1935 Jowett Weasel

Ouch! As you say, doesn't look good.

On the plus side at least it wasn't while you were there!

Funnily enough I was "planning" to rebuild it over winter, just not that side of Goodwood! This has just forced my hand.

So the strip down revealed the following
Firstly broken piston, split in to several pieces. On further inspection I discovered the pistons had infect been put in the wrong way around with the "Front labelling" positioned on the reverse side, now I'm not an engineer, but this is believed to be for thrust side to move down the barrel and not the split side of pistons. I'm sure others will know. Unfortunately it also took quite the gouge out the bore, which being at +40 already, the max bore recommended although you can go out to +60 thats when things get a bit thin!


Another discovery the bits of piston I thought had bent one of the baffle plates which sit behind the barrel. This was the case on one side, a home made aluminum effort was bent in towards the crankcase. However the other side was completely missing, casting lug and all! I thought it had broken off, but it turns out it was missing completely.


Taking more of it apart it surprisingly stripped down fairly well. Even the flywheel came off without too much of a fight.   Though lots of things loose and not quite right. The camshaft sprocket usually a tight fit on the cam, pulled off with a little bit of leverage from my fingers. The crankshaft sprocket was not completely sitting flush on the crankshaft.



I'm looking forward to the rebuild.

I've been trying to track down the "good" bits for rebuilding and reassembly. The White metal bearings are going to probably the biggest outlay, I'm not looking at much change in my pocket once back together but the road miles I'll have with it, it is worth doing. So far I've been trying to track down pistons to go with another set of Barrels. I have spare barrels which are from the later 8hp models. So to make these go with the crankcase it will need to be machined out to take the bigger bore. It might give me slightly more un noticeable grunt!

The camshaft that came out was looking in pretty good order though I've been told an early "Bradford cam" might also give it a smidge more performance so I'm investigating that at present. So there will be more photos to follow shortly.

The aim is to get it running as best as can be,  it would be nice to give it more pep,  ideally while its out. I'd like to attempt to put it back to twin carb which would be a nice addition!