llessur

Thanks Nigel, reply is much appreciated. As long as this profile is an improvement, however small, on the original I guess I'll live with it. I just didn't want to go backwards. I did tell the company I wanted to reprofile to the 308778 specs and they seemed to give the impression they knew what that entailed. In hindsight I should have been more specific about the exact specs I wanted. You live and learn I guess... It's not as if I can send it back to be reprofiled again so my options are limited really. The car will mainly be used for cruises to the beach, drives through the wine regions etc and won't really see much in the way of speed so top end performance isn't really that important to me. Hopefully if I can get the carbs and ignition set up 100% right then it should be fine for my needs.

Any thoughts on this camshaft profile for a stock rebuilt 2500 S engine which will be running on twin SUs? I sent my 307621 for a regrind but the specs on what's come back doesn't seem to match the profile I expected. From what I can find online it's closer to the 311399 camshaft profile. Paperwork says it's a Wade profile 0480B but I can't find any details about that. I admit camshafts and timing boggle my mind somewhat so I'm not sure whether to kick up a fuss about this or whether to just fit it and forget about it. I'm not a particularly spirited driver but obviously don't want to go through the hassle of an engine rebuild to end up driving around in something unnecessarily asthmatic.

Thanks all, some good points there. I might have a sneaky look over the Jaguar zone in my local breakers (they're really organised over here) and see what I can find, otherwise I'll have to bite the bullet and buy new. Still not sure if I can be faffed with mechanical as installation would take a lot more than an electric one. I'll gauge (no pun intended) my motivation levels on the day...

I'm gradually approaching the tail end of my engine rebuild (yes, it's been around a year now - I blame having kids) and would like to fit an oil pressure gauge to my 2500S so that I can keep an eye of what's going on in there. I'd be interested in hearing what other people have done in this respect. What are benefits of a mechanical gauge vs electric? My gut feeling is that I'd be fairly keen to avoid a mechanical one as it's one more (very inconvenient) place for oil to leak from but lots of people use them. Are they cheaper, more plentiful or just better? I'm contemplating robbing an electric gauge and sender from a Jag XJ6 as they seem to be fairly plentiful in breakers yards over here. I think these only go up to 80psi - will this be enough? Otherwise I can buy a new Smith's dual water temp/oil pressure gauge and replace the existing water temp gauge currently sits. As far as I can tell these are all mechanical oil pressure gauges. Any thoughts or suggestions re the above would be welcome

Any advice? I'm currently rebuilding my 2500 lump and have all the necessary plugs from Chris Witor - the old ones were removed by the machine shop. Do they go in dry? With Loctite? With RTV? Are they supposed to be a tight fit? Do they bottom out, or do I just drive them in a certain depth and leave it at that? The large one at the end behind the backplate feels quite tight going in - almost like it's cross-threading but Chris Witor's stuff is normally right for the job so maybe this is just how they are? Threads seem clean and in good condition.

I am close to the stage where I can start building up my machined 2500 block. I'll primarily be following the workshop manual during the rebuild but have also seen a couple of fairly comprehensive YouTube videos which were useful - in one the guy used liquid gasket maker in conjunction with pretty much every gasket he used on the block with the exception of the head and manifold gaskets. What are people's thoughts on whether this required/beneficial or not?

Cheers Pete, great advice 🙂

Am still very slowly working my way through a rebuild of my 2500 S engine and need to make a decision about the slightly pitted camshaft. I've spoken to a respected camshaft machinist in Victoria and I can get it reground to the same profile for relatively little money, or I can splash out on a new one ground from a billet for around 3.5 times the cost. I'm leaning towards a quick and dirty regrind, these guys reckon the hardening on these chill cast camshafts is quite deep and that won't pose a problem. Before I commit does anyone have any words of warning about this approach?

I'm building up a 2500 block from scratch having just got it back from the machine shop. They've removed all of the oil gallery plugs and I no longer have them - does anyone know off the top of their head how many of each I'd need to order? Chris Witor lists three sizes - 1/8", 1/4" and 3/8". I can call him on Monday but if anyone knows then I can put the order in now and save a bit of time 👍

I swapped out the rubber steering coupling in my 2500 today as the last one had split quite badly but on reassembly it definitely looks like it's under quite a lot of torsional strain. I've loosened the top and bottom column clamps and also the steering rack clamps to see if a subtle shift in alignment might relieve things but nothing changed. As the old one had already split I can't really compare the before/after situation but does this look right? It seems like a recipe for early failure of the new coupling to me but maybe that's just how they are?

My 2500 block is currently at the machine shop for a rebore, crank grind etc. They have asked about decking the block and want me to run the head gasket into them so that they can see how this will affect the recessed bores. Before I do, what are the general thoughts on decking the recessed bore blocks? I'll go in and have a chat with them about whether or not it's really required but thought I'd ask here first. Is this likely to cause problems with sealing of the gasket? Does any block decking need to be accompanied by a corresponding shaving of the pistons to maintain compression ratio? This is my first full rebuild so whilst I'd like to pretend I know what I'm talking about, I don't really :)

Cheers Nick and Pete - good advice. I was thinking about this last night and think I'll do this one properly with a new camshaft, will probably just run on the existing bearing surfaces as they seemed OK to me. Can always ask my machine shop to give them a glance too.

The block from my 2500S is currently stripped down and due to be refreshed with a re-bore, crank regrind, new bearing shells etc. My stock camshaft is OK with a little bit of wear so I haven't decided yet whether to replace it with a new Chris Witor or Newman shaft, or keep using it, given that I'll be doing fairly low miles and nothing competitive in it. If I were to replace it, can I just run a new camshaft on the old bearing surfaces in the block? Is there any benefit to having these bored to fit bearing shells? Also, a couple of people have offered me good used camshafts - does this change any advice relating to the above? My gut instinct would be to avoid something that's already been worn in to a different block. I presume with either option the cam followers should be renewed as a matter of course? Mine don't really show much wear and if I reuse my existing camshaft I'll just stick with these.

A minor update to the old blog: https://triumph2500blog.wordpress.com/

Another engine-related update to the 2500S blog: https://triumph2500blog.wordpress.com/2020/01/13/engine-update/