Hoisting the engine

[13jeff13]

Great Stuff

Great Work Bill. You are a True Inspiration to us All. This, to me, has been a great tutorial, and step by step rebuild to go down in the Afourian Hall Of Fame. Not to take away from all the other Talent on this site, as there are too many to mention, but for someone just going through the process, Your rebuild has been a real treat!!!

Being 4-F, and 4-G certified,, them's Mighty fine lookin welds.

Jeff.

[13jeff13]

Curious Observation?

Will it be necessary to clean that area the mounting bracket attaches, for grounding purposes, for the alternator sake? Just curious, as mine was bare of paint.

Just asking,?,? and now that I am asking,, how about the mounting areas for the starter and the spark plugs as well,,? We don't want any unnecessary diversions come start day.

[ILikeRust]

Being 4-F, and 4-G certified,, them's Mighty fine lookin welds.

HA! Let's just say I ain't takin' any pictures closer than those...

[ILikeRust]

Will it be necessary to clean that area the mounting bracket attaches, for grounding purposes, for the alternator sake? Just curious, as mine was bare of paint.

No, I don't think so. The alternator has a wired connection to ground, I believe.

MMI's panoramic views of an A4 show that area as painted:

Just asking,?,? and now that I am asking,, how about the mounting areas for the starter and the spark plugs as well,,? We don't want any unnecessary diversions come start day.

Yeah, I plan on cleaning out the threads of the spark plug holes before I install the head. I believe I've left enough bare area where the starter attaches to make any ground contact that might be necessary. I'll figure all this out as I put her back together - which I now can start doing, since I've got nearly everything painted and ready.

I didn't get any pics of the distributor, but I also scraped and cleaned that down to bare metal (that actually took a surprising amount of work for such a small item) and primed and painted it. It was really filthy. Looks mucho better now!

We're going on a family camping trip for a couple days since the girls are off school for Spring Break, so I won't be working on the engine for several days.

But I think the next step is to pull all the masking off the block, make sure all the interior surfaces are good and clean (cylinder walls, valve guides, etc), and then put the crank and pistons back in and then valve train, and then keep going until it's an engine again!

[rigspelt]

Seems to me there are a couple of theads here where we discussed alternator grounding through wire or paint-free contact with the engine block. Might be worth a search. Can't recall the details, but I have a vague idea that I decided to ensure good contact to the block.

[ILikeRust]

Well I started the reassembly. Monday night after work, I put in the crankshaft and pistons - with all new bearings and rings, of course.

Being that I fundamentally am a ham-fisted idiot, I managed to inadvertently delete all the pictures I took of that. I experienced that tiny measure of time known as an "ohnosecond", which is the amount of time between the moment you click "yes, I would like to delete these photos" and the moment your brain realizes what an incredibly stupid thing your finger just did.

Anyhow, note that it is possible to get the connecting rod bearing caps on backwards. The hint is when, after you've tightened down the second one, you cannot turn the crankshaft at all. Don't Ask Me How I Know This.

Each connecting rod and each bearing cap is stamped with a number corresponding to which cylinder it goes in (1, 2, 3, 4). To make sure the bearing cap is on the right way, the number on the bearing cap has to be on the same side of the crankshaft as the number on the bottom of the connecting rod - the connecting rod number must be directly above the bearing cap number. If the numbers are on opposite sides of the crank, the cap is on backwards, and this will not work.

So anyhow, I got the crank and pistons and all new bearings and rings in on Monday night.

Tonight I left work early and came home and went right to work on the valve train.

As the Moyer Manual instructs, the first step is to turn the engine upside down and install all the lifters, because you can't put them in once the camshaft is in. Once they're in, then you can slide the cam back in.

A little tip: on page P5-3 of the Moyer Manual is a statement to be careful when tightening the two small bolts that hold the camshaft into the block, so as not to twist the heads off. That is a valid caution. Don't Ask Me How I Know This.

I must say, however, that those little bolts must be made of spaghetti metal or something, because it was ridiculously easy to twist off the head of one of the bolts - I mean, that's what I've heard. Not that I would actually have twisted off the head of one of those bolts or anything. Of course not!

Fortunately (as I've been told by a, uh, friend of mine - yeah, a friend - who was ham-fisted enough to actually do it), it was easy enough (supposedly) to drill a small hole in the end of the bit of bolt left in the block and then jam a Phillips-head screwdriver in the small hole and then simply unscrew it out.

At least, that's what I've heard.

The rest of the installation of the valve train was pretty uneventful. First, I put the oil pan on, and then picked up the whole assembly (which at this point is starting to get a bit heavy), turned it over and set it down on the cradle and dolly I had whacked together to hold the engine when I took it out of the boat. Now I can roll it around and work on it easily.

It's a bit of fiddly work getting the valve spring keepers back in properly. I put a tiny little dab of lithium wheel bearing grease on each of the little keepers to make it stick to the shaft of the valve as I released the pressure on the spring compressor.

I must say the spring compressor made the job possible, but I won't say it made the job easy. The spring compressor would be better if it had more of a lip around the edge of the lower jaw to keep the bottom end of the spring and the cone washer from sliding around and popping off the jaw.

Anyhow, I got that all back together and then it didn't take too long to set the lifter clearances. Then I installed the Moyer stud kit and put the gasket and cover plate on.

I keep thinking "jeez, I hope I didn't forget anything." I can just see discovering I forgot some stupid little washer or something requiring me to turn the engine back over and pull the oil pan back off. Not like I've never done anything like that before. But I'm being very careful and moving along slowly, so I'm pretty sure I've done everything right.

So anyhow, by the end of the evening tonight, here is what she looks like (I had to go back out to the shop to take these three pics after stupidly (but accidentally!) deleting all the other pics I took):







Question: should I use the Permatex adhesive on the oil pan gasket? The Moyer Manual just says to lay the gasket on the block and then carefully put the pan on - it doesn't say anything about using sealant. But it does say to use sealant around the side cover. So I figured that since it didn't say to use it on the oil pan, that must mean you don't need it. So I didn't use any - just the gaskets.

If it's better to use some sealant, it wouldn't be a huge deal at this stage to flip the engine back over and pull the oil pan back off - but obviously I'd rather not if I don't have to.

[ILikeRust]

By the way, I discovered that the cleaning kit for a .30 caliber rifle is just right for making sure the valve guides are all clean before putting the valves in, and the cleaning kit for a 12-ga. shotgun works well for the lifter guides.

[hanleyclifford]

Maybe we better not ask what you clean cylinders with!

[ILikeRust]

What, you don't have a Howitzer cleaning kit?

[ILikeRust]

The status of my engine as of last night:

Studs in:



Gaskets on:



Head on:

[ILikeRust]

And my customized lifting eye bracket, with Taggart modification:







So now it will lift the engine by four studs instead of only two.

[ILikeRust]

A wee bit more progress today.

Got all the head nuts on and torqued, the flywheel housing and flywheel on, and dropped in the reversing gear assembly:





To get those formerly greasy, grimy, paint-spattered, rusty head nuts to look like that, I wire wheeled each one with a wire wheel in my drill press, then soaked them all in muriatic acid for a few minutes before rinsing and neutralizing with a baking soda solution to stop the acid from rusting them. Then a quick swirl in some mineral spirits to remove any residual grease or dirt.

I'm thinking I'll need to paint them with something or else they'll rust pretty quickly in the engine compartment, in the marine environment. But they do look so sharp all clean and shiny. Maybe I'll just hit them with clear lacquer.

I discovered that I had not ordered a new thrust bearing for the output flange like I thought I did, so I couldn't go much further, since assembling the reversing gear housing and installing the round cover with thrust bearing in it is pretty much the next step.

I also am going to make the Kaminsky modification, and my friend who has pipe taps evidently wasn't around today - either that or he wasn't answering his phone or avoiding me. Hopefully he'll be around tomorrow and I can get the hole drilled and tapped in the reversing gear housing.

In the meantime I did a little work on the prop shaft and stuffing box and fiddled with some other odds and ends.

Seems I never make quite as much progress in a day as I think I will...

[sastanley]

A wee bit more progress today.

Seems I never make quite as much progress in a day as I think I will...

You aren't kidding there. "if I just had that part with me..."

I can't see your photobucket pics here at work, so thanks for including some commentary. I'll be able to see them at home later.

[ILikeRust]

So, contrary to my last post, I actually have made very good progress in the last two days. Yes, I played hooky from work yesterday and worked on the engine all day - and then again today.

I really hope to be able to fire the beast up on Monday. I'm planning on heading up to the boatyard to work on the boat tomorrow, so I don't expect to do anything on the engine tomorrow.

Anyhow, a few thoughts.

I totally disassembled and rebuilt the accessory drive. I almost certainly did not have to. I got carried away. The bearings felt and sounded just fine. But I kept saying "in for a penny, in for a pound." I figured I had the whole engine completely disassembled, I was replacing all the bearings and gaskets; might as well do the accessory drive.

Looking back, I should not have bothered. If the accessory drive goes bad, it's not a big deal to yank it off and deal with it then. And given that mine seemed to be fine, it's pretty unlikely it would have gone bad.

Thanks very much to Ken at MM, I got the thing torn down and reassembled, but not without a little drama. To get the shaft of the thing apart, you need a hydraulic press. Fortunately my neighbor has one. When the big gear lets go, it does so with a loud bang that sounds like "CRACK!!" I was convinced we had destroyed it.

It also was a bit of a bear to get back together. Anyhow, I replaced both needle bearings in the accessory drive. Here is the reassembled shaft just before putting it all back together:



It took a fair amount of time to mess around with the thing and get it all disassembled and reassembled. Probably not worth it and not necessary, looking back on it, considering that there probably was not a thing wrong with it and it likely would have just kept going with no problem.

I also made my own extendo-bolt for the new water pump. I happened to find a long grade 8 bolt lying around my shop. I actually have no idea where it came from or what it was for, but there it was, just the right size. So I ran a stainless steel nut all the way up the threads and cranked it on there as tight as I could so it's jammed on there:



Used the copper washer and it's perfect:

[ILikeRust]

Here's a couple shots from mid-day. I made a bit more progress after these shots were taken.





I have it temporarily set up as raw-water cooled so I can test run it in my driveway using a bucket of water and my garden hose. Once I get it running nicely, I'll install the FWC cooling kit and take it up to the boat to have it hoisted back in place!