Oil Galley Clean Out

[neilca]

I was re-reading Wayne's book and didn't see how you clean the main oil galley in the block. On other engines I would remove the galley plugs and use bottle brushes to clean. Usually we would replace the stock press in plugs with threaded pipe plugs. Is this done on these six's? What is done?

Thanks,
neilca

[Eagledriver]

Some people remove the plugs. Others just spray solvent into the galleries and blow compressed air through them. The piston squirters need to be cleared with solvent/brake cleaner and compressed air. The archives have procedures for this.

-Andy

[Wayne 962]

Yes, you can go either way on this one, just like on other engine blocks...

-Wayne

[neilca]

Wayne,
Can you replace the press in plugs with tapped pipe plugs?

[ChrisBennet]

Anytime a motor blows up you need to remove the plugs and clean everything.

You can remove the plugs and have new ones made or you can have them tapped for threaded plugs. The threaded plugs I had done needed to be machined down for clearance. For example, the replcement oil gallery plug right behind the fan housing had to be cut down so it wouldn't hit the fan housing.

Henry Schmitt (Supertec) uses threaded plugs on his motors, perhap you can pick his brains and buy a set of plugs from him?
-Chris

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally posted by neilca
Wayne,
Can you replace the press in plugs with tapped pipe plugs?

Yes, we use tapered pipe plugs whenever an aluminum plug needs replacing.
On race engines this is especially important because it allows for future removal whenever an overhaul or freshen up is indicated.

[svandamme]

how do these plugs come out if one would try to do this himself? ( the tapered pipe plug thing )
or is this difficult and specialist work, or are specific tools required?

[ChrisBennet]

Originally posted by svandamme
how do these plugs come out if one would try to do this himself? ( the tapered pipe plug thing )
or is this difficult and specialist work, or are specific tools required?

For the main gallery plugs which are about 1"/24mm diameter, I drill a hole in one that is big enough for a piece of rod to fit through (I use aluminum rod ~ 3/8"/9mm from the hardware store). Then I put the rod through the hole and punch out the plug at the other end of the gallery. With the plug gone from the other end you can now punch out the plug that you drilled. Note that you don't want the drilled hole to be so big that you weaken the plug. All dimensions are approximate from memory, use your head when sizing the hole and rod diameters.
-Chris

[svandamme]

Chris, you say not to drill big, so not to weaken the plug
i assume you then re-use those plugs?

do you just tap those plugs back in ?
then how do you fill the hole? JB weld? screw in something?



i haven't been too convinced about my cleaning results so far, and if it is this easy , i might as well do it, and reassure myself that my oil galley is clean before i start rebuilding... anyone else did this?

[ChrisBennet]

The factory plug is not a solid disk, it's cup shaped. If you drill a big hole in the middle you might make it harder to tap out. I'm probably overstating the problem.

Then you have your machinist make you some new plugs.

Plug behind fan:

Plug (already removed) from other end of oil gallery, behind flywheel:


Replacement plugs that machinist made for me:


Does that help?
-Chris

[snowman]

I once rebuilt a 2.2 engine that someone else had recently worked on. I made the mistake of not removing ALL the plugs from EVERYTHING, including and especially the crank. Turns out some knuckle head, unkown to me, had bead blasted the case or some internal parts. I was VERY thorough cleaning. Put it togather and it almost siezed up just trying to get it started. Thankfully I tore it back down before it completely ruined everything, and I mean ruined everything. After that my personal view is that plugs don't add all that much to the total cost and removing ALL of them is the only way to guarentee EVERYTHING is cleaned out.

[svandamme]

thanks chris