Burton cartridge water pump fitment issues

[2cams70]

During some rare moments of spare time I have been fitting up a Burton cartridge pump assembly to my engine. To be honest it's been a real PITA which it should not be especially considering the cost of it.
First quality issue was the backplate, The Burton backplate unlike the standard Lotus one has a groove machined in it around the water pump aperture to accept an O-ring. The first backplate I received suffered from core shift which resulted in the sidewall of the groove being very thin around one of the water pump bolt mounting holes. Of course it split when assembled and torqued to the correct value. When I asked Burtons for a replacement they initially refused offering various excuses about the lapse of time since I originally bought it (yes it was about two years but I do have a very busy life and the hobby car is somewhat down the priority list) and also claiming I had tried to reposition the cover after tightening it. After a bit more whingeing and explaining that I'm a mechanical engineer who works for a large auto manufacturer and therefore not easily taken for a ride they backed down a bit and offered to pay half the cost of a new backplate. This was still unacceptable to me on principle so I did a bit more research on UK consumer law and found out that you are protected for 5 years if a fault is due to a manufacturing quality issue. Armed with this information and together with all my previous correspondence I sent an email direct to Steve Burton. Upon doing this I received a very quick response from the original person I was dealing with that I would be sent a replacement free of charge and that I could keep the faulty one!! Mind you I had to wait a further 6 months for another batch of backplates to be made but the replacement was OK and much thicker in the problem area.
Which leads ,me to the latest issue. Pulley alignment. I pressed the water pump pulley mounting flange onto the shaft the same amount as the original - i.e so that the end of the fan locating spigot end is flush with the end of the shaft. When checking compared to the crankshaft pulley I can see that the fan pulley is now 3-4mm further forward than it was originally. I know I can press the mounting flange further onto the shaft but there is not a lot of clearance between the back of the pulley and the pump mounting bolts and I'm concerned the pulley will touch before the misalignment is corrected.
Has anyone else had this experience with the Burton pump? Perhaps the front cover where the water pump mounts has been insufficiently machined??

[vincereynard]

I had exactly the same problem except the "restorers" had no noticed and the belt ran way out.

When pressed back in place the pulley did indeed touch the mounting bolts! I had to chamfer the bolt heads
to cone shaped to miss.

[Frogelan]

I have opted for one of these and have not had the issues outlined.

However, my engine has only been bench tested so far and I'll have to go back and check the pulley alignment etc. It was tortured to 8000 rpm.

With respect to Burton customer service, I have recently returned some spacers bought for the concentric clutch conversion and I had no problems in being reimbursed by Burton (the spacers are not needed for the Elan).

I was quite impressed by the machining and fit of this concentric clutch (as yet untested). When It is all back together I will do a post on this subject when I'm sure it is gremlin free.

I have no affiliation with Burton and suspect you just had some seriously bad luck.

[reds4se]

I fitted the Burton kit about 7 years ago to my S4 and had to chamfer the cap- head screws in order for them to clear the pulley.
RB.

[rgh0]

In my home made equivalent I use countersunk hex socket headed bolts to avoid that problem of pulley fit

cheers
Rohan

[carrierdave]

I had the same issues recently; I ditched the Alan-key bolts and went to standard bolts. I just happened to have a set of new bolts for the standard front cover which I used rather than the ones that came in the pack.
Dave

[englishmaninwales]

I?ve posted here before about the Burton supplied pump, same problems with 1) poor core positioning resulting in timing chain contacting the chest cover (fixed by metal removal) 2) supplied backplate was bent (replaced) 3) pulley misaligned (flange needing to be pressed further on than normal 4) pulley touching the fixing bolts (chamfered the cap head to clear).

Burton said ?it?s an old car you should expect to fettle it a bit......!!!?
However, once fitted, it works well.
Malcolm

[gus]

I have a replaceable water pump from back when they were welding up old timing chests.

IIRC it had a different pulley with greater offset.

Pressing the pulley on further should not be a problem, but it ought to be sent that way I would think

Pretty sure I could machine one from solid......

in looking around, I discovered Burton sells a water pump pulley spacer......but I thought the problem was the other way round.....

[englishmaninwales]

The other important issue is that the dipstick tube angle is different in the Burton front cover compared to the original, so your dipstick needs recalibration (or altering the height of the tube).

The flip side with the Burton front cover / backplate is that it is possible to use anaerobic sealant on the timing case joints making the timing chest pretty much oil tight. That?s a first in 4 TC engines that have been through my garage!

Malcolm

[2cams70]

Thanks guys for your feedback. I think I'll revert back to standard hexagon headed bolts because of their lower profile rather than use the cap screws supplied by Burton for the pump. If you use the supplied washer and spring washer under the 5/16" cap screw (even though Burton machine the head to a conical shape) there is not enough clearance between it and the pulley to move it back even slightly. I really don't think that people should have to "fettle" parts like this. This is an expensive piece of kit. Why not just supply it with hexagon headed bolts from the start? Maybe ex British Leyland engineers were responsible for the project!!

I also notice that the original cast Lotus 4" pulley has the "V" belt groove offset futher toward the rear by about 1.3mm compared the the machined steel replacement supplied by Burton. I compared the offset of the 4" Burton pulley with the larger diameter standard Ford pressed steel one from a crossflow engine and they are the same. Can anyone confirm using another standard cast Lotus pulley that it should have a different offset compared to the crossflow? The rear face of mine that contacts the crankshaft oil slinger may have been incorrectly machined at some time but I don't know for certain.

I measured the distance from the centre of the "V" groove to the rear face of the pulley spigot as being about 35.5mm on the original Lotus pulley compard to 36.8mm on the Burton steel and the crossflow pulley
.
Assembly hint too: To centralise the front cover oil seal aperture with the crankshaft I wrapped some electrical insulation tape around the pulley spigot just enough to increase it's diameter to engage closely in the outermost inner diameter of the already installed oil seal that's just prior to the rubber lip. Whilst probably not quite as accurate as a machined mandrel it works quite well especially if you don't have a lathe for making tools. It's important to locate the front cover quickly if you are using Loctite 618 anaerobic sealant because it sets quite quickly once the front cover contacts the backplate.

[RichardHawkins]

Gentlemen,

I thought I remembered a similar problem with V belt alignment, and that I altered a cap head screw to clear the pulley. The difference is that I am not using a Burton cartridge. I have just checked and the top screw behind the pulley (position about 12:00) is modified to have a shorter head tuned to a slight cone.

I dropped the crankshaft pulley and knocked a chunk off the outer diameter. My replacement came from QED. Although I don't have a Burton cartridge I appear to have the same alignment problem. Could the issue stem from the crankshaft pulley?

Richard Hawkins

[2cams70]

I've done some more investigation about the crankshaft pulley and can confirm that there is definitely a slight difference in offset between pushrod engine crankshaft pulleys and Lotus engine pulleys.
I measured the width of the crankshaft timing gear sprocket on a pushrod engine as 19mm whereas the Lotus sprocket width measured as 19.9mm - approximately a 1mm difference. This is the reason the Lotus pulley has about 1mm less offset - to compensate for the sprocket being thicker whilst still maintaining the existing belt alignment with the waterpump and generator pulleys. Just goes to show there is always something to learn with these engines!!
The Burton replacement pulley is supplied machined to the pushrod engine offset dimension which is incorrect for a Twin Cam. To correct it you'll need to machine about 1mm off the rear face.
Not sure about the QED supplied pulley but it looks very much like the Burton one so it's likely that it too is supplied having incorrect offset.

[seniorchristo]

I have a similar cartridge kit for a future tall block project so I thought I would take a look at mine to see if it had a similar backplate issue. Sure enough it does. It was purchased from a friend who bought it from Cortina Spares which are now out of business. Since I have no financial recourse, I'm wondering if I can beef up that area by the O ring to make it usable. Would JB Weld or some other material work on aluminum? Thanks Chris

[2cams70]

I considered this too in the event that I could not get a replacement backplate or if the replacement backplate was as bad as the first. I think the best thing to do would be the have a small bead of aluminium weld run just behind the weak area to reinforce it. A workshop capable of repairing aluminium cylinder heads should be able to do it for you. Check that the cartridge still has enough clearance to pass through after doing this. You may have to dress the weld a little bit. I very much doubt that the JB weld would hold in this application. In that location with the bolt tightened there would be a fair bit of tensile stress applied.

[2cams70]

The other thing I forgot to mention with this is to do a trial assembly of the backplate and cover first. With the original backplate I found that the hole drilled for the backplate locating screw was slightly out of position. When the backplate and cover were mounted to the block the mating of the two was far from perfect with a significant and uneven step between the top and bottom surfaces. The hole needed to be filed a bit to correct the misalignment. The replacement backplate was much better in this regard and no filing was necessary.