Bugger - meant to x-post this. [QUOTE="The Older Gentleman"] One of the motiviations for buying that dismantled 400 Four (ukrm/ukrmc passim) was to stash some of the parts away to keep The Doctor's running for ever and a day. And that has indeed been done. I'm looking 5, 10 years down the line here, when components may be *really* hard to find. The idea is simply not to sell it, ever. We'd never find another one as good for the sort of money it cost. Anyway, I've still got the whole bottom end which has (allegedly) been rebuilt with new primary can camchains. Peering in through the crankcase mouth shows a couple of nice shiny chains, so I daresay it's true. I don't really need a spare bottom end, and I'm assuming that its secondhand value is pretty low and it's not the sort of thing one can easily wrap anyway..... I was thinking of using it to practice a bottom end rebuild on. It's not something I've ever done, in all these years, oddly enough. I've dismantled a couple of engines, right down to the last nut and bolt, but never mantled them. Some time when I've got a spare few hours, I thought I might take this down and reassemble it, on the basis that one day I'll have to strip the one in the garage. And the cam and primary chains are definitely worth keeping: 50 quid and 20 quid from Silvers, plus the usual VAT, and 400 Fours do use primary chains, eventually. Am I being a silly bugger? I have visions of me never actually mantling it, and thinks like big end shells being kicked into the dust under the bench.... Has anyone here ever kept an engine (OK, just a bottom end in this case) "to practice on"?[/QUOTE]
