- Engine Rebuilding Project - 

I decided to make an ongoing diary of my engine building project.  I tried to take pictures as I go along, usually finding myself snapping some shots after the part of the project is completed ... not necessarily while I'm doing it.  Since this isn't really a "How To" or anything, just simply a diary of an engine rebuilding project.

As new steps are made, I'll be adding to the diary until it's finished ... oh, the day I hear her run again - :)

October 5, 2002 

After I jacked up the front of the car, I went ahead to slid ramps under the front to wheels, then jacked up the rear end by the rear axle.  I'll have a better picture of that later.

Here is the intake system all taken out.  Getting ready to remove the heads.  The reason why I took the heads off prior to removing the engine was originally, I planned on getting the heads done.  After thinking about it, I decided to "freshen" up the bottom half so I proceeded to pull the bottom half out later on.

Heads are off.

Top view

The exhaust valves aren't really that white ... I guess they had some reflective characteristics which make them look whiter than they really are.  The car was running fine, not lean!

Intake ports before picture, we'll see what they look like when I get them back.

Exhaust ports before shot.

November 23, 2002

It took a while, but managed to get some help, time and most importantly, a hoist!  Engine is coming out!  Was a bit tricky getting everything disconnected in the transmission area.  I had to lower it a bit to gain access to the torque arm brace bolts and what-not.  I wish I had someone taking shots as me and my friend were working on guiding out the engine and transmission at the same time.  Since it was almost straight up and down, once the oil pan would clear the front end, I grabbed the transmission end, lifted it up and swung it around while my friend pulled the hoist back.  Tricky maneuver, but worked out great.

Here you see the only proof that the transmission came out with the engine.  This was immediately after lowering it to the ground.  The motor mounts are resting on cinder blocks for the time being until the transmission was removed.

Yuck, what a mess!  Thank God for kitty litter!  :)  Actually, the wires look worse!  Not to worry, I took a lot more pictures than what you see here.  Keeping them as a guide in hooking everything back up.

Ah, here we go.  A bit different setup than the first picture (getting dark).  The hood was placed back on soon after the engine was out.

November 24, 2002

Here's the engine on the stand in a garage.  Kind of a tight spot, but spend the next couple of days cleaning out some garage space for parts.  I only have a little spot of the garage to work with until my new house.

Transmission and radiator sitting on the floor.  Again temporary. :)

November 29. 2002

Here's one shot of me making sure I get those pesky brackets back in the same spot.  While removing the oil pan, there were some key brackets to remember.  My oil cooler had a stud type screw of which I noted as well.  The front and rear two bolts are 1/2" and the rest are 3/8".  Looks like the engine is all SAE while the rest of the car is Metric (why did they do that?).

Oil pan is off and we're now going to remove the pistons.  At this time is when I removed the oil pump.  It's just one 5/8" bolt holding it in place, pretty easy to do.

All pistons are out.  Nice and easy.  Same as putting it all back together, taking my time.

November 30, 2002

Crank was tricky.  I had no clearance for the one-piece rear oil seal to get out of the way so I had to lower the block a little bit on the stand.  Just loosened all the mounting bolts ever so slightly and "jiggled" the block and bop!  It went down enough to where I could get the rear seal out of the way.  As you can see, I placed the main caps back on.  I left the bearings in there too.  The machine shop will need the main caps for when they work on the block.

Pieces parts.  Pistons, crank, cam, transmission and the lifters are in the box in the back under the timing chain and cover.  This is all underneath my little home-made workbench.

Here's my little workshop.  Was just fine until now.  I need a LOT more space, but I'll manage.  Cozy, ain't it?

December 2, 2002

Damages during disassembly ... so far.  This is the part I dread.  It figures that when I actually go to do the engine in my baby, crap like this has to happen.  Perhaps I was being too careful?  How can that be?  You're so careful that you actually get a nervous feeling and start screwing shit up ... yeah - maybe.

Now this mark is interesting.  I remember making one mark and that was the picture below.  This one is something I found just yesterday, re-examining the journals, I found this mark.  Nice isn't it?  Perfect!  Funny thing about it is that it doesn't seem to be "fresh."  Like it's been there because it's pretty smooth.  A manufacturer defect?  Can't be - but you never know.  Maybe I did do it and don't remember?

Nice blurry picture.  I must have forgot to turn on "Macro" mode on the camera - oops.  Just like this mark.  Oops.  This one I do remember and it when I was removing piston number 1.  Somehow, managed to score this by the rod stud and realized it right away.  I just hope that the machine shop can get away with a nice polish job on the crank.  If not, a .010 grind on the rod journals.  Once they say they need to go .020 on this journal, I'll probably be looking for a new crank - we'll see.

Oops number 3.  Piston wouldn't come out after lightly tapping so as I had the butt of the hammer in the piston, I still retained pressure.  I moved my "catching" hand just long enough to get a rubber mallet to encourage the piston to get out of there, the piston slipped out and landed right on the edge of some brace or part of the engine stand that gave me this nice little mark.  Good thing about this is that it should make a difference at all since it's towards the top of the piston, not on the wall.  Speed Pro pistons are pretty cheap and heard that they are decent pistons so that is a thought :)

I numbered my pistons.  Some say you don't need to (most say you should), but it definitely doesn't hurt.  If I have to regrind the crank, it probably won't matter - but each piston/rod wear their own way.  Whether it's microscopic differences, or not, I numbered each cap with each rod to each piston.  Always did this - probably always will.

Coordinating marks on the rod (above) and piston (below)

Next up should be a visit to the machine shop regarding the crank and block - stay tuned.

December 5, 2002

Took the crank to the machine shop yesterday and $32.00 later, picked up the crank today!

There was the problem journal.  Everything is all polished up!  Thank, God for machine shops - they can fix our stupid screw ups!  I had tried to take some close up shots of where the scratches were, but since they are so polished up, all you can see is flash reflection.  So I suppose you're just going to have to trust me.  There is a sticker on the bag noting "STD" for the bearings to get.  This is for the main and rod bearings.  Machine shops will tell you something like STD/.010 stating that the main bearings would be standard and rod bearings would be .010 undersized (just an example).  Hopefully, this is the only mishap (just being too careful).  

Funny, Al (the owner of Street & Strip Machine Shop) remembered me as soon as I walked in there.  This was the shop that did the parts for the Mazda pickup I did a couple of years ago.  That is a long story.  The short version of it is, they did the block work, head, flywheel, rods, etc.  I put the engine together and it was making a knocking/slapping noise.  I thought it was a rod cap as I had a little problem with one of the caps during assembly.  I pulled the engine out, they tore it down and noted nothing wrong with the assembly, but did tell me that I'm missing a head guide pin.  Son of a bitch, I forgot to put in a guide pin for the head and the gasket had slid over, while installing the head, and the piston was slapping against the very edge of the gasket (the metal ring).  Ah, well .. stupid little truck is still going!  Anyway, we got to talking about stupid mistakes and seems that I wasn't the only one in the shop at the time that agreed with me.  I didn't give two shits about the Mazda while putting it together, and except for the head guide pin incident, everything else went smooth.  I start working on something I actually give a damn about - take too much care and look what happens ... :)  Enough blabbing!

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