Long story short is the engine is now running reasonably, if that all you want to know then job done
For those who are interested in the detail it been more than a bit of a journey since the last update, that time gap being an intended one on my part as wanting to get to today success before boring you all silly.
So after the new fuel pump arrived I once again asked Matt for help finalising the head refitting and timing the belt up.
With those bits done Matt suggested we try a compression test before trying to restart the engine to see if the middle two cylinders now had some decent pressure, turns out the readings were exactly the same prior to the head gasket being done approx 70, 60, 20 and 70.
Bit of head scratching before Matt said let have a look at the valve clearances, all the exhaust were bang on point but there was no noticeably gap on three of the inlet valves covering no 2 and 3 cylinders so hence why no decent compression on those ones.
Cams back off again and taking out the fixed buckets ( as opposed to shim type buckets on Zetec ) and seemed for what ever reason these were now too big to give the correct ( or any clearances) all we have done that could affect this was a very light grind as part of the overhaul prior to going to the RR session.
Looked at getting some replacement buckets the correct size as they appear to be sold covering various ranges but took the 3 I wanted altered to a machine shop who said they would be too hard to machine a few thou off and instead suggested grinding the same off the end of the valves,
So head came off once again and valves and spring removed and used a V block to hold the valve flat on my belt sander and some of the remaining 5000 grit sanding disc from the paint prep was used to remove little by little with the valves getting pushed back in the head with the cam in till I got the correct clearances, head fully reassembled and cam fitted off the car for a full dry run.
Head back on and once all ancillaries were done and a few watt app messages with Matt I put on the big pants and timmed it up myself and put the belt on and sort of got it running like a bag of poop.
Few twiddles and run a bit better during the week.
Matt came over armed with half his garage today as requested and once again has played a blinder by tackling in no particular order, no good supply of fuel in the tank (sigh)
Bit of fiddling with the air bleed screws, trying different plugs, coil pack, simple ignition loom, colour tune.
Bit by bit it came together and now seems to tick over and start good although I need to get the choke working to make it easier to cold start.
Last compression test shows 100 or their abouts that still seems low to what I recall but enough to get some miles on it hopefully.
Will try to have a play tomorrow up and down the alley way if allowed.