What did you do to your X1/9 today ?

Finished the suspension upgrade on my '74. KYB struts, lowing springs, needle bearing, reinforcement plates, new top mounts, refurbished everything else.... The only thing I was able to re-use were the plastic ring spring mounts.

Went out for a 2 hour test drive around the local back roads. Rolled over the 1000 mile mark for the season!

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Roy


ps. Is there a tool available to hold the top cone while torqueing the strut nut? I can get it tight but not torqued as per the manual.
 
RoyS said:
Finished the suspension upgrade on my '74. KYB struts, lowing springs, needle bearing, reinforcement plates, new top mounts, refurbished everything else.... The only thing I was able to re-use were the plastic ring spring mounts.

Went out for a 2 hour test drive around the local back roads. Rolled over the 1000 mile mark for the season!

View attachment 67188


Roy


ps. Is there a tool available to hold the top cone while torqueing the strut nut? I can get it tight but not torqued as per the manual.
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Great wheels and an excellent looking car.
 
Dropped my 74 X off it’s jack stands and pushed it out into the sunshine. First time in forty years to be outside. Gave it a bath and pushed it back in the garage.
 

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RoyS said:
Finished the suspension upgrade on my '74. KYB struts, lowing springs, needle bearing, reinforcement plates, new top mounts, refurbished everything else.... The only thing I was able to re-use were the plastic ring spring mounts.

Went out for a 2 hour test drive around the local back roads. Rolled over the 1000 mile mark for the season!

View attachment 67188


Roy


ps. Is there a tool available to hold the top cone while torqueing the strut nut? I can get it tight but not torqued as per the manual.
Click to expand...
You can grab the edge of the cone with vice grips and put some more torque on the nut. There is a factory tool, but I have never sen one in real life.
 
RoyS said:
Is there a tool available to hold the top cone while torqueing the strut nut?
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Yes. And you can make one fairly easily. The cone has a pair of slots on the top edge (see pic below). The tool is like a "spanner" wrench that locks into those slots and has a handle to hold it from turning while you torque the nut. Similar to the tool used to adjust coilover spring perches.

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You might find a common spanner wrench that will fit. They come in various styles. Some are adjustable others come in multiple sizes:
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Or make a simple one, perhaps something like this:
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Picked up my cylinder head from the shop yesterday. No issues found and I could have used it without a skim, which is reassuring. They took 4thou off just to clean the face up, now to clean it all up and rebuild.
 
NEG said:
Picked up my cylinder head from the shop yesterday. No issues found and I could have used it without a skim, which is reassuring. They took 4thou off just to clean the face up, now to clean it all up and rebuild.
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I hope you're taking copious amounts of pictures and planning a Bart video chapter...
 
Started lapping in the valves today, the very first one had issues, exhaust on cyl4, found the valve was off centre. How this cylinder gave me a good cold compression test I do not know. I noticed the issue after i started to lapp it in, only one side of the valve was making contact with the valve seat. I then confirmed it with a roll test on a bit of flat 5mm glass. The head of the valve was off centre to the stem. Shining a led torch up the exhaust outlet I could see light at the valve when it was seated.

Lapping in one side of the seat was making contact but between the black lines it wasn’t:

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tvmaster said:
How often do you change your timing belt, three years?
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recommended service interval is 60,000km for old style timing belts like ours, assuming it's clean and dry, - not oil soaked. If the car does little milage then every 5 to 6 years would be prudent. The sohc would be one of the simpler engines to replace a timing belt on.

60k km would have a built in safety factor of maybe 100%, as I've seen them go 100k km without issues... the most load on the belt teeth is actually on start up, and that's when an old belt usually strips teeth off from around the crank pulley.

More modern cars (like my diesel Punto) have a service interval of 160,000km or ten years.

SteveC
 
I’ve yet to check cyl 2 and 3. The above valve was from cyl#4, it’s not bent as such, the valve head is off centre to the stem.
 
NEG said:
I’ve yet to check cyl 2 and 3. The above valve was from cyl#4, it’s not bent as such, the valve head is off centre to the stem.
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that's what you call a bent valve....

now that you've found that, I would be looking for excessive wear to the valve guide (at least for that valve) by lifting the valve about 10mm off it's seat and then trying to wiggle it from side to side... if it moves excessively (there is a spec for this) then you should replace the guide(s) and at a bare minimum you should be refacing the seats / refacing the valves (and replacing the bent one)

SteveC
 
ok thanks Steve, cyl 2 and 3 seems ok, there seems to be no appreciable wear to any of the exhaust guides and I’ve inspected the valve seats and they all seem in good condition with no pitting. However there is movement on the inlets which I’ll need to measure. It’s slight bit noticeable….hmmm I’m of a mind to get all the guides replaced and the valves TBH….
 
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