vauxhallviva.com

I love reading good real life stories about the trials of getting back on the road, having taken 35 years getting mine there!. This car looks a real gem and i would be very pleased to own it if it was mine. Keep the updates flowing with plenty of pics....we love pics..

Your membership will be in the post Monday and I have authorised your request for the members area - so you will be full signed up as soon as it all gets processed. Good look with the re commissioning and hope to see you at the VBOA National Rally mid July.

That's one of the best colours on a Viva

I had a 4 door 1800 SL in that colour,but was rotten so used the running gear in my 2 door 1300L.

One issue I had was the inlet port on number four cylinder was choked up with carbon,
I couldn't get my little finger in there,it was almost closed up.

Had to get a headset and do a decoke,ran much better then.
Had a hell of a job getting all the carbon out,it was like coal mining.

I my experience the 1800 is a smoother running engine than the 2.3 too.

Best of luck with your project

Be extremely careful when fitting that cam cover. Check that the bolt holes are not deformed and that the gasket face is perfectly clean and true. The opinion on whether to stick the gasket to the cover or cam carrier is divided but use a good quality silicon sealer and let it set properly. Sticking to the cover is easier as you can hold it in place with clothes pegs while it sets.

Some people make up 'spreader plates' to spread the load of the bolts along the cover others just take their chances, but when you tighten up the bolts the tendency is to over tighten. This will compress the gasket directly under the bolt and bend the metal cover, allowing the gasket to de-compress under the rest of the cover = leaks...serious leaks!

At this point you have the gasket stuck to the cover, some people add sealer to the cam box mating face and then fit the cover, some people prefer to leave it sealer free to allow the gasket to come off cleanly with the cover and be reused.

Tighten the bolts hand tight using a socket only, without the ratchet attached. I usually fit an extension to the socket and use it like a screwdriver and tighten the bolts as tight as can by hand. Ckeck the bolts after a few miles and hopefully it will be leak free.

Whatever you do don't tighten it so much as to deform the cover around the bolt holes. As I mentioned, simple 1mm thick spreader plates about 30mm long, instead of washers, will make a big difference, make right angled ones for the corners.

Looking good. A nicely tidied up engine bay makes any car look so much better. I like the way you're not going for bright non standard colours but keeping it subtle.

Speaking of using non standard colours, I do have a spare light blue 8mm Accuspark silicone ignition lead set if you're interested. Just like to one I've used on my engine. For some reason I bought 2 sets, must have forgotten that I'd bought the first set and then bought another.




I think the other set have straight connectors at the distributor cap instead of angled.

WOW!!!!!

Site admin please remove the F**D picture ........
Actually its a nice clean job.

The slant 4 needs an oil that will hold at least a 50 grade at extreme temperatures, does not suffer from polymer shear and will protect against steel to steel contact, eg the valve gear. Emissions regulations over the years has meant that certain additives have been reduced or removed altogether, resulting in lower shear temperatures in mineral oils and reduced steel to steel protection. Modern engines use synthetic or semi synthetic to over come the shear problem and designers have a better understanding of metals and design techniques to reduce wear in metal to metal contact.

Using a standard modern mineral 20w50 oil in a slant 4 is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. First of all it will 'shear' at normal running temperature because the slant 4 runs relatively high oil temperatures as standard and secondly modern mineral oils don't have enough zinc (ZDDP to be more precise) to protect against wear. Modern mineral oils which are described as 'Classic' generally have an increased zinc content.

Once the shear temperature of an oil has been exceeded it will never maintain it's viscosity again and needs to be changed. The shear resistance is also progressively reduced by the repeated high temperatures and it's ability to maintain viscosity gets progressively lower each time it heats up.

When I first ran my engine I used Comma Classic 20/50 mineral oil without a problem until the hot day I stood in traffic. No problems with oil pressure while the engine was running but I pulled into a filling station, stopped the engine and restarted a few minutes later, you guessed it....no pressure. The shear temperature had been exceeded, although I didn't know it at the time. All was OK when cooled down but from then on if I stopped the engine and restarted shortly after it took a while to build pressure. I had only covered about 1200 miles on the oil.

After some research and a chat with Comma engineers I swapped over to Comma 5w50 fully synthetic motorsport oil, problem solved. After further research and a chat with Millers I realised that the Comma oil has too little zinc. A swap to the cheaper Millers 20w50 semi synthetic Motorsport oil that a friend used in his rally Magnum was recommended and it has proved to be very suitable.

I also run as Morris Minor Traveller and have used and will continue to use a 'Classic' mineral oil in that engine as it is perfectly adequate. It's the slant 4's inherently high oil temperatures that needs a modern semi or fully synthetic oil with adequate zinc to keep it right, and the Millers product seems to fit the bill nicely.

Good choice in my opinion.

Millers have changed the name and packaging recently. It's now called Millers Classic Sport 'Pistoneeze' and is now available in a 20w60 as well as the 20w50. I was chatting to the local Millers rep at a show a couple of weeks ago and we agreed that the 20w60 oil would be overkill on a road going Slant 4 but certainly worth considering on a competition engine.

They also now produce a fully synthetic 20w50 called Millers High Performance Classic Sport 'Pistoneeze'. It's quite a bit more expensive and probably not really necessary on all but out and out competition Slant 4 engines.

Looking very nice!

Coming together very nicely.