Austin 12 Ascot restoration

I've been helping a friend rebuild his 1937 Austin Ascot, we got the car looking really nice and last weekend he tried to take it to it's fist show at event city in Manchester but unfortunately it didn't make it, he told me the radiator had blown but when I got to the car the day after I suspected it was more than the radiator.

Anyway a few pictures of the car and then I will show you what we found today.

When I went to look at the car last week we took the radiator off the car as it clearly had a small hole in the top, we also took the dynamo off to be tested as it was only giving out 3.6 volts, then on Friday I went to put the radiator back on and the dynamo, it was while trying to put the dynamo back on that I found I couldn't turn the engine over by hand with the fan belt and suspected it had seized.
We left the engine with some diesel down the plug holes and today I went and stripped the head off the car.

While I was taking the bottom hose off the car I noticed a lot of rusty coloured sludge in the engine block where the bottom hose fits, I had had nothing to do with the engine side of things as it had been rebuilt professionally and had no reason to suspect anything but it looks like Alan has put the radiator back on without flushing it and maybe blocked the coolant ways or at least that was my first conclusion.

Anyway today we took the head off.





Obviously something seriously amiss so we gently rocked the car backwards and forwards with it in gear to see if we could free the seized piston and after little while we got some movement.

So with the engine free it was time to take the sump off and disconnect the conrod from the crankshaft and push the piston out of the head with the conrod still attached, well that didn't work because the bearing cap is wider than the bore hole so it had to come out from underneath.





Now at first I had convinced myself that it was due to overheating that the engine had seized but now I am not to sure because the Piston is really stiff on one side of the gudgeon pin but not the other and I'm wondering now if this was the cause of the failure or as a result of the failure because looking at the damage to the piston and the bore it looks like the piston has been going up and down unevenly because it couldn't move freely on the gudgeon pin.

It has only done around 20 miles since the full engine rebuild and if it was just a seizure through lack of water I wouldn't have expected to the type of damage I am seeing, I'm going to tell Alan to go back to the engine shop and show them the damage before deciding what to do next.

We managed to find a place called Alderton Austin services that could supply us with a 40thou oversize piston for £50 plus delivery, this was better than the £360 for four new pistons and would allow some leeway for other unknown repairs.

So today we took the engine out and the piston was delivered, what was unusual about the piston is that it has a split all the way from the bottom to the base of the top set of rings, I can only assume it is for expansion and contraction being as this engine doesn't have a water pump.







So we are waiting for the machine shop to bore out the number 4 cylinder to 40thou oversize and then we can refit the engine.

It now seems all the water jacket throughout the engine and block is blocked with rusty crud for want of a better word and I have googled for a way to get rid of this and found that the best way seems to be vinegar, so once we get the engine back we will ensure all the water jacket is clear.

First chance I've had to look at your posts since you contacted me about the sunroof. I shall be taking my sunroof to a local fabricator tomorrow to see what they can do to help. Your blog is really useful to me as I will soon be starting on my own engine and hopefully won't experience the same problems you and Alan have had. 

The finish on the bodywork and interior is awesome. If I can get mine somewhere near that I will be well pleased.

Kind regards

Steve F.