Engine Rebuild Help Pls

[Alcyone]

260 celsius will be fine. That much rust scale shouldnt come out after acid bathing in my opinion I havent had an issue like that before. If the acids not got all the paint off hit it with a wire brush. Never heard of powdercoated heads thought they were always painted. Could be wrong happens occasionally

They're definitely taking their time when I had my crank polished block dipped heads dipped and faced it took three days to turn them around and get them back.

Also on your scooby doo motor are you running stock carb? If so look at going a 32/36 great little carburetor on anything that size. Wont really increase fuel usage as progressive linkage but they perform very well and easy to tune.

Yeah 4 weeks for heads and 2 weeks so far for block is a fair bit. He said the other day that they were flat out so I'll wait until mid week to call them back. Might just drop in with the heads and see where they're at. 45 min drive there so don't want to do it more than I have to. The first place I rang to get the work done said 3 day turn around time so I thought this place would be the same.

Yep Hitachi stock carb. I was thinking of getting a Weber 32/36 but wasn't sure if it was legal or not. Even though the engine wasn't designed for EGR, they went and drilled a hole in the intake and whacked one in the buggers. I think that means I'm stuck with emissions regulations and I can't run the Weber? Not sure. Unbelievable how many vacuum lines this engine has. If I threw a Weber in, I would have to seal a lot of the stuff up. I'm not 100% sure but from what I researched, I'm not able to do it. It's a 1991 model if that helps.

The secondary barrel in this one pretty much never kicks in. I was gonna put the metal linkage in myself for it...play with it a bit to make sure it's not opening up too early. Can kinda see it when your doing it though. Does it use much more fuel do you know?...putting the metal linkage to the secondary? I even picked up a Fuel Miser Rebuild kit, new float set, extra gaskets and even bought a spare carb with some other 2nd hand parts I picked up from another L-Series in QLD. I would much preferred to have bought a Weber for about $400 but I didn't think I was able to. I just want it to sound a little bit better (if that's possible lol) and have a little bit more if I ever want to overtake a cow or sheep on the way into town...in the past, they always had the upper hand.

 

[harrop.senator]

Weber intake noise is much better then stock they have a pretty good intake noise on them mainly due to open to air filters. I had a corona st141 with a lot of emissions and threw it all in the bin had an air pump and egr etc on it. Is the feed going to the intake manifold or the air filter housing?

2 litre escorts and cortinas had factory 32 36s and usually can get one for 100-150 in working order and jets will be close as 1800 in a l series isn't it? You can always cut your air filter base to suit the weber top I've done that before to make it look legit. Or find a stock cortina or escort air cleaner to run the pipe to for the egr.

 

[Alcyone]

Weber intake noise is much better then stock they have a pretty good intake noise on them mainly due to open to air filters. I had a corona st141 with a lot of emissions and threw it all in the bin had an air pump and egr etc on it. Is the feed going to the intake manifold or the air filter housing?

2 litre escorts and cortinas had factory 32 36s and usually can get one for 100-150 in working order and jets will be close as 1800 in a l series isn't it? You can always cut your air filter base to suit the weber top I've done that before to make it look legit. Or find a stock cortina or escort air cleaner to run the pipe to for the egr.

This is gonna sound pretty lame and noobish but...which feed? *hangs head in shame* The feed from the EGR? Last January I didn't even know what an oil pump or water pump was lol...if it wasn't for Mum's car overheating, I might never have started pulling these 2 engines apart. The reason the L-Series is pulled apart now is because someone told me I had noisy tappets. I then learnt about the common EA82 oil pump issues in regards to bad seals resulting in air being sucked up through the oil pump etc and causing the noise. First thing I think I ever learnt last year was that I don't have flat tappets, I have roller lifters! So everything kinda snowballed since then

Needless to say that the EA82 carby is a nightmare of hoses (which thankfully I labelled carefully when I pulled everything apart). I am still unsure of all the parts and the role they play in amongst all that mess. Mum's VY is sooooo much simpler!

I'm not sure of the jets on the carby either. I do have a spare carby though and also a fuelmiser rebuild kit but that's to rebuild one of the carbys after it all goes back together. I can only imagine your shaking your head at me right now

It's been 31 days since I dropped the block off and even when I rang last Friday, he said that he hadn't touched it. Heading in there today with Mum. Needless to say that she's not impressed. 4 weeks to get the heads back and now over 4 weeks with the block. Don't even know if he's touched it.

If all works out with the L-Series, I'm sure at some point I will plonk a nice carby in there and get rid of as much as I can. I was hoping to get it onto club plates this year or next year first though. Then if something happens, I should know enough to swap everything back over to keep her on the road. Thankfully we live in the sticks and there's little chance of getting pulled over. This is all a steep learning curve and I'm loving it...but the basics first and then I can start playing

 

[Alcyone]

Finally got the block back! 9 weeks...*sigh*...Took the heads back in too and they put them back in to wash for a couple more days they said. They honed the bores, machined the heads and block surfaces, put in new cam bearings, slid the cam in to check it, put in new core plugs for the heads and block, put the rear main seal in the rear housing, gave the pistons a bit of a clean, cleaned out the ring grooves, I got new main and rod bearings, rings, head bolts, gasket sets. Picked it all up last week and wrapped it up all nice before I could check the clearances on everything. They didn't seem to do anything with the rods or any of the bolts. They kept the rings and bearings out so that meant the rod mating surfaces had started to rust after a couple of days at home. Gave them a 1500 grit WD40/oil wet polish and then doused them in WD40 and oil. Had no idea what to do so did that and they came up a treat. Took forever with 1500 grit but too scared to use anything other than that. Rags did nothing. Then gave 'everything' a good old douse until nothing could rust any more. Surface rust only thankfully. I hope. That's enough of my winging lol...down to business! Oh and one of the newly machined heads surfaces started to rust too. 1500 grit WD40/oil wet polish on that too. Hang on I stopped winging...my fault anyways I guess.

Business: Cylinder bore diameter is meant to be 96.507mm to 96.533mm. I bought a dial bore indicator, outside micrometer set telescopic gauge set and some plastigauge. Dial bore indicator measured all bores in between 96.53mm and 96.59mm. That's min and max on all of the bores. Just trying to give a min and max here. Taper was all good and so was out of round. It was my first go using a dial bore indicator so my measurements could have been out a minuscule amount when calibrating the outside micrometer and the iffy analog dial bore indicator. I'll do it again but I'll lean on the side of human calibration error for now.

I used the outside micrometer set to check the piston diameter and they ranged from 95.94mm to 95.97mm. I placed the piston base into a protected clothed vice to hold it in place when measuring it. I wasn't sure whether to measure from side to side or from top to bottom. The other measurements I got were 95.80mm to 95.88mm. The smaller sizes were from side to side and the larger sizes were from top to bottom (I think from memory). Are the pistons meant to be kinda oval shaped? I'm exaggerating a bit but they are not perfectly round anymore! I then subtracted (I know you've all done this but I'm repeating my process in case I did it wrong in which case I hope you tell me) the piston diameter from the bore diameter to check the piston to bore clearance limits. They are 'meant' to be 0.01mm to 0.051mm. I got 0.57mm to 0.60mm. That's so far off it's ridiculous! What have I done wrong? When I pulled the pistons out, they were heaps snug and they were heaps tight. I'm gonna lube up a piston tomorrow and slide one in to see if it falls through or not. What am I missing here? My bore sizes are virtually maxed out but why is there so much difference in between the piston size and the bore size? I'm really hoping that being a newbie I have done some bad calculations or misread what the clearances are meant to be!

It's a real slow process here as you can tell but I want to learn and understand as I go. Would really like some feedback if possible. Cheers

 

[Alcyone]

260 celsius will be fine. That much rust scale shouldnt come out after acid bathing in my opinion I havent had an issue like that before. If the acids not got all the paint off hit it with a wire brush. Never heard of powdercoated heads thought they were always painted. Could be wrong happens occasionally

They're definitely taking their time when I had my crank polished block dipped heads dipped and faced it took three days to turn them around and get them back.

Also on your scooby doo motor are you running stock carb? If so look at going a 32/36 great little carburetor on anything that size. Wont really increase fuel usage as progressive linkage but they perform very well and easy to tune.

Finally found out that they don't acid dip there. They just put it in a bath and let it sit for a couple days. Even after dipping the heads for another 2 days, the paint is still on there. Some of it has come off so I'm not sure what to do with all this high temp primer and paint now. Will put the engine back together and have a good look then. Sure don't want rust coming up on it when it's finished though. Woudl like to clean the headers up too and paint them a nice grey which I picked up.

On the L-Series note - I snapped a head bolt. 3cm of thread still in the block. Was cross threaded from factory I think. Couldn't extract it so drilled it out but can't re-tap it past half way. Still some head bolt stuck to the side of the thread half way down. Need to hold it in place somehow and use a drill press to re-bore it then put in a new thread thingy. Bummer! Any good ideas for recovery apart from that?? Please say yes!!

 

[harrop.senator]

Sorry man been really hectic with work first time ive been back in 2 years and have been ridiculously busy on days off..

Im unsure why you got such differences in you piston to wall calculations. Where were you measuring the pistons from just up from the wrist pin 1/4" or so from the skirt or up the top at the rings where theirs more fatigue from slap?

Id try and get most of the paint off with a wire wheel on your drill or grinder. Also paint the oarts in pieces its much much easier then once its all together unless you want everything one colour like the old steel v8s.

Shame about the bolt might be a get it out get it machined by a shop thing they may be able to drill out and helicoil or drill really out and press a threaded sleeve.

 

[Alcyone]

Sorry man been really hectic with work first time ive been back in 2 years and have been ridiculously busy on days off..

Im unsure why you got such differences in you piston to wall calculations. Where were you measuring the pistons from just up from the wrist pin 1/4" or so from the skirt or up the top at the rings where theirs more fatigue from slap?

Id try and get most of the paint off with a wire wheel on your drill or grinder. Also paint the oarts in pieces its much much easier then once its all together unless you want everything one colour like the old steel v8s.

Shame about the bolt might be a get it out get it machined by a shop thing they may be able to drill out and helicoil or drill really out and press a threaded sleeve.

No worries It's good being busy. Even better if they pay you for it lol...I appreciate any help at all so thank you!

Yeah I read in the manual to measure the Pistons "3.9mm from the top". I took the top to be the bit right at the top above the first compression ring. My bad I think. They're heaps wore down there. Today I read the book again and for the second time I saw a photo of them taking the measurement at 90deg to the wrist pin. I did that and got much better results. 0.01mm through to 0.155mm. Where do you recommend taking it from? I used the mark on the piston right where the scoring from the bore is. It's pretty much even with the wrist pins. I will redo again tomorrow.

I also re did the bore measurements 3 times. Had some calibration issues with the outside micrometer. That's what happens when you get a cheap set. Unless somehow my bores shrunk I'm getting measurements from 96.475mm through to 96.540mm (should be 96.507mm to 96.533mm). Majority are good but I'm out of taper and out of round on every single bore. Saying that though, I'm certain I got the dial bore gauge down to the 100th of a mm when I calibrated it. Impossible to go wrong with taper and OOR measurements. Maybe when they did the honing, they never checked their work? Would having it re honed correct taper and OOR issues when it's out by about 0.03mm?

Best Bore Taper is 0.02mm and worst is 0.04mm (should be 0.013mm)
Best Bore OOR is 0.03mm and worst is 0.045mm (should be 0.010mm)

Might take the block to another place to get everything checked. I was quoted $40 so that's okay. Think they felt sorry for me. Can't afford to take it back to the other place coz they're so slow. They charged $165.00 for parts cleaning and the only thing they did was to scrape some stuff off the pistons. The pistons (in my opinion) should have been replaced. They're in a dreadful state. The bores should also be re-honed properly. Might just bite the bullet and get it measured and re done properly. Or am I being pedantic about all of this?

If I replace the pistons, do I have to replace the rods and wrist pins if they're still okay?

When I was checking the crankshaft bearing clearances today, I was inserting the main block crank bearings and then the end cap bearings and freaked out a bit. Apart from the 2nd main cap bearing, are the other 3 all identical? They kinda sit off centre. Pretty sure the 4th main cap bearing has a slightly wider groove insert thingy than the 1st and 3rd main cap. It wouldn't slot in anywhere else I don't think?

When torquing down to check clearance, do I have to go to 70Nm or is that just for new bolts? Can I just go 20Nm then 40Nm etc?

Sorry for all the questions. I have heaps more but I didn't want to scare you off lol

Having heaps of fun but it's hell frustrating first time around. And how come no Aussie has ever video'd all this stuff for a VX or VY V6 and thrown it up on Youtube? Now that would be awesome!