The "If I can do it, you can" thread...

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Hi Greg
Welcome to the site and you've reminded me I need to read Don Quixote again.... it's been a long time, oh and perhaps Tom Sawyer if I want to get someone to work on my car for me :)
Barry
 
tuonokid said:
[post]347600[/post] Hi Greg
Welcome to the site and you've reminded me I need to read Don Quixote again.... it's been a long time, oh and perhaps Tom Sawyer if I want to get someone to work on my car for me :)
Barry
Cheers Barry, and having seen some of your posts I suspect that you can sort whatever required yourself :grin:
 
Hi Greg
Basic motor cars are ok but the Puma is so modern for me!!!!! Well done so far for what you've done, if you need advice you know where to ask.
Barry
 
Fantastic posts Greg, looking at the plugs I would say your Puma is running pretty good, all the plugs look similar colour and colour is itself good. Bit of burning on number 1 but other than that they look reasonably fresh

As for the "gunk" you may find it has accumulated following years of neglect and probably someone power washing the engine bay, I would run it for a while and see if it returns.

Keep it up :thumbs:
 
zinc2000 said:
Fantastic posts Greg, looking at the plugs I would say your Puma is running pretty good, all the plugs look similar colour and colour is itself good. Bit of burning on number 1 but other than that they look reasonably fresh

As for the "gunk" you may find it has accumulated following years of neglect and probably someone power washing the engine bay, I would run it for a while and see if it returns.

Keep it up :thumbs:

Cheers zinc, appreciated :eek:k: as is the info on plugs, bit reassuring (esp. as that first one had cracked too on the ceramic I noticed) ...nothing on my star sign tho? :lol:
 
....OK, imagine the setting...it's early morning, you are only faintly aware of those war drums thundering in the background because your heart is beating so fast that the blood pressure pounding in your ears is drowning them out. With some trepidation you approach the top of the engine to look down and survey your enemy... and there, through the heavy oil mist, laughing at you, taunting you, and generally doing his best to make you think "I want my Mummy"...is RCG!!!! (Rocker Cover Gasket)....Boo hiss....

This is it, this is your moment of destiny, where your new-found sense of purpose will be tested to the core...you are almost paralysed with self-doubt: "I can't do this; I shouldn't be doing this; I'll get the garage to do this; maybe Mum will do this?"

Such thoughts and more will flash through your brain...hold fast fellow novice, quiver ye not as Frankie Howard once advised (or should have ) ...this is where you get magic potion no1 ( http://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?t=9307 ) and simply do an 'Enry Cooper and "splash it all over". Am feelin' a 70's vibe today! :grin:

By following Scuba's excellent guide you will soon find that, for all the intimidating posturing, RCG is, in fact, a bit of a pussy when it comes to removal, which just left a bit of cleaning up to do here:
065 by G Whizz, on Flickr

and very soon he was laid out on my kitchen worktop! Easy, easy, easy! (Ah, 70's Sat telly!) So it was time to start polishing him off...using a bit of wire wool scourer for the heavier bits, then a wipe of WD40:
063 by G Whizz, on Flickr

(Oh, and yes to answer your question, of course my darling is fine with my turning the kitchen into a temporary workshop, doesn't bat an eyelid or mutter a word, she's a complete gem about it! :roll: )

I now decided to strip him of his dignity (well, anything that was stuck to the gasket) to make sure he was going back nice, clean and compliant, and then did the same with the gulley he's housed in. Next, I put a line of the Loctite all the way around the gully to act as insurance given that I was reusing this gasket, even though it was a Ford one.

It was at this point that RCG revealed that he wasn't a stand-up guy; he was no toe-to-toe slugger; nope, the sneaky SOB preferred taking you down for a bit of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and ground and pound!

Oh, oh...suddenly things were not so "Easy, easy, easy"!

Try as I might I simply could not get the gasket back on/in. It now appeared about three-quarters of an inch too small, and every time I got one side or end in, the other would come out. It was like trying to wrestle a lubed-up octopus, and octo' had the Gracie moves not me!!

"That's right fool, I'm a pussy...I'm an octopussy, b'atch!", RCG goaded me with every slippery turn.

I thought maybe an extra pair of hands might help and as I didn't have time to grow them I got the missus in to help (no, of course she didn't mind) but that only resulted in us both ending up far too well acquainted with Loctite.

Now, if there's one thing I cannot stand it's an inanimate object that won't do what it's meant to (especially a lippy, slippy one) and for some reason I find it absurdly infuriating :evil: ; which in turn led me to do what any self-respecting male does in such circumstances, I blamed the missus.

I've come to realise over the years that this is a bit like drinking to forget your problems, you very briefly feel a bit better but it gets absolutely nothing solved and afterwards you just feel rotten on top of your original problem...but knowledge is pretty redundant without application so, very occasionally, it still happens.

Faced with an increasingly irrational me, who by now was not just talking to RCG but ranting at it while trying at the same time to hold it down and kick the cat (well something simply must "pay" this point), missus left me to it as she was off to work, curiously early.

I was now alone, staring into the abyss of defeat, a near-broken hero, chastened by his own hubris at thinking he could ever, ever tackle a task that even Hercules himself didn't attempt... am pretty sure I'm on safe ground with that one; what with him being mythical and motorless.

It was at that exact point, one Planck unit away from defeat, that I was visited by the Motoring Muse (it's the only "logical" reason I can come up with for what I then came up with) who told me to holdfast, that I needed fortitude... Oh, and what I really required was a slow cooker, a set of kitchen knives, several kilos of rice and a chopping board!

No, I wasn't stopping for lunch... this was my mad genius moment!
077 by G Whizz, on Flickr

You may laugh, you may scoff, you may think "Oooh, rice! I'm hungry!" but this actually worked! I kid you not!

Basically, I wiped the gasket and gully to make sure any excess/smeared sealant was dealt with (but leaving enough to seal) and that the flat side (which would be facing down when put back on the engine) was clean so it wouldn't stick to the chopping board and then I get one end in place and started to slide the chopping board along, making sure that as I slid I pushed the gasket into where it should go and also kept adding further weight as it went along.

Huzzah! Having finally shown RCG who was boss, and while waiting for it to set, I made sure sure that the face the gasket was to meet on the engine was clean as a whistle. Some bits are trickier than others to get to, as you can see from this photo I took:
079 by G Whizz, on Flickr

Now, in ScubaSteve's guide, he put more sealant on this face but because of the tricky bits I decided to put it on the flat face of the gasket instead, just be carefull then when you're putting it back on the engine is all.

With that done and all reassembled I quickly popped in the new plugs (potion 2 don't forget) and stood back to admire this:
054 by G Whizz, on Flickr

That's right, it's just another Puma engine bay...but it's my lil' ole Puma, and it's now been serviced by lil' ole me, AND it's had it's rocker cover sorted, by ME!

The same guy who's been sat there all this time, thinking, "I can't do that"... well, as it turns out, I can... and so can YOU!

Novices, get your motoring machismo on and save yourself some moolah!

If you follow the advice and the How to guides I've listed then you WILL be able to do these jobs. I promise. Pinky swear!
I got there, with a just bit of perseverance (ok, and a bit of swearing)...that was all it was!

You didn't reeeallly think it took magic, muses, and beating down a cage-fighting, wise-ass gasket and his mates did you?

:shock:
 
:grin: excellent again! Surely that gasket wasn't oem though, I thought Ford ones sat in properly and you had the short size problem with aftermarket. Doing it this way looks much less frustrating than trying to fit a missized gasket straight on to the head.
 
The Ford gasket is very obliging. It's all "Ooo yes Sir. I'll just sit in this slot and you can pop the cover back on."

Didn't even need any sealant and hasn't leaked since. Or though I have just utterly jinxed that haven't I...
 
red said:
[post]347652[/post] :grin: excellent again! Surely that gasket wasn't oem though, I thought Ford ones sat in properly and you had the short size problem with aftermarket. Doing it this way looks much less frustrating than trying to fit a missized gasket straight on to the head.
The Arch Bishop said:
[post]347653[/post] The Ford gasket is very obliging. It's all "Ooo yes Sir. I'll just sit in this slot and you can pop the cover back on."

Didn't even need any sealant and hasn't leaked since. Or though I have just utterly jinxed that haven't I...

Cheers Red, appreciated! As to the gasket guys, the one I bought came from the local dealer... whatever happened, at least this now seems to have stopped the leaking (fingers crossed)... and I would never have learnt how to do this if something hadn't gone awry... as Johnny Mercer wisely crooned...."you gotta accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative, don't mess with Mr Inbetween! :grin:
 
Brilliant post again :thumbs: :thumbs: love the inventive weights to hold the little bugger in place.

Well done, look forward to more posts
 
I can see this quickly becoming one of my new favourite threads....
 
zinc2000 said:
[post]347688[/post] Brilliant post again :thumbs: :thumbs: love the inventive weights to hold the little bugger in place.

Well done, look forward to more posts
moondustka said:
[post]347695[/post] Excellent :thumbs:
XAF said:
[post]347700[/post] I can see this quickly becoming one of my new favourite threads....

....Ah, cheers guys, I feel like Adele at The Brits :lol:

OK, a couple of quick questions arising from the thread, and my ignorance of course :) Firstly, is this groove on my throttle body standard/normal?
008 by G Whizz, on Flickr

and, secondly, is this belt sitting correctly, or, should it be further to the right where the blue arrow is?
079 by G Whizz, on Flickr

Just looks a bit odd to my, admitedly, untrained eye. :s
 
Hi Greg
Not clear from your photos but generally from what I've seen the cambelt doesn't run right to the back of the sprocket so it should be ok (including mine).
Barry
 
tuonokid said:
[post]347713[/post] Hi Greg
Not clear from your photos but generally from what I've seen the cambelt doesn't run right to the back of the sprocket so it should be ok (including mine).
Barry
Hi Barry, thanks for speedy response...that's reassuring, was just something that struck me when I looked at the photo again earlier, and started fretting... I will get a better night's sleep now :grin:
 
...ok, so now I can turn my thoughts to what next....thinking may have a crack at the st150/170 brake upgrade... might be getting a bit cocky now :lol:
 

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