it well to the ported head, so I changed my mind about the order of jobs.

This is a manifold I bought and fitted years ago to convert my car back to a twin DCOE setup. It's a copy of the original S-manifold, not a very beautifully made one, but at least it angles the carburettors correctly so I could fit horns and an airbox. It worked well for years, so I'm not replacing it.

My problem, however, is that the inlet ports on the new head are slightly larger than the ports on the old head so the ports of the manifold are too small... While I could technically use it anyway I felt that the two had to be mated as that inlet the ports are so beautifully made. So I always planned to machine the ports on the manifold a bit so that they would fit.

I was not sure, how to do that, though. Machining is easy, but while I can put my fingers down the inlet tubes and feel whether it fits or not, I couldn't figure out how to make a mark on the manifold showing me how much aluminium that had to be removed. Could I make a template from paper cutting out the ports, I thought? I wasn't sure that would be precise enough for what I wanted so I gave up on that. Talking to friends about ones problems is always a good idea though... Jesper suggested I painted the face of the inlet port with something and push the manifold on, and then the paint would make marks on the manifold. Of course, the "paint" would have to be something which was easily removable and would not actually stick to the cylinder head...

Aluminum grease seemed liek a great idea at first: It would wipe off, cause no corrosion, and it always sticks and leaves marks on anything that touches it... Only, in this case it left no mark I could see.

But I found a bottle of liquid bicycle chain wax in my cupboard. "Could it work?" I thought. This type of wax is sticky but much more liquid than grease, and it's also easily wiped off. It was worth a try! I "waxed" the face of the rightmost inlet port liberally, fitted the manifold on the stud pressing slightly with my hands for a few seconds, then removed it.... and yuppiii...! I could clearly see the edge of the inlet port and therefore how much aluminium had to be removed to mate the manifold to the inlet. See the first picture (this picture is showing the second port, of course, I didn't take a photo of my first "success").

I'm performing the "machining" using hand files and paper. It's not a quick job as once the filing starts, the edge of the wax showing how much has to be removed quickly becomes impossible to see. I'm therefore progressing slowly and carefully, but the the two rightmost ports are almost done: They're still not perfectly round and there are clear edges to be felt when mating the parts, but I consider the remaining work "fine tuning". I'm getting there You can clearly see the difference between the size of the two leftmost and the two rightmost ports in the third picture.

Once the spring sets in, I'll be back working on the car itself, but for now this job is keeping me warm in my well insulated shed

[Murena1400]

I spend a lot of time porting, so I do have some advice for doing this nicely.
The easiest way is dying both planes (manifold and head) with machinist dye, and then use the gasket to scribe lines to where material needs to be removed.

If the head or manifold is already larger than the gasket diameter, first mate the gasket to the largest port, and then use the gasket as a template to scribe the lines again.

[Gib]

Andres, On what page are the pictures of the final location of the additional water pump? I can find the first setup but cant find the final.

Thanks

[Anders Dinsen]

Andres, On what page are the pictures of the final location of the additional water pump? I can find the first setup but cant find the final.

Thanks

Here's a picture of the final installation in the front. Full size available here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/adinsen/0yT0mL

I did it a while ago, that's probably why you couldn't find it here in the thread.

Note that the pump is drawing water from the radiator and hence connected to the lower outlet. It is pumping water into the engine through the pipe running under the car and into the original water pump, which has been blanked off.

Also, I've attached a picture of the auxillary pump which will be fitted on the engine. This pump will drive the inner water circuit and the heater matrix. Remember that the original water pump is now just a blanked off housing. I'm not 100% sure the auxillary pump will fit in this location - if not, I'll have to find some other hose bends.

The picture also shows my new alternator. With the originals no longer available, I ended up buying one for the Espace 2.2. I'll add some note on fitting that later as the mounts of this are not identical to the original. I think it will work. The yellow rope was for measuring the lenght of the V-belt needed.

Finally, I'm working on the engine wiring loom according to the diagram I posted earlier. I'm actually done now with the actual wiring, just need to give it a final check and then cover the loom in tape.

/Anders

[Murenanimal]

Looks going well, you are near to the finish.  

My specialized Matragarage "Verhulst/Beveren-Belgium" also mounted on my request an electric fan for our Murena 2.2S for extra cooling.
Reason is, we do very often touristic rally's and have to drive rather slowly all the time, causing the normal waterpump and vent not cooling enough, with risk of overheating the engine.

These came by him installed however UNDER the water expansion tank in the motor-boot of the car.
Next time I control the water- and  oil-level, I'll take a picture of that way of mounting an electric fan.
I am going to prepare this week the car for our first rally.
Regards
Guido (Near Antwerp in Belgium)

[Anders Dinsen]

Looks going well, you are near to the finish. 

My specialized Matragarage "Verhulst/Beveren-Belgium" also mounted on my request an electric fan for our Murena 2.2S for extra cooling.
Reason is, we do very often touristic rally's and have to drive rather slowly all the time, causing the normal waterpump and vent not cooling enough, with risk of overheating the engine.

These came by him installed however UNDER the water expansion tank in the motor-boot of the car.
Next time I control the water- and  oil-level, I'll take a picture of that way of mounting an electric fan.
I am going to prepare this week the car for our first rally.
Regards
Guido (Near Antwerp in Belgium)

Thanks, Guido - still some way to go, though The flywheel is still with the machine shop and I've got a few other small things I need to sort out before reinstalling the engine

Fitting a fan in the enigne room is a solution I have not heard about before. There are several ways to solve overheating problems, but best would be to solve them at the root. When Matra designed the 2.2, I'm pretty sure they knew what they did. No 1 is to eliminate any leaks, a pressure test would be preferable. We also know that some aftermarket water pumps had incorrect impellers fitted causing poor water flow in low revs. This can be checked by removing the water pump from the engine: The vanes should be straight, not curved as explained elsewhere on the forum.

I never had overheating problems with my car though. The electrical water pump I'm implementing will probably be as good and better than the original system, but also is both expensive and rather complicated to install. I'm looking forward to installing it.

A tourist rally in beautiful Belgium sounds wonderful, by the way

/Anders

[roy4matra]

...
My specialized Matragarage "Verhulst/Beveren-Belgium" also mounted on my request an electric fan for our Murena 2.2S for extra cooling.  Reason is, we do very often touristic rally's and have to drive rather slowly all the time, causing the normal waterpump and vent not cooling enough, with risk of overheating the engine.

Regards
Guido (Near Antwerp in Belgium)

Guido, (and any other Murena owner)

I keep having to repeat this but if any Murena 2.2 or 2.2 S is not cooling enough at low revs and/or low speed, or in fact in any conditions whatsoever, then there is a fault with that cars' cooling system!  You may have one of the many faulty cooling pumps that have the incorrect curved vanes - there were many of those sold to unsuspecting owners unfortunately, some years ago now, probably during the 90's.  Or it may be something else like a partially blocked radiator or faulty thermostat, but whatever it is, it needs to be traced and rectified.

No question about it, if it cannot remain cool it has a fault or faults which should be rectified asap.  And if your car is a genuine 'S', they have a slightly larger vent opening behind the RH side rear grill to allow a slightly larger airflow out which should make your car better in the first place.  Any standard 2.2 Murena that has been uprated to twin side-draught carburettors and slightly more power like the 'S' should have that modification done, as described in the Prep 142 upgrade instructions.

However, I have a standard 2.2 Murena which I uprated myself to slightly more power than the 'S' but retained the standard down-draught carburettor and didn't enlarge that opening on my car as I wasn't aware of it at the time.  Nevertheless, my car has never overheated, even including spending 2 hours crawling through London when the ambient temperature was around 35 degrees or another time when travelling slowly in France with the ambient temperature above 35 degrees AND a piece of clear film almost blocking half the cooling radiator (it had got blown or sucked in without my knowledge) and the only indication that it was having a harder time to keep the temperature correct was that the fan was running all the time... but importantly it was coping!

So a modified 2.2 running in high ambient temperature with only half the radiator getting airflow still didn't have any over heating, showing the capability of the Murena 2.2 cooling system if it has no faults.  This is why I am certain that if yours cannot cool at low speed and low revs, then it has a problem, and you should not be fitting an additional water pump to manage the problem.  That is ignoring and by-passing the fault, which will probably get worse, when you should be investigating where the fault is, and rectifying it.

I have had my car from new and I know how good they are, and ignoring any problem just leads to more problems in the end.

Roy