Nb's 850 R-esurrection thread

[nobananas]

Well, yesterday I went and looked at Nervys 850 R. As per my siggy I have been looking for a black 850 R manual for a fair while now but they have either been too far away, way too expensive or quickly swiped and broken by the vultures ! Nervys motor looked fairly sorry for itself, it's head in the boot, it's bonnet bearing the scars of an automotive equivalent of a face palm and the interior showing all of it's 170,000 miles !. We've all been there, your head screaming 'walk away, nooooo !', but your hearts going 'buy it, buy it, buy it !' , well my head lost so buy it I did !. It isn't here yet, just waiting to hear from my local 'bloke with beaver-tail van' to see when he's going to collect it. If it's okay with you guys I will update this thread as I start getting it back in shape, it will not only help keep me motivated but also allow Nervy to follow it's progress as I think he's going to miss it !

[nobananas]

Well the R arrived this morning on a low loader and is tucked up into my yard, (my old T5 is eyeing it up very suspiciously !). I will have a good snout about the engine this weekend and clean and grease the bores a little as they are starting to rust. I'm hopeful that I can save and use the existing engine as the bores looked pretty good wear wise so should just be a case of stripping down the head and getting it re-faced (and I will likely get the valves and seats re-cut) then I will compile a bit of a shopping/begging list that hopefully some of you guys can help with to get the body and interior into shape. I realise that this will probably turn into a project thread so mods please feel free to move this into the correct area.

[nervy]

I'm really looking forward to hearing more on this!

[nobananas]

I'm really looking forward to hearing more on this!

Don't worry Nervy, it's coming along, the heads stripped down and will be heading off to the machine shop later this week for a reface and valve and seat recut then I've just got to play 'beat the weather' to get it back together !

[T5frankie]

its all about photos

[nobananas]

its all about photos

You're absolutely right Frankie, been meaning to take some for the last few days but it keeps going all dark by the time I remember !. Will get some up this week though, I promise !

[nobananas]

Well I beat the moon and got a few pics this evening.



As delivered, haven't even got around to taking the stickers off yet !



One side of the bonnet 'face palm' anyone got a good one in black ?



Interior has certainly seen it's fair share of posteriors !



Creepy, it's headless ! The bores seem pretty unworn so hopefully I can save the engine rather then just swap it.



It's all in there, somewhere !



Nervy was lucky that the boost pipes stayed on !



Head in the shed, stripped and ready to go. When I was younger I would have re-ground all the valves by hand, I'm old now so nuts to it I'll pay someone else !



Old but working T5 turns it's back in disgust at new not-working R (do you think it knows it's days are numbered !)



errm....yeah.....I'll get on to that one later !

[nervy]

This thread makes me happy. Thanks NB.

[nobananas]

Just thought I'd post an update as over a month seems to have gone by without me noticing. The heads been away and had a reface and all 20 valves and seats have been re-cut and cleaned up.



Then I spent several evenings grinding the inlet ports to match the inlet manifold gasket....



...and then the inlet manifold has then been matched to that



Then the throttle body end has been taken out to match the 3'' throttle body (thanks for the TB claymore !)



...and with the throttle body mounted with the butterfly removed (throttle body yet to be cleaned up !)



None of this is ground breaking or particularly difficult but it doesn't half take a while. I'm deciding now whether to to the same job on the exhaust side, it would seem daft not to as it's probably of more benefit then doing the inlet but I'm also worried how long I'm taking 'faffing' with things (as the missus would say !). I also found out today that the house I've just moved into will probably need re-roofing which is a kick in the happy sacks I could have done without !

[M-R-P]

Keep it up mate, A nice, fresh project to follow

[Tomcat]

You finaly got one!!!!....took you long enough lol... Look forward to reading this with interest, I'm going to try my damdest to get another T5-R, I miss my black one sooo much.

[nobananas]

Right, thought I would just update my thread as it has been soooo long !. I meant to get tons done over the Christmas holiday period but I wasn't well so very little got done. Since then I have done a little port matching on the exhaust ports and manifold and spent ages cleaning up the head and removing the swarf. The heads back together now and bagged up ready to fit and I have been spending some time cleaning and attempting to polish the cam cover (I am a bit of a clean freak when it comes to engines !). I have now turned my attention to the 16t turbo and have stripped it today and started cleaning up the core ready to rebuild with a new kit. I will also now be getting side tracked again as I have decided to do some porting on the turbo housings before it gets reassembled (I really should stop looking for things to do and get it done and running !). My missus goes in for a fairly major operation on March 4th and I have had to take two weeks off work to look after her (she will be off work for best part of 3 months !) so hopefully I may get time to get the head back on whilst I'm off !

[woody]

Keep plugging away mate. Well done so far.

[nobananas]

Time for a quick update. The turbo's rebuilt and with the better weather arriving I've managed to get outside a bit to clean up the block that's still in the car. I've also completely removed all of the air-con system including the pipework and was going to remove the condenser but someone had beat me too it ! (that explains why the rubber hoses had been cut !). What it doesn't explain however is why the radiator and intercooler weren't attached to anything but left hanging off the pipework. I removed both and the mounting bolts and rubbers for the radiator are also missing and the fan was only held into the shroud by the odd screw. It took me a while to make up some new bushes and get the intercooler held securely to the rad before putting it all back in. I'm starting to uncover more bodges and missing bolts etc the more I work on this motor and it's all making me a little nervous as to what on earth has been going on with it in the past !

[Tomcat]

Nothing worse than trying to figure out someone elses bodges, glad youre managing to make progress though, look forward to MORE PICS and updates mate.

[nobananas]

Well got a few things done today so thought it time for an update. Rebuilt the turbo a few weeks ago and did a little light porting on it, first the hot side

Before



After (and believe me those sheared studs were a nightmare to drill out !)



Now the compressor housing
Intake port (with unmolested 15g housing shown for comparison.)



Outlet port




Then today I thought it about time I stop mucking about and actually get the head back on !
I washed the engine down the best I could and I have had the Rad and intercooler out and flushed the oil and crude out of the intercooler then had to join them back together (the brackets down the side had de attached)



I've managed to tidy up the extremely dodgy brake pipes that were just looped from the ABS unit to under the car and were rubbing on the ARB and gear cables(still don't know why they were replaced as they are copper/nickel as standard on 850's)
Before as found.



..and after a little re-routing



This is one of the problems with putting an engine back together that you didn't take apart, I always keep the fittings for each component with that component but on this one all I've got is this !



With a bit of a yelp of pain (my back and hip are a bit knackered !) I managed to heave the head on and got it torqued down.



I decided to refit the exhaust manifold and turbo before dropping in the cams and fitting the cam cover simply because there may have been a little more room down the back with them off (debatable !) So first to go one was my freshly painted (well freshly painted about 2 months ago !) manifold.



...and then just remained to squeeze the turbo down the back and bolt it up (apologies you will have to turn your head a bit for some reason photobucket won't link a rotated piccy !)



I haven't connected up the oil and coolant lines yet because my back was screeeeaming (jeez I need to get that sorted !) but hopefully that will get done tomorrow along with the fitting of the cams etc.
I originally was supposed to have this on the road by the beginning of May as that's when the MOT ran out on my T5, this has obviously been and gone but luckily the old T5 passed her test so the pressure is off (a bit !)

[AndysR]

Nice work! Well done for going at it even though your back was giving you grief!

[no1tosh]

awwwww you lucky §§§§§§, a black R wagen my fav.

looks like it coming on nicley

[WOODY T5]

That R should look and go very well keep up the good work mate

[nobananas]

Got a bit more done today. Hooking up the oil and coolant lines up to the turbo was SO much easier on my old T5 with the engine out on the bench as was re-fitting the turbo heat shield (who the hell designed that thing !) took me till lunchtime just to get that done ! Then finally got the cams back in and the cover sealed down (don't have the correct tool so had to pull all the 10mm bolts down a tad at a time !)



Then used my very home made cam timing tool to time up the cams and fitted the belt.



I fished the cambelt upper cover from amongst the rest of the shrapnel in the boot but was a little concerned at what I found

These are the mounting holes in the upper cover




The cover has basically melted where it contacts the cam-cover, this is not good as it means that the engine has been b@stard hot !. This is starting to give me 'the fear', the previous owner said that prior to selling the car the temperature had got hotter than normal and he had keyed it off to prevent it from overheating and that this was caused by the poor fitment of the radiator by the local garage (it was hanging off admittedly). He then had the head pulled but couldn't afford to have it replaced. Now I didn't find any evidence of head gasket failure but I'm starting to worry about the condition of the bottom end.(the severely rusty oil filter also doesn't suggest it was particularly well cared for !) The car was also MOT'd a month or so before I got it but just removing the front wheel to pull the crank pulley I have seen that the outer C/V boot it torn open, the rack gaiter is split and the track rod end boot is also split, all would be failure points (hmmmm !). Won't know the state of the engine or box till I turn the key, fingers crossed I'm just being paranoid !