I'VE STARTED SO I'LL FINISH

With the new bearings, piston rings and seals fitted into the 850 block (at last), it was time to pull the old 700cc engine from the Vegemite Special so certain other parts could be swapped over.

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First up were the cylinder-head studs - some of which needed to be repurposed due to a lack of availability. Most came out okay, but I was left needing to track down two of the longer ones. It turned out that these were like rocking-horse poop to source, but eventually a specialist agreed to sell me two from his secret stash.

I then removed the heavily glazed clutch and took off the flywheel, which needed to be fitted to the 850 engine so it could to be mated to the 700’s gearbox. Realising that I should replace the spigot bearing, I suspected something wasn't quite right: the one fitted didn’t match with those listed for sale. James Holland at CHG Classics later suggested it was simply a lump of brass that someone had made fit. Odd, but a proper 700 item was ordered.

This discovery hinted at the engine’s previous treatment — which was confirmed when winding out one of the head studs, only to find a length of steel wire wound around its base in a crude imitation-Helicoil ‘bush-fix’ bid to address pulled threads in the block. The revelations didn’t stop there: when the new spigot bearing arrived, it turned out to be too small for the flywheel, yet it did fit the input shaft on the gearbox. What's been going on?

It could only mean that a past owner had managed to sandwich an 850-spec flywheel between a 700 engine and gearbox, which left me with only two options: either buy a 700 flywheel, or an 850 transmission - and a larger spigot bearing. I found a gearbox locally, but then I happened across a conversion bearing - a spigot bush with the larger external diameter of the 850 flywheel hole, but the smaller internal diameter to suit the 700 gearbox input shaft. It cost £9.99 and seemed like a sensible option, and a day later it was delivered and soaking in an overnight oil bath before being pressed into place.