AFTER

Sadly, this is BDC (Before Digital Camer) shot, so I've no BEFORE shot to offer, which is sad because there was no sign of blue on the head, there was no NVA, the prop driver had been gripped in vice-grips in an effort to un-screw it (it's splined), thus removing most of the prop driver and as an ultimate insult, the crankcase had been crushed in a vice, both across and below the lugs. Internally, the con rod had been bent into a question mark shape and finally broken by tightening the compression to lock the engine against rotation, then trying to unscrew that perky drive washer! In short, and to use a good Australian technical term, the motor was completely buggered.

But I wanted a Blue Head (had one in a Kiel Kraft Spectre in 1959/60, I think), so the head got skimmed and re-anodized. The crankcase got panel beaten by turning an undersize screw-in plug, gently bashing away with a little brass hammer until it looked round, then unscrewing the mandrel to "restore" the thread. Must have worked as the backplate screwed right in and does not leak! Another needle valve assembly was made along with a new drive washer, which was pressed back onto the cranshaft spline (who ever heard of a screw-on drive washer?).

The case had the ultra-sonic cleaning job done and with everything re-assembled, it certainly looked ok-ish. This engine is the mate to my other Taipan 1.5 cc and for all the butchery the engine has suffered, the piston and liner look ok, so given a con-rod, it should run.

At the time this page was first written, I'd decided that if I could not get the actual rod length, I'll make an educated guess Real Soon Now. Before that happened, I lucked on to a complete engine, with only a few multi-grip marks in the cooling head. This gave the dimensions for the conrod, and for the split thimble NVA. The CAD drawing of the latter is presented here in reduced size, but it may help other Taipan restorers.