Pictures and info
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June, July, August 2004
Well, unfortunately there's a big update that I've been
meaning to do for a while. In late June, I went for a drive in the car
and when I returned home after giving it a fun thrashing, I was leaking
oil down the driveway. Not small drips either. The low oil pressure
light never came on though so I can safely say nothing catostrophic
happened. I haven't found out the culprit for sure, but I think possibly
a leaking rear main seal or something on the head. Those are my guesses
so far.
As I updated earlier on the car's history, in April
of 2004 I had the oil pump replaced and Ben Thongsai who did the work
said the motor was on borrowed time. My car has 164K on the odometer,
but he and I suspect it may have closer to 200K, probably as a result
of a reset to zero odometer when the car was brought into the US in 1985.
In particular the rod bearings were junk and he said that was part of
the reason for my low oil pressure issues in the summer of 2003. He
also noted that the motor had two mismatched connecting rods which were
from a later 80's 3.5l M30 engine. Wonderful.... I had been hoping the
car would make it through another summer of some fun, low miles, and
cruising but with the oil leak, I said screw-it, let's do this thing
right. It's rebuild time!
I knew it would take me a while to disassemble everything
and get the engine ready to pull. That leaves lots of time to save
up some money for this process. A lot of affordability will depend
on whether the engine needs new pistons. At a minimum I want to fully
balance the bottom end and of course get two matching connecting rods
to go with the set. If pistons are in order, I will have to make a
determination whether to run stock Mahles (probably oversize) or go
aftermarket. Other possible tuning options exist, but of course add
cost to the rebuild. The car was already fast to begin with, so it can't
be any worse with a freshly rebuilt motor featuring (of all things!)
matching connecting rods.
This section of the writeup will be devoted to the
pre-pull process. After the motor is out and the dissassembly of that
begins, I'll take more pictures in another section. The process has
been a great learning experience so far and I've cataloged every part
as I've removed it in labeled, ziploc bags. That's the ONLY way you
can do this. Oh, and lots of pictures help, too. Of note are a few
things:
- The exhaust removal was not that bad, particularly the exhaust manifold
to exhaust bolts, which have an awful reputation for rust. A ton of
WD40 and letting them sit for 24 hours rendered them helpless to some
modest torque with a socket wrench.
- I sure wish I'd just drained the coolant first off rather than
having small drips as I went along. The bolt was obscured by the
exhaust so I decided to leave it. Consequently anytime the car's
pitch changed (or the engine position changed during the tranny
removal) some coolant dripped out on the floor. The one 19mm bolt is
towards the back of the block, passenger-side, underneath the
exhaust manifold. Be prepared with a big bucket (like 5 gallon)
to catch it all.
- The driveshaft removal was a pain as even with the center bearing
support removed, the universal joint didn't want to allow the shaft
to pop out of the guibo. Finally with some gentle but firm action
with a prybar on the guibo the driveshaft popped out.
- The tranny removal wasn't that bad as long as you remove the
bell housing as well. I wanted to remove the tranny alone from the
bellhousing, but the top 19mm nuts holding the tranny on were
designed to fit in a location engineered by satan. The casting of
the tranny interfers with a socket, so you can't get them off that
way. Even a 12 point won't fit on enough to grab. The bolts are
too close to the body of the tranny to have a box-end wrench fit
either. And an open-end wrench will do no good as the transmission
tunnel doesn't give you enough room to work!! Supposedly an S-shaped
open-end wrench will do it, but screw that. Remove the bell housing
bolts, which are I think 3 or 4 13mm and 3 17mm's. Easy, easy, easy aside from the tugging and
weight of the tranny to move around. I'm glad I didn't try my
half-baked idea to lay underneath it instead of using a jack. And
to do it by myself. Duh. My neighbor who used to be an auto
mechanic helped me pull the tranny with both of us tugging and the
jack supporting it. We gently brought it to the ground without issue.
- After telling my neighbor how I was going to leave the tranny
fluid in since it wasn't getting rebuilt or anything, I stupidly
turned the tranny over to remove the crossbrace bolt and fluid
slowly poured onto the work bench from some kind of small seep
hole on the top of the tranny. As long as the tranny isn't placed
in a dumbass position (i.e. upside down) it won't leak. I don't
know the purpose of that hole, but it screwed me out of a 1/4
quart of Redline MTL.
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Hood taken off the car.
Engine with radiator, coolant hoses, intake, and fuel injection removed.
Passenger side view. Exhaust is unbolted from manifold as well.
Bellhousing with clutch throwout mounted.
Clutch still mounted on flywheel.
Back of engine supported with a jack stand.
Rust around the exhaust heat shield I'll need to take care of.
Interior with no shift linkage.
Tranny and bellhousing when it first came out of the car.
Tranny umounted from bell housing. Note cold beer!
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September/October 2004
Well, even more has happened since the pictures above. I
have pulled the engine out of the car and completely disassembled
it. Things look pretty good to my untrained eye. But only the
final word from the machine shop will tell the story.
The motor lifted out fairly cleanly when my friend Jim Potsch
who is an E3 Bavaria nut came over with his engine hoist. The
clutch assembly made it a tight fit, but it was ready to come
out. Unfortunately, the hoist was hitting the garage door and
I had run out of height! Even when we lowered the car's wheels
to the ground. So eureka, I thought of a solution. Since we
couldn't get the engine hoist out of the garage as it was against
the garage door and wedged in there, we elected to push my car back
away from the engine and leave the hoist stationary. Thank god
I had room behind the car to push it back a few feet. This
worked beautifully and I had my engine out.
The plan was then to attach the motor to the engine stand I
bought, but my wife and I were going to a picnic that morning
and I felt rushed. Jim graciously let me keep the hoist an
extra week until I was ready to mount the engine to the stand
myself. I wanted time to evaluate which points to moun the
four arms on the stand to and make sure it was all good. A
rushed job could have been disastrous!
Notice how dirty the engine bay is! We'll take care of that
soon enough.
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The engine is lifted up!
Sideview of airborn engine.
Close-up of side w/exhaust manifold still attached.
You can kind of see the motor pushing against the radiator mount
Clutch pushing against cowl/firewall.
The hoist stays put, the car moves back.
Nasty smeg, oil, grime, and grease!
Looks worse without the flash.
Note collision damage around washer fluid tank.
Other side's view of smeg.
Temporarily resting on some plywood and cinder blocks.
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The process started to pull it apart before I had secured it to the stand. First,
off with its head! Some of the head studs looked ugly; messed up threads and most
had pitting and some gashes on the sides. They won't be going back in. I felt
better about pulling the head first as that was less weight on the stand.
The oil pan is missing a small chunk where the bottom of the alternator bracket
bolts on. I guess I'll get a new pan?? Sucks!
The tops of the pistons have a fair amount of carbon buildup, but other than
that, they look pretty decent. The head looks nice, too, but I'll still have
the machine shop go through it.
Note the fresh, shiny, brand-new oil pump and timing chain. They are both less
than a year old.
During the removal of the water pump, one of the bolt heads
sheered off leaving the stud still stuck in the block. Wonderful.
So I got out the drill, and proceeded to drill out the water pump
housing around the stud until I could break the water pump off.
Once it came off, the stud was exposed and I grabbed it with some
vise grips to remove it from the block. It came out easily and
didn't leave anything behind in the block! Scary moment for me.
Note all the silver shavings in the bottom picture from drilling
out the water pump.
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The head is off.
Carbon buildup
shortblock on the stand
The head sitting on my workbench, sans exhaust manifolds
The first look at the bottom-end
Shiny oil pump
Harmonic balancer is still on!
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This is the contraption I had to rig up to get the whomper 36mm nut
off the end of the crank that holds the harmonic balancer on. This
bitch of a nut is held on with 325 lb/ft of torque!! Jeez. I used
a bunch of 2x4"'s to secure the engine stand as I exerted torque on
the nut. I used the pole from my conduit bender on the end of the 20"
breaker bar (1/2" drive) to get leverage. After several failed attemps
earlier in the week, I used the cinder blocks and the longer 2x4 going
up to the garage door header. There wasn't any way I was going to lift
my garage of course so this finally braced things. But I still couldn't
get it off. I used a propane torch to heat up the nut and then after
bouncing with all my weight on the end of the conduit bar and breaker
bar, it popped off. Words can't describe what a pain in the ass this
was!
Then I pulled the pistons and rods out and set them on my workbench,
careful to keep all the bearings and rod-ends as a set and labeled
which bore they came out of.
I don't have pics of it, but the fun didn't end with the 36mm nut.
The harmonic balancer still woudln't come off as it was fused to the
crank hub. After lots of heating, bending, and prying the balancer
finally came off, but the damn crank nut was still on. I could not
get this off and I ended up breaking the lower timing chain cover
trying to use a screwdriver and prybar wedged between the cover and
the crank hub to get it off. So I'll have to get a new lower
timing chain cover now. And the damn crank hub is STILL on the
crank! The machine shop will have to deal with it. I can't get
the f'er off.
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Apparatus to secure the engine stand
2x4 going to my garage door header to brace things
Tools required to get it off. Dewalt electric impact only does 240 lb/ft
Empty bores
pistons neatly arranged
Close-up of #1
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What's that awful smell!!?? Oh my god, run!! Adam's pulling
main caps! For some reason, the engine must have saved up
the nastiest fart-smelling oil in the main bearing caps because
as the bolts came out, the smell was released. It was terrible.
And you thought the rear-end fluid in the diff could smell bad.
This was foul. I showered afterwords to make sure the smell
wasn't in my hair!
The crank lifted out easily and I put it on my workbench. Note
the f'ing crank hub and lower timing cover seal still on the
shaft! The bare shortblock is now sitting on the engine stand
with nothing left to do.
Time to get everything to the machine shop!
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Bare short block
Underside showing main bearing halves
The crank on my workbench
Close-up of a few of the bores
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October 9th, 2004
It's time to start cleaning!! I pushed the car out of
the garage and angled it towards the edge of our driveway.
I also put a tarp underneath to catch all the filth so
it wouldn't sit on our nice brick driveway. Then I got
out a plastic bristled scrubber, a few SOS pads, and the
Simple green and started scrubbing away. I used the hose
to spray things down between scrubbings. I had to unbolt
the steering box to get against the frame rail, but it's
still very tight in there. There's a lot of cleaning left
to do on the driver's side, particularly under the brake
master cylinder and brake booster. It's very tight in there.
But the frame rails are no longer black ... they're white
like the car! Nice! I think this is only round #1 and
there will be another engine cleaning party coming up.
I did work on the battery tray. I think some dumbass painted
it black!! Moron previous owners.
My next posting of pics and info will be after the engine
gets to the machine shop.
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Pushing the car out in the day light!
Tarp setup
A white frame rail!
A before photo!
Pushing the car back in, a pain.
After, but there's still more to do on this side.
Me fooling around!
The triumphant halfway point, 10/24/2004. Engine went to machine shop yesterday.
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