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Project Lucas, The Conclusion

The time has come, Lucas has been moved onto a new owner.

No, I know it’s not the outcome most people wanted, but it’s the best outcome for both Lucas and myself. He goes on to a new owner who can take the next steps and look after him, and I get to move on to a new and exciting project and get to stop stressing about having two British projects.

It’s a shame I didn’t get to do another Speeduino install, but that takes a lot of time investment, and I just don’t have the motivation to spend that time on Lucas when I really need to be working on the Marina. I’ll find something to install the Speeduino on, one day; maybe even the Marina.

The new owner is an ex Vitesse owner, who regrets selling his car a few years ago and wanted another SD1; so he knows what he’s getting into, knows the cars well, and is committed to spending the time and money to look after Lucas.

As part of the sale I agreed to include the original 31A engine that came in bits with the car, but I also wanted to include the crank from the old carb 3.5 I removed from the car, as the 31A crank was rusty from being badly stored.

This meant I had to rapidly strip the engine. I didn’t take too many photos because I was working quickly, and it was messy.

The heads come off easy enough. I question if the head bolts were torqued properly though as I could crack the head bolts with a 1/2″ ratchet without much effort. The heads have had work before as they are very clean inside, and the engine had composite head gaskets. They’re good heads, so I’ll try to find a new owner for them before they go to scrap.

The block threads were a bit sad though. This one straight up pulled out of the block

and this one had previously had a stud inserted into it, and a wheel nut used to secure it

I stripped the whole engine down, and if I’m honest, there was no real smoking gun like I was hoping to see, to tell me what was causing the horrible clacking from the engine. Even the cam had all its lobes, and none of the lifters were dished. My only real suspicion is that the timing chain was so loose it was slapping around and making noise.

There was some ugly wear on the main bearings (likely from contaminants in the oil), but they weren’t spun

Thankfully the crank was spotless, so that was removed and put into a box and loaded into the car

And the rest piled up under the bench, waiting for me to hurry up and do a scrap metal run

So with that, it was all loaded into the back of the Rover, and after a week and a bit of waiting for transporters to get their A into G, Lucas was loaded up onto the truck today

and off into the sunset he went

Good bye Lucas, it’s been an adventure.

Now to spend some much-needed time on the Marina, and begin the process of obtaining the next toy.

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