At a time of year when the last thing you want to do is get in a freezing workshop at some ungodly hour....

... the promise of at least a bright day is consolation for your discomfort. A neighbouring workshop rented a skip for a couple of days, so there was a short window to pull out the seized 6/80 engine, strip it of all the good stuff and heave the rest into the bin. I knew the engine was seized but didn't reckon on how seized. I'd let diesel sit in all the bores for a few months and only two of the cylinders still had a pool left on top of the pistons.

After winching the block up onto the bench, I removed the sump. Everything looked untouched. The mains caps came off easily to reveal standard shells - so the crank hadn't been reground and it followed that the big-end shells would likely be the same - they were. With the oil pump off and releasing the big-end caps, the crank should slip off with out any trouble. Ha!

I could get at four of the big-ends, but pistons 1 and 6 were at the top of their strokes and the crank would have to be turned to get at the bolt heads. It took two hours of whacking the pistons with a hardened steel flat bar to move the crank a quarter of a turn.

Once the crank was out, it took another half an hour or so to get all the pistons out in order to retrieve the conrods. After I'd removed all the head studs (strangely, some were literally only finger-tight) the block went in the skip along with the mains caps. That was the second block I'd scrapped in as many months. I still have a complete MS Series II which will take all the bits and pieces I've saved from the 6/80.

In stripping an engine which was clearly never going to run again, you gather a wealth of very useful BSF nuts and bolts of the highest quality. Studs are also very come-in-handy items when you're casting about for a decent bit of steel.

Now Learned Counsel's sand blasting cabinet is up and running, I turned my attention back to the Riley front suspension parts. They all needed a good clean up and a coat of Kurust before undercoating in preparation for painting.

Care must be taken not to mix up the nearside and offside parts - especially the actual torsion bars as they, over time, have taken up a set and wouldn't take kindly to being twisted in the opposite direction. There's no doubt about it, the Riley front suspension is of robust construction.

The cylinder head studs are now in the MS block, the flywheel was marked up before assembly, but....

... I noticed that the starter ring teeth on the flywheel that came from the scrap engine are in better condition than the one I've just fitted. Hmm. I think I'll have to bite the bullet -  I can't risk a non-starter.