Trakrat's 3.2 Engine Rebuild

[Trakrat]

I'll be disassembling and rebuilding my engine for the first time and will be posting pics to this thread.

[Trakrat]

The reason for the rebuild was due to an over rev miss shift that accidentally shifted to 2nd instead of 4th.
The engine continued to run until I put the clutch in and came to a stop. Engine died with oil light and battery light on. Trying to start it would turn the engine and I would get a very minor pop out of the exhaust, but nothing more.

Other issues that seemed to be apparent before this happened is that cylinders 1-3 seemed to run lean while 4-6 seemed to run rich. The exhaust valves on 1-3 were black and oily looking while the exhaust valves on 4-6 were white and powdery looking.

[Trakrat]

Already removed the following:
exhaust
valve covers
spark plug wires and distributor cap
air filter
A/C components - will be completely removing all A/C components throughout the car

no broken rockers have been noticed, no broken valve stems have been found either.
Other than some minor sideways play in the rockers at 1,3, and 5... nothing else has been noticeable.

[Trakrat]

after removing the transmission from the engine, I noticed the following..


Apparently someone used some vice grips in the past to pull this stud out.



Clutch assembly looks real good... still a lot of meat left. Almost looks new. I'll have to track down some documentation and see if I can figure out when the PO recently had this replaced.

[Trakrat]

Removed some wiring... seems this has been done before due to the red paint marked for placement...

[Trakrat]

I removed this as well... does anyone know what it's proper name is? I need to document it, but not sure what to call it...

[Trakrat]

What's the best way to clean up the small screws and other fastening hardware?
Should I just buy some sort of bench wheel to polish them? or is there some other easy way to get them cleaned up again? I plan on being very detailed on making sure every part is cleaned before reassembly.

[fanaudical]

Bench wheels and ultrasonic cleaning sometimes remove the plating.

What works for me for small screws and hardware is to put them in a quart jar (or several smaller jars if you need to keep them separated/organized) and soak in full-strength Pinesol. Swirl them around every now and then and pull them out with a magnet. Rinse with warm water, dry between a couple shop towels, and give them a shot of WD-40 or similar. Pinesol is cheap, nonflammable, and cuts grease/oil.

You can do similar with kerosene if you prefer (no water for drying).

[Josh D]

Originally Posted by Trakrat

What's the best way to clean up the small screws and other fastening hardware?
Should I just buy some sort of bench wheel to polish them? or is there some other easy way to get them cleaned up again? I plan on being very detailed on making sure every part is cleaned before reassembly.

Tool vendors like Harbor Freight sell small parts vibration tumblers. Good for small brackets and hardware. I here it takes them awhile though.

[bpu699]

If you polish, brush, or abrasively clean the nuts/screws then they will immediately rust. Ask me how I know.

Just alcohol or other cleaners works fine, unless you plan to replate.

You can get some zinc spray in a can at homedepot, to spray the larger bolt heads its, as long as you are ok with a flat grey finish...

Otherwise, just buy new hardware...

[Trakrat]

anyone know what that part is in #6 post's pics???

I need to document it properly.

[Speedy Squirrel]

Brake vacumn line and check valve.

[Speedy Squirrel]

I think we are about at the same point on builds. You are about to find out that you need the cam nut removal tool, just FYI.

[Trakrat]

Originally Posted by Speedy Squirrel

I think we are about at the same point on builds. You are about to find out that you need the cam nut removal tool, just FYI.

Yep... I need to order that. But from what I can tell I do NOT need the special claw type device??

[Speedy Squirrel]

You do not. We use the holder with the pins, and a socket.

[Trakrat]

So I decided to look around and see if I could see any damage to the engine from my overrev.
Rockers look good, valves are intact, no pieces of anything fell out of the engine... yet.

However I did notice this when looking through one of the oil tubes... not sure what those teeth marks are (not even sure what I'm looking at).... any ideas??

[bpu699]

oil pump shaft...

[Tippy]

Originally Posted by bpu699

oil pump shaft...

......connecting to the IMS shaft

[Trakrat]

Worked on removing the intake runners and fuel delivery system...
Used Bentley's manual... everything was spot on, though there were a few things I probably didn't need to do at the time that the book mentions it.

Disconnected these hoses that were attached to a bracket on the air filter box


Bentley says to make a note of the shims used on the fan belt pulley before taking it off... 3 on the outside, 4 on the inside.



One thing that didn't make sense is that Bentley says to disconnect the ground wire from the alternator in order to remove the intake runners... you don't need to this step yet... and can remove it when you remove the shroud and fan and alternator together.

[Trakrat]

I unhooked these springs, as I wasn't sure about them being still on there.. I only unhooked them from the flywheel side.



Finally.. after following the Bentley manual to remove all the wiring connections, I was finally able to pull this off. (Note that it took a couple of hard hits with a soft mallet to loosen it up from the studs.)