I waited in on Friday for the 400 to arrive. Had a phone call in the morning from the courier company to say that they didn’t have a tail lift lorry to deliver it on, and offered to bring it in a van if I could get it off there. The courier arrived then anounced he’d tipped it off the pallette just before it arrived. The motor had landed on it’s side, busted the dipstick and emptied a lot of it’s water and oil over the van.

It took me about half an hour to get the engine upright and out of the van. It looked a complete mess, so I put a couple of sheets of cardboard under it and set about cleaning it up. The fall had snapped one of the plugs, but it looked OK. I didn’t know anything about it’s life, apart from the fact it had been on TV I pulled the inlet manifold, then the heads. It all looked in surprisingly good condition. On the Saturday I decided to just “go for it” and strip it down to the block. The oil that came out was black, but there did not seem a lot of sludge.
I bought a cheap engine stand, and bolted the block to it so that I could flip it over. The rods were numbered, so maybe someone had taken them out before. The pistons turned out to be stock, as were the rods, so I pulled all 8 out carefully. I was being careful not to scratch the bores, and was so busy doing it that I dropped a piston on the floor and cracked it. At least that’s decided the “Stock or Not” question!. I’ll take the crank etc. out over the holidays, and then get it crack tested. If it’s all OK. it’ll get the Blower I think..