[RWS]

The engine in my ‘70 RA III Formula was getting tired after 100 k miles since it was first rebuilt (in 1975!), so I started buying everything needed to rebuild it a second time.

The water pump began to leak before I was ready to pull the engine, though, so I decided to replace just that and keep driving the car until the fall.

Glad I did as it became clear that there was lots of slack in the timing chain, so in went the new timing gear set I already had on hand.

Happily, the improvement in performance was incredible, no doubt as cam (and therefore ignition) timing was badly retarded.

Bottom line is that I can put off rebuilding the engine for the foreseeable future, although I will have to find a better place to store all the internals I accumulated over the last two or so years