Capri - Restoration (2) White 1972 1600 XL [5]

I spent most of the day on dissembling the engine. It was a mainly a good day but a little accident caused me to say a few choice words but more of that later. A quick look over the block produced a few surprises. Firstly, the large rear engine welch plug has been leaking (minor) and it appeared for a long time. There were no leaks from the rear engine oil seal. Another side welch plug had the beginning marks of a small leak and the front oil seal had been leaking. The amount of muck indicated that the block had not been touched for quite a few years.
The hardest part was removing the torque converter from the flex plate. The four bolts were in really, really tight. I ended up putting a bit of heat onto them & them locking a big box spanner into the holes on the flex plate & finally cracked them with my long handled socket. The bolts holding the flex plate onto the crankshaft were also pretty tight but not too bad. Next the sump came off & the pistons popped out pretty easily. There was lots of carbon build up on the top & no markings were obvious.
It was then that I had my little incident. I was trying to move the engine slightly on my little trolley when suddenly, IT TOPPLED OVER & FELL ONTO THE FLOOR!!!! I usually have the crane attached but I didn’t this time and after a few choice “s " words were said, I realised that I was very lucky that it had not fallen onto my foot. Thank goodness I was standing on the other side!  A quick look & everything seemed OK but then when I was lifting it back up, I saw that the distributor had taken the main impact & the case was broken right through. More choice words! Everything was going so well! Where the hell was I going to get another dizzy from? Fortunately I knew there were some club members with a few spare parts so I was prepared to accept my fate. All the other bits came off OK & I removed all the welch plugs. Here are some more pics but I am a bit sorry I didn’t take one of the block on the floor! (One of the pics shows the cracked dizzy!)