Another Rookie 3.0L rebuild

[jdbunda]

Funny, I looked it up the other night and found that the yellow with the long oil cooler duct like the one I have is correct for this car. It is in really bad shape though, the glass is breaking down. I am going to order a new one from Damon - in yellow.

[jpnovak]

Well, it will sure look great.

[jdbunda]

Are you kidding? I'm thinking 8-10hp, at least. More if I replate all the hardware.


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[cgarr]

Hell a G2 sticker on your car is 10hp min!


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[jdbunda]

Well, some not-so-great news tonight, but I can't really say it is wholly unexpected. I had come to view with suspicion the claims that my motor was a rebuild with 25k miles on it, and I think got some more logs tossed onto that fire.

When I split the case a couple weeks ago, I noticed there was some lateral play in each of the rods, but it was consistent across all of them, so thought maybe that was normal. Jamie (jpnovak) came over tonight to inspect, and he thought that the play was a little excessive. We pulled a rod, and observed wear on the bearings, so pulled them all. Also noted some wear on the main bearings, primarily on the two nearest the flywheel.

We measured the piston rings, and they are just barely within spec. With Craig (cgarr) already observing that the exhaust valves and all the guides need replacing, one wonders what was actually "rebuilt" 25k miles ago. It might have just been putting in the cams and resealing. Who knows?

Anyway, what this means is I will be doing the bottom end, too. Up till now, it seemed silly to do all the bearings and rod bolts if they were "perfectly good" in a relatively recently built engine, but now I know they aren't exactly perfectly good, so I can make sure it's all fresh. Added to the project list will be new main, rod, and intermediate shaft bearings, new rod bolts, and flywheel balancing.

Here is the icing on the cake - the crank looks like it banged around in the bed of someone's pickup. Hard to imagine what might have let loose inside an engine, causing this damage, yet leaving the crank still usable. Had to have happened in one of this crank's prior lifetimes, but unnerving. Hard to believe this would not cause balance problems, especially since the "rebuild" included hotter cams and heavier valve springs - and even going so far as having the redline raised on the tach.





So much for simply swapping the motor into a new case! (You knew that was a just a dream, right?) I'm looking at the bright side - at least I won't be waking up at night wondering if I should have redone the bottom end while I had the whole thing apart.

[casor]

John - there are guys who certainly know more about the internal guts here than I do, but it seems to me that the crank should be checked by someone who knows what to look for. The dents in your crank could create stress risers and you're right, it should be checked for balance and straightness. This is one area I would not screw around with because you don't want to do this again.
Rob

[jdbunda]

Absolutely Rob, it is going off for inspection and repair.. I neglected to mention that. Flywheel needs balancing, too.


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[casor]

My hero!! Way ahead of me and good on ya.

[frankc]

Sorry to see this, John. But like you said, better to have caught this now.

Seeing this makes me even more nervous about what I'll find when I split my case.

[casor]

Frank - have no fear, we're all miserable. I just stuck my 2.7 eng back in the car after a cam tower reseal and 9 mos of waiting. Good news is that it runs great. Bad news is that it's still leaking, and not a little. A little from where the repair was supposed to be but now, a new one, from what looks like the main seam on the back end of the eng case. A stream of oil, not drips. At mechanic's now who thinks its something minor. We'll see I guess!
Rob

[jdbunda]

Hey Frank - after seeing this, it would be difficult for me to suggest you shouldn't split yours to at least see what you've got. The truth shall set you free! Or something like that. I am just glad I am in a position to be philosophical about this. The only remaining wild card is the crank, but at least all the journals look to be in good shape. After going back through the notebook I got from the prior owner, there is nothing in there about the bottom end. So I really believe nothing was done at that time except maybe a reseal (there is RTV everywhere). Hard to believe anyone who had really inspected this motor would have not at least commented on the condition of the crank!


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[motogman]

You guys scare me! My motor is sitting on the stand in the garage waiting for me to figure out what to do.

I am learning a bunch from your experience before I dive into mine.

Casor - do you have any pictures of what you are talking about with your leaks?

[jdbunda]

I took my crank over to Jamie's tonight, and we measured the main and rod journals. Despite the scary looking damage in the pics above, the crank appears to be in spec. I have rod and main bearings, and a set of rod bolts on the way. I will be sending the crank, rods, flywheel, and pressure plate off to Ollie's for polish, balance, and the usual rejuvenation. Going to opt for cross-drilling/grooving the crank, too. Not a lot of wrenches turning right now, but the checkbook is getting a workout.


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[michael lang]

I have heard of knife edging the crank to reduce resistance as it rotates in the case but I've not heard of cross drilling/grooving the crankshaft. Besides the obvious lightening the rotating mass, what else is that supposed to do?

[jdbunda]

Here is a thread that explains crank cross-drilling.

Another crank cross drill question

One of Henry's posts from another thread puts it succinctly:

Crank cross drilling and bearing mod?

[jdbunda]

Gratuitous Sunday update, cleaned my pistons, still have some stubborn carbon that will need to be blasted off.



Cylinders are next. Mine are Mahle Nikasil, so I'm looking to deglaze and clean them. Done a lot of reading here, and hot soapy water with red Scotchbrite (I assume this is Scotchbrite 07447) seems to be the consensus. Thinking I will run them through the ultrasonic with Dawn afterwards.

Still battling the slot-head screw side of the pressure relief valve on my old case. Got the other side off, but have yet to be able to extract the piston. The slot head screw doesn't want to move. Why is there always that One Last Thing that seems impossible? I have now kind of mangled the screw head. I wanted to get one of the pistons out to at least know what kind to order. When did they switch to the new style pistons?

I've got new coated Clevite rod bearings, German Glyco mains, and some ARP rod bolts on my parts rack. Getting excited about re-assembly. Any week now...

[casor]

Originally Posted by motogman

You guys scare me! My motor is sitting on the stand in the garage waiting for me to figure out what to do.

I am learning a bunch from your experience before I dive into mine.

Casor - do you have any pictures of what you are talking about with your leaks?

I think I dodged the proverbial bullet with my 2.7. Bill Boys has had it for a week or so and said the leaks were warped turbo valve covers (you know, the ones that aren't supposed to warp) and an aft O-ring behind the pulley that comes out of the case - drives the fan pulley. While he said the whole thing has to come apart to REALLY fix it, he has had success with cleaning the area and sealing it with schmutz - forget what he used. He called back TOD and said that it ain't leaking now after a good drive.

He said the the leaky aft rear O-ring makes it look like the central case seam was leaking but it wasn't. At least right now, anyway. I guess that'll be next.

To answer your question, I was so disgusted at time, I never took any pics, other than the "Exxon Valdez" size oil slick on the floor in my garage.

[jdbunda]

It's been too long since my last update. All of my machine work is back, got the heads done and drilled for MFI ports, crank has been cross-drilled, cleaned, and polished, flywheel resurfaced, I have virtually all of the parts I need for re-assembly. Pistons, bearings, and heads are over at jpnovak's for performance coating - having some problems with off-gassing from the piston tops bubbling the heat shield coating during the bake.

Meanwhile, I have been battling with the piston oil squirters in my new case. One is open, the other five are clogged, and no amount of Seafoam, Berryman's B12, compressed air, have had any effect. The other night, I took the case over to bathe in sundevil64's mondo ultrasonic cleaner to see if that helps. I've read lots of threads on this - I have not yet tried straight MEK. Berryman's has MEK - I was hoping that would be sufficient...

[Trackrash]

Mine came clean with carb cleaner. However, I have found that plain old gasoline does a great job of dissolving oil sludge and varnish. Much better than carb cleaner. Electrical contact cleaner has good old fashion carbon tetrachloride. If you are brave you might give that a try.

[jdbunda]

Took the case to Jamie's and with compressed air and proper technique, we were able to get them clear. A couple of them were stubborn and required some engineering with the rubber hose to get a good seal, allow the channel to the squirter to be open at the same time, and get enough pressure to break open the ball valve. Having two pair of hands made this much easier. The flavor of solvent was far less important than getting good air pressure, and that required some finesse.

We used a length of rubber fuel line and a rubber-tipped air nozzle on the compressor hose. The side of the case without oil galley channels was easy, just block one through-bolt hole with a finger, and the air nozzle pressed into the other one. The side of the case with the main bearing channels is tougher. The 7/16" ID rubber fuel line from Auto Zone could barely squeeze into the through-bolt holes; it was tight, we had to remove some of the rubber with a grinder and put oil on the hose to get it into the case far enough to block the main bearing channel opening, then apply air through the main meaning oil hole. Oddly, one of the squirter channels was drilled to the through bolt hole rather than the main bearing passage, so we we had to slit the hose to allow it to block the main oil galley passage but still allow the main bearing and squirter passages to communicate.

I would seem my case was unusually stubborn, perhaps because it has been out of service for a while (not my original case). The technique in the book was never going to work, five of mine were going nowhere just trying to spray solvent through them. I am documenting what we did here hoping it might help someone else - next time it will take me 15 minutes instead of two weeks. Thanks again, Jamie!


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