Thread: Siamese 2 litre engine

Originally Posted by Lost Landy

....The reason I ask is I have a 2 litre motor with 471 being the prefix number, and it looks like the same motor in my series 1 88".

The two engines look pretty much the same with the rocker covers and oil fillers the give away is the full flow engine has the filter under the inlet manifold on the RHS of the engine while the 471 prefix Siamese bore engine of the 1954 model has the oil filter near the chassis member well below the exhaust manifold on the LHS of the engine. Of course with the oil filter removed they both look the same to the untrained eye, although you will find an oil pipe nipple on the LHS for the Siamese bore and a big hole and flange where the alloy filter housing should sit on the spread bore.

If it is anything other than what I describe, then it is only possible (but unlikely) that the engine was replaced under warranty or similar with an unmarked engine and then the 471 number stamped in.

Diana

Had a look and the oil filter is on the drivers side like my late 2 litre motor from my 88" S1, maybe it was a replacment warrenty motor.
Oh by the way Diana did you pick up your transfer box from Chris?

Originally Posted by Lost Landy

Had a look and the oil filter is on the drivers side like my late 2 litre motor from my 88" S1, maybe it was a replacement warranty motor.
Oh by the way Diana did you pick up your transfer box from Chris?

Yes thanks, Chris took the LT230 to the LROC meeting last Tuesday!

There have been a few of the unbranded blocks floating around, even one from this forum had one, so to make the RTA happy someone may have stamped their old engine number.

The spread bore/full flow motor is a better engine all round so you're quite lucky it'll annoy the (sic) Hell out of rivet counters, but you'll have to be careful when getting parts.

A few pics would help us confirm the situation.

Sorry to butt in here but I am confused.

My 88 SW was originally fitted with the late 2 litre and I have the engine number for this engine. Somewhere along the way this engine was replaced with a 2 litre engine with an engine number starting 47.

I just went and checked this engine and there is no oil filter on the drivers side (Inlet side) and NO oil filter on the passenger side (exhaust side). I slid my considerable bulk under the car to make sure - no filter anywhere - remote or fixed.

Now this engine does run and I have driven it around so it is all "complete" as far as the engine running goes.

I compared it with a later 2 litre I have in my garage and I can see on the older engine where the oil filter should have been by the casting in the block on the inlet side.

What is going on here - I understood the earlier engines had poor oil filtration but no oil filtration?

Garry

I had a real good look at my 471 prefix motor on the 86" ( took both front guards off in fact ) & it would seam that I too have the same set up as Garrycol. To me it looks if some one has had a great idea! and put bungs into where the oil feed lines are on the engine, witch were ment to go to the remote oil filter long since gone. So now the motor has no oil filtration lol. Great Stuff not!!!!!!!

Ok then it now makes sense.

Both the engines are Siamese bore 2 litre.

The Siamese bore have a bypass oil filter system the same as the 1.6 litre. Oil gets shunted out the side the block through a nipple above the LHS engine mount then joins back in at another fitting just above the sump at the front end of the starter motor. The design filters the oil over time in the same way that our livers filter the blood. In the 1.6 by-pass system there is a fine bronze gauze over the oil pick-up which removes the larger lumps, this gauze had finer holes than the later spread-bore steel gauze filter but I am not sure about the gause on the Siamese bore 2L (never had one) and my 1954 parts catalogue is on loan at the moment.



Diana

Thanks for that Diana - so it would seem that the external oil filters have been removed on our engines. Not a worry for me as I have a proper engine to rebuild and then put in.

The current fitted engine without the filter does run very well and doesn't blow an abnormal amount of smoke - maybe a engine flush and change of oil might be in order though.

Cheers

Garry

Worth noting that oil filters of any kind (other than a strainer on the pump suction) were by no means universal in the 1950s, and full flow oil filters did not become universal until the late sixties, if then,

As a few examples, I do not recall the 1956 VW I owned having any oil filter, and Holdens had a bypass filter at best until the EH in the mid sixties. Citroen, although their DS was far more advanced than just about anything else, it did not get an oil filter of any kind until 1967. When I started driving in the late fifties, a bypass oil filter was a popular after market accessory.

John