My 1978SC Rebuild - Start
 

So after some humming and hawing I’ve taken the plunge and decided to disassemble my 3.0L 78SC engine myself and see what I can find.

As far as my mechanical knowledge, I’ve never done much else then check the oil or add to the oil level in my car. So everything so far is very much new to me. But I’ve armed myself with Wayne’s rebuild book, the Bentley manual, a digital camera, and little bit of courage.

Here’s the mandatory picture of me in the engine bay.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...apple00/me.jpg

So far I’ve found that 3 of my fuel injector’s look like a split open banana peel. I have pictures of them but I can’t upload them now.

After that the next thing I found was that two of my rocker shafts had come out. One on the upper left the other on the bottom left.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...ckershaft2.jpg
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http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...ockershaft.jpg

Lastly I opened up covers to the chain housing and discovered that the plastic ramp on the left hand side had come loose and I also found a piece of a plastic ramp resting on top of the chain.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...nerhousing.jpg
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That's all for now, more to follow later!

Great! Not that it's good to find broken stuff, but it's sure better than NOT finding broken stuff!

Welcome! I am also rebuilding a 78SC motor, so it will be fun to see your progress. Just curious, was your motor running before you took it appart? I would assume not with the rocker shaft...How many miles on the motor? Any broken headstuds?

Aurel

Thanks, I'm pretty excited to have taken on this project. If anything I'm sure going to know a lot more once everything is all said and done. At this point I just hope that the broken stuff doesn't break my bank account.

It was doing something but running wouldn't be how I would describe it :)

The engine has 105632 miles in total, 43000 miles of those are on a top end rebuild.

I'll have to double check but I'm fairly certain that in total there were 3 broken headstuds.

I am starting my own rebuild of my 78 SC this week. Haven't even dropped the engine yet. Luckily the next event isn't till February.... Plenty of time ? I hope so!

Good luck to you! It looks like you've got a bit of a shop there, so I'd assume you to have some mechanical skills. You'll do it!

James: You better get moving......even when I got rolling on mine, it still took a couple of months. That was after waiting on stuff I had at the machine shop get done.

Good luck, I am not too far behind you. I must finish my home remodel first, per the wife...LOL

It also looks like you spent a couple of months getting stuff CLEAN. Holy cow, you could eat off that fan blade. I doubt I will go for the clean look, since mine is a rough and tumble track car. That and it takes a long time. Heck, it will just get dirty anyway :)

The only mechancial skills I have are from what I've done with the engine and learned along the way.

For this endeavour I plan read over Wayne's book and the Bentley manual so that I have a rough idea of what I need to do. That and to take my time and fill up my hard drive with lots of pictures of the whole process.

Update #2
 

Well I've made a lot of progress so far.

The Cylinders and Pistons have all been taken out. Here's some pictures from my adventures.

I've gotten my Cylinder heads off I was quite shocked. From seeing other pictures from other Pelicans I was prepared for the carbon build up but not the loose carbon debris.

In total I have 2 broken head studs. One on Cylinder #6 and the other on Cylinder #1
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Cylinder #6 looked absolutly disgusting with the amount of oil that must have been leaking in there. I'm surprised that more smoke didn't come out of my car.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...inders-4-6.jpg
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Cylinder #1 is looking like it's in the early stages of what was happening with #6

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...inders-1-3.jpg

Here's a picture of one of my fuel injectors, two of them are split but this one looks like a banana peal that's been opened. All the others have a whitish build up on them.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...-injector2.jpg

More pictures to follow later!

That is actually a pic of an air injection nozel, not a fuel injector, which is part on the air injection system that most people on this board advise to remove altogether . . . the nozels get replaced with a simple plug . . . there is a lot of info to be found here on the advantages of removing the air injection system . . .

Looks like you have Alusil cylinders too, given the milky white appearance. I just rebuilt my 3.2 into a 3.4 and had Alusils as well. The project thread is over in the technical forum if you're interested.

It's a total crapshoot if you're thinking of re-ringing them, as I understand it. A search will give you the full (and grim) picture. You might want to think of adding either a good used or new set of nikasils and pistons to your budget.

Just for reference, it took me almost 4 months of weekends and one full vacation week to get mine done (and yes, it runs!). But then I went crazy with the cleaning and totally OCD with researching and double checking each major step.

+1

Get rid of that junk! saves weight, and cleans up the engine bay. The plugs are really cheap. Just make sure you install them before installing the headers... Just makes life a whole lot easier.

Good luck with your rebuild. the most I had ever done was an oil change, and I just finished up my 79 turbo rebuild. Could never of done it without this forum, and waynes books.