This isn’t a trivial piece of work. If you’ve replaced the clutch, for example, you can use part of the old one as a tool to centralise the clutch on the splined shaft that holds it. Mind you, if I’d bought a new clutch, it would have had deeper splines. Nothing seems straightforward. Even the tool that I bought for the job had deep splines – I had to spend an afternoon carefully filing them down do that the tool would work for me. And then there’s the clutch bearing; it’s a tiny thing that doesn’t have to deal with very much force, but it’s a vital part of the arrangement. All in all, you need to understand exactly how it’s supposed to work before you put it all together. Luckily, I could reassemble this with the engine out of the frame – it just makes for a very unwieldy lump to move about afterwards.
This picture shows the rebuilt engine on my workbench. The carburettors are fitted, albeit temporarily, and there’s a battery mouinting tray as well.