Going a head....

I received the engine gasket package from John Wearing's in England, so have reinstalled the oil pan and the cylinder head.

Engine cleaning continued...

Still slow progress on the engine cleaning and reassembly. I did clean up the upper end of the engine as much as possible with spray on degreaser and brushes. The exhaust valves should probably be removed and cleaned up, but that job is just a little bit beyond my skill and equipment level, so I will reassemble as is and hope that the surface rust burns off.

Next job was a thorough cleaning of the lower end, including the thick gunk in the oil sump, and disassembling the oil pump for cleaning. The good news is that there did not appear to be any metal shaving in the oil sump gunk, which continues my optimism that I can reassemble it and get a running engine without major overhaul.
I have ordered a set of engine reassembly gaskets from John Wearings in England, so will proceed with reassembly when I see those.

I bought myself this interesting book for Christmas with the gift certificate from grandkids. Thanks guys!

 Pulled the car out of the  garage to clean the engine bay to prepare for eventual installation. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the rather dirty mess rinsed right off! It appears to have just been heavy dust... no idea how it got on there.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

REALLY GETTING INTO MY WORK!

HMMM,  WHATS THAT FOR?

Head's Up!

It took me a while to get the head off the engine, partly because of the holiday season and partly because I was trying to get it off with three of the bolts still on it! Makes it a bit tricky.
As per photos, things look a bit messy in there, especially cylinder #3. I am sure glad I pursued getting the head off.
I will clean it up as much as possible, and then check out the rings etc. Valve job? Dunno yet. Will take a good look. Of course the exhaust valves on the P4 are in the block rather than in the head, so not so easy to ship out for a valve grind.

Engine cleanup

Todays project was cleaning the engine. It took a bit of time to close up the various exposed orifices, and then some scrubbing and degreaser.
It is looking better, but not sure if it is clean enough to hold a coat of paint.

Getting down to business

I'm now ready to really get into the nitty gritty of this restoration. But where to begin? I managed to talk my wife into buying me a great Christmas present, an engine stand found on Craigslist in Sechelt. It took a bit of jimmying to get it hooked up, but it is now ready to go.
I'll begin with a cleaning of the outside of the block, head and valve covers, then will disassemble it enough to assess whether or not it needs a complete rebuild.
Being a bit of the impatient sort I tend to go with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" line of thinking. On the other hand, it would be rather annoying to install the engine, fire it up, and discover blue smoke billowing forth from worn rings, oil seals or valve guides.
Will keep you posted.......

Treasure trove!

It was a very busy Autumn for me, and so I'd had the car a couple of months before I git around to opening the trunk (boot). When I finally did, I found a treasure trove of very good, not so good, and rather useless bits and pieces.

Some useful.....

 Some not so useful....

Some quite remarkable bits of trim....

How did this all fit in the trunk of a Rover P4?....

But I did finally get a good look at how ready the interior is for an easy cleanup...

A new garage for the white Rover

OK, so now I was faced with the dilemma of needing the garage to rebuild the black '53 Rover, so where to keep the white one? We did have an old garage tent affair off of our driveway to store Michelle's now sold VW Westfalia, but it was smushed by a tree that some idiot felled onto one end of it. (I wonder who?)
So, we decided to make a more proper job of it with a platform of gravel and a new tent.
With a few yards of crush rock, and a couple of hours of work from our neighbour with his backhoe, the '56 Rover P4 90 is snug as a bug in a rug!