Monday 4 June 2012

Milling the top of an Imp engine block yourself

The idea to save the 998cc block was on that could either work or fail, given my time to myself was free and the parts were paid for, what can I loose? Three main issues were obvious, the steel liners no longer fitted the holes they came out of (numbered with a black felt tip pen) the top landing of the block needed machining flat and I needed to see if the block was flat or twisted?

I decided that taking it one job at a time was the best way to start, cleaning the top of the block would be my first task.


I wanted to use a large Makita router and a 13mm milling bit, tools in my workshop and right for the job.  The board under the gasket is 32mm MDF (supawood) and was perfect for using as a bolted down template on the top of the block. The gasket was the template for the cylinder head bolts I needed to use. The MDF in 32 mm was in stock, you could use thinner but the thicker will give better results due to its stiffness.


Drilled through with a 10mm twist bit, when vacumed clean we were ready for the next stage.


It is now jigsaw time, after setting out where the welds needed cleaning up, I could drill the cutouts corners and then saw the hole free.


Template and block are about to be bolted together after this stage.



When the template and block were together, the welds were seen to be accessable, the idea was then to mill the weld away with the milling tool.

Continues in part three.

Roy