Twinspark Racecar Rebuild

Giulia Super Engine Rebuild

With the car clean, we proceeded to pull the engine and transmission. This was done less because I thought there was a problem, and more because I was feeling a little guilty; it had been three years since anyone had checked the bearings in the engine, and longer since the clutch disks had seen daylight. After meticulously cleaning the outside of the engine and tranny (ugh, more cleaning), I pulled off the oil pan. After de-torquing a rod cap, I winced, held my breath, and lifted off the cap, to find... a perfect rod bearing. Rapid repetitions resulted in more good news: all the engine bearings were in perfect shape. The tri-metal, gray-colored layer of bearing material was completely undamaged. Great!

Reassembling the engine, I turned to the clutch, which is a Quartermaster dual-plate clutch with tiny little disks (about 6 inches in diameter). For racing it is a great clutch, with very abrupt take-up and almost no room for slipping. Unbolting the pressure plate, I looked in to find... a giant mess. This clutch was toast with asbestos jelly. After cleaning out mounds of ground up clutch material (ugh, more cleaning!), I found that, while the clutch disks were junk, the friction plates upon which the disks act were salvageable. In the end I resurfaced all of the metal friction surfaces by hand on a surfacing plate (what else?) and purchased new disks (unplanned expense #1).

William and I put the engine and tranny back into the car in September. After dealing with the confusing array of wires, dry-sump hoses, and bolts, we eagerly turned the engine over for oil pressure. Which we got - along with a strange popping noise. "RrrRrrRrrRrPoprRrrRrrRrrRrPoprRrrRrrRrrRrPop..." Not good. It was coming from the transmission.