How do you document/organize your engine teardown/rebuild?

[Johnston179]

Originally Posted by Trakrat

So... I'm trying to think about how to document the teardown of my engine.

I've put some bolts and nuts in sandwich bags and used a permanent marker to write on the back where the bolts and nuts go.... but I'm not thinking that it will be enough.

How should I go about documenting everything?
What worked best for you and what would you change?

Do I need to be concerned about whether my engine is TDC when pulling it apart? Or does it not matter?

Do I need to document the condition of everything? Document part #s and/or serial #s?
What do I need to take pictures of, and how should be identifying what the picture is, bolts used, etc...??
What do you do to keep the bolts, nuts and other hardware with their attached parts?

I don't have unlimited counter space, shelf space, or dozens of boxes.
I'd love to see some pics of how you keep everything organized.

I've already ran into a problem with trying to figure out where I got a couple of bolts a nuts sitting on the garage floor... which is easy to do when you are working to remove something, because you are trying to get to something else... and all of sudden, the 2 bolts you wanted to remove required you to remove 2 other bolts from something completely different.

What I've found extremely useful.is if you can find a parts catalog with exploded views and you bag up and label your parts with the catalogue page and the number of the part on exploded veiw