1960 Austin A35 van revisited

It’s cleaned up well.


It does highlight the depth of the corrosion though

Degreased and pressure washed first. Then vapour blast, basically wet glass bead blasting. It does need thorough cleaning afterwards ,but seeing all the freeze plugs are coming out anyway, it wouldn’t be a problem. I have access to a big ultrasonic cleaner so it will all go in there after machine work is finished 

Two of the issues the previous owner of the van came up against need to be addressed

This was the Toyota 4age motor that was in it. Also twincam, marginally bigger than the Suzuki lump, but probably to such a small degree not to make much difference. The one issue I want to address is the clearance,or lack there of,on the intake side. It’s way too close to the inner fender. The other issue is sump clearance.

So this is where it all starts to get very funky. A dry sump will solve the road clearance issues. I have a plan with the head which may or may not work. Time will tell.I need to make some measurements to begin with

At least if fits in the mill because my gut feeling is it’s going to be in their a fair bit 🤣

Spent a lot of time getting the block exactly straight in the mill yesterday, a process hindered by the face I need to run a DTI along being a bit damaged. The mating face where the bellhousing bolts up against, is normally a good machined face to clock straight and use as a reference .

Unfortunately, in this instance there was a steel shim plate in between this face and the gearbox, and through either fretting or corrosion,it’s not the greatest. I then clocked cylinder number four and set this as my zero position on the Cnc mill.

The values in X and Y for this are largely insignificant at the moment as I set a work offset with the centre of the bore now being zero. It is interesting to note that measuring right at the top of the cylinder in the unworn bit shows up the bore to be a fraction of a flea’s ball hair, ( precision technical term), over 74mm. This means this engine has been rebored once in its life already. The bore is knackered, so the one careful lady owner must have had a pair of lead stilletto’s 🙄. It’s not a problem as I have a set of good quality Japanese forged pistons to go in ,which are 75mm.

I then moved over and clocked cylinder number one. These figures are important. The X value will give me the bore spacing, so there is not a lot I can do about that. I want that as big  as possible. The Y value is most important. Ideally I want this to be zero. If the Y value is zero on both bores measured, the block is straight in the machine. To start off it wasn’t, the worn reference face coming back to taunt me. With careful loosening and tapping the block over slightly before retightening, I got it pretty good. Bearing in mind once you have moved the block and retightened it, you need to re clock cylinder 4, set that as zero and then go re clock cylinder one. After a couple of happy taps and one lucky strike( a soft bludgeoning, not a cancer stick), I got it as good as I could wish for.


5 microns over 252mm is about as straight as straight can be. The 252,022mm shows the bore spacing to be 84mm, the 0,022mm ,( 22 microns) being a machining error which is negligible. Well, I hear you ask, how big is a micron? In layman’s terms it’s very simple. We have all experienced microns in our life. After a few adult beverages and a curry the night before, we have all been to the toilet the following morning. Sometimes one gets a little sloppy with the paperwork. Just a tiny amount of sloppy, not chocolate pudding hand sloppy. If you inadvertently bring your hand past your nose before you wash your hands,and get a slight whiff of last nights curry, that’s one micron .

Now knowing the block is exactly straight along the Y axis of the mill, I remachine myself a new reference along the front face of the block for future use .

That done I then spent a bit of time to clock all the holes in the block and use the co ordinates to develop a CAD drawing of the top of the block. Eventually I had this .


The importance of this will become apparent later.The blue bits are going to be important .

This project is going to require some tooling I don’t have,so might as well make the bits I need. It will involve a bit of aluminium welding. I could go buy an AC/DC Tig machine…again, but quite frankly it probably wouldn’t be my best option. I need to lay down a fair amount of material prior to remachining. Quickest way to do that is with a mig welder using argon gas, preheat the part, weld and cool down slowly. My Kemppi inverter welder will handle this from the electron side of things. The only issue I have is being able to feed the soft aluminium wire. Spoolguns for this are available, but decent, read non chinesium carp ones are the best part of £1000. So, I have decided to make one instead. A bit more involved that the bought ones in that it will use 6 wheel drive. The main reason for this is I want to make it a dual purpose feeder that I can use for feeding laser welding wire as well, which is notoriously difficult to do given it’s normally at least half the thickness of mig welding wire. With the multiple roller set up, I can ensure smooth feeding and minimal wire distortion as you don’t rely on heavy pressure between the guide wheels to ensure a steady wire feed.


A raid on the useful one day box yielded some parts. More parts ordered and some of the initial CAD work is done. For a sense of scale,the purple wire drum is 98mm diameter.


It’s a bit of a juggling game to get it all in. Had an idea after I had drawn this up so that CAD drawing is going to evolve into the 2.0 version. Now waiting on the Postie….

Me too - thanks for taking the time to post up.

I've never used a mill, now I'm thankful I never had to.

Really grown to love this inverter welder. Its synergetic programs are really good. Won’t be a problem with welding aluminium with it…apart from it’s one draw back ….
The torch is hardwired in. So that would rule out the use of a spoolgun. However , the folk at Kemppi have thought of this ,and, for more of a wallet lightening, you can get a euro torch connector to suit. Having looked for a generic one for ages with no luck, I resigned myself to having a new one ripped, so ordered the parts required
So that lets me remove the hardwired torch and gives me a euro torch connector on a flexible stalk. That in turn gives me the freedom to run whatever torch or spoolgun I want. There is a bit of wiring modification to make it spoolgun compatible, but pretty basic stuff.

It will all become clear as we go along .

I had to do the same with SWMBOs Cebora/Snap-On Mig. Bit fiddly on the wiring and install front, but it's made a world of difference and certainly wouldn't go back.