Great weekend got all the carb refurbs done and put them back on the engine. Things moving along nicely. Then I saw Classic Cars magazine had an article on £15,000 fantasies and the Urraco is included. It's Ant Hawkes car that is featured so I ploughed through the article with excitement until the part about Urraco's smoking a bit because they are not fitted with valve guide seals.

OMG MINE IS. When I bought the full engine gasket kit from EVANS it had a set of valve guide seals with it. Now this is interesting because when the shop tried to fit them on the guides that EVANS also supplied they wouldnt fit. I rang George and he told me that the guides were unfinished and needed to be cut down to fit the seals. Some of you may remember I trooped all the way back to Surrey to the Head shop and borrowed their cutter. So the seals then fitted and all is well.

Except I am now very worried! What lubricates the valve in the valve guide. If the engine is designed to run without seals will they sieze up through lack of lubrication if the seals are stopping the oil from getting into the guide or will just enough oil get through to keep things running smoothly. Am I going to have to take the engine all apart again and take the seals out????

Maybe the seals are an after market improvement. I am running my mind over the other engines that I have built as to what lubricates the valves in the guides on others as they have no direct lubrication.

 

To answer my own post the valve guide seals are an after market addition and with the phosphor bronze valve guides and the correct 0.002 clearance between guide and valve they will not seize as they need hardly any lubrication. Up side is that the engine will burn much less oil than the standard P250S engine that has no seals.