more photos in the manual

[JarrettF]

I have an old Jeep and do all the work myself with the help of a couple of well-thumbed manuals. These are great manuals because they have a lot of pictures, for some of the procedures they have pics for each step. I don't have a natural aptitude for things mechanical and I'm an extremely slow learner/thinker, but once I get it, I get it - and the pictures help me get it.

How about some more pics in a Second Edition of the Manual?

[luvmyi36]

Great idea JarretF. I was thinking that a glossary of terms would be nice also. Like you, I am not mechanically minded, and anything I tackle on the boat is probably going to be new ground for me. A glossary WITH pictures, now we're talking!

[Kelly]

This thread leads me to one of my favorite wishes: that more people would accompany their messages with photos. Pictures speak enormously and always help in understanding a particular problem, configuration or idea and often help to avoid confusion resulting from unclear text descriptions.

Three cheers for photos!

Kelly

[duncan59]

More pics and new section on the forum?

In tackling my reversing gear assembly, then my carb rebuild, and then my head removal (for a gasket, but then I discovered all the work that really needed doing) it occurred to me that it would be really great to have a section on the forum that said "Pics of all Atomic Four sections here" or something like that, with an archive of pictures. There could be one pic identifying each section, for instance, cooling section, distributor, reversing gear, the block, and examples of different kinds of ignition wiring, all with labels and arrows, and lots of indidvidual pictures such as "thermostat housing" "late model thermostat" and even varations such as "corroded inside of late model thermostat housing - this one is beyond repair", variations such as "exhaust manifold flange," "rusted solid manifold exhaust flange," and then precise pics like "choke lever close-up" and "new MMI choke lever, close-up" and whatnot. I would love to have seen the Snap-on (head) stud remover with pics showing how best to use it, for instance, (as I learned while doing it that there are certain ways to do it with two wrenches that was more successful than just using one). These pictorial tutorials and identifying schemes are what we need.
For those of us who understand things by visual reference, life would be much easier, and repairs would be much faster, probably twice as fast in my case. We shouldn't expect Don to provide this free of charge, but I bet forum contributors would happily show their repair work in pictorial form. Or, Don could provide it to all manual owners as an online extension, for a fee, perhaps. I know I would use it extensively. Let's take the A-4 self-repair (by necessity) community to the next level. Any thoughts?
Duncan

[duncan59]

Pics of dirty valves with head off

OK, I had better be willing to do what I ask for, and that is post instructive pictures. The only trouble is I don't really know how to diagnose this picture. Perhaps someone could help.
The situation: I had a leaky head gasket (steam and oil spewing out from under the thermostat near cylinder 1 (to the right of this pic, coming out on the near side) and sure enough, when I got my head off, it was full of flaky black stuff and as you can see, my pistons and valves seem pretty coked up (I'm from England - I mean coated in black stuff). My head had an uneven surface with the worst dip measuring at .006" or 6/1000ths of an inch (measured with a feeler gauge inserted carefully through the gaps seen under the side of a quality metal ruler placed along the length of the head, with a shoplight behind it). I am going to have the head milled and ground to RMS 120 (as per Don's recommendation in the manual) and then install the two Victor gaskets as also recommended without sealant. I am not sure what to do with the motor beyond that (apart from acid flushing, pressure flushing, replacing the exhaust flange that has become merged with the rusty nuts and studs, reinstaling the cleaned up carb, and installing a new PCV valve). Hauling the block out sounds like much more work than I want to do at this stage, yet Don does not recommend taking apart the tappets and valves to "seat them" if the block is still on a boat, though I would love to do that procedure for completion's sake (but I only have about 6" clearance on the port side, or 9" once I get the manifold off). If anyone has any thoughts about the condition of the motor as pictured, I would be grateful.
PS: you can see recorded on the blue tape at the top of the picture that the compression before removing the head was not too bad as measured with the help of a compression kit and an ignition trigger. The carb was off and I was simply running the starter: Compression readings (measured twice for 3 or 4 seconds until the gauge-needle got up as high as it would go) from left to right (cylinders 4-1 respecively, aft to bow,): 120 / 110 / 105 / 90 psi. (the low 90 psi measurement was from cylinder #1 nearest to where the gasket leak was). But these readings are pretty good for a leaky head gasket, and will surely be more consistent once I get that head milled.
I hope this helps someone get as far as I did. If you want advice for getting the studs off, give me a shout. I learned some things.

[Kelly]

Hello Duncan,

I don't have any technical advice for you, just a photo for comparison. This shot shows my block after removing the head (no known leak, I just wanted to verify the condition under there and clean things out). You can see the printing on the tops of some of the valves so the area was pretty clean. I would imagine you would want to clean yours up- be careful with the carbon ridge built up on the top part of the cylinder bores. I've seen conflicting advice as to weather or not you want to remove this. I left mine alone.

The second photo shows the block surface after cleaning.

Best of luck,
Kelly

[duncan59]

head removal pics

Kelly,
Thanks for your comparitive shot. I wonder what you are referring to when you say "be careful with the carbon ridge built up on the top part of the cylinder bores. I've seen conflicting advice as to weather or not you want to remove this. I left mine alone." If you mean the big holes, I don't actually have carbon built up there.... although there is plenty on TOP of the cylinders. Not sure if that matters or not. I have already started chiseling the gasket remnants of the block as well as the head. That and the carbon and dirty remains mean that I have my work cut out for me. I would be very happy with a good result. Thanks Kelly.
Duncan

[Kelly]

I've put arrows in the photo to show you what exactly I'm talking about: if you run your finger along the inside of the cylinder holes near the tops, you should feel a slight ridge of carbon build-up. I think it was in an A4 manual with a yellow cover that mention is made of this build up- and to leave it there. I guess the "cleaning up instinct" would lead one to remove this build up. I don't know what purpose it serves or what would happen if you removed it as the engine was obviously delivered new without one.

Would this be part of the "breaking in" process?

Kelly

[duncan59]

carbon ridge

Right Kelly, I see what you mean. Believe it or not, the wall of my cylinder bores are really "mirror" clean, so I won't touch them. The very very top of the cylinder bore, which you point to, has a kind of "seat" to it, and is black, but it seems very solid and not very built-up, so I did leave it. I just gently worked on the flat top surface of the block, and it seems to be shining up pretty well.
Unfortunately my main problem is that I have a nut stuck in the exhaust manifold flange that just will not budge. It's a bit hard to get leverage in there (its the bottom nut of course) and as I can't really get the best kind of wrench in there, its beginning to round off slightly. Even if I could saw the end off, its going to be hard to get a drill in there... there isn't room for the length of my drill. I just can't figure out how to proceed and I am really getting antsy about getting everything put back together while I can remember how it all goes, not to mention sailing again. Its been 5 or 6 weeks now! Agh. Thanks for your thoughts though. I'll be sure to leave that top ridge alone.
Best
Duncan

[Chip Hindes]

...you should feel a slight ridge of carbon build-up. I think it was in an A4 manual with a yellow cover that mention is made of this build up- and to leave it there. I guess the "cleaning up instinct" would lead one to remove this build up.

I understand why you might not want to mess with it if you didn't have to, but only if you don't intend to remove the pistons through the top of the bock. I would be interested to know if there are is positive reason to leave it there other than, "not worth the effort."

You must remove the ridge if you intend to remove the pistons through the top of the block. Otherwise, you could damage the pistons, break the rings or, worse yet, fracture one or more of the piston ring lands, so this is really important unless you already know you're going for a rebore and new pistons. There is a special tool made for this called a ridge reamer, though such a tool in the hands of an amatuer is probably likely to do way more harm than good. You can probably remove enough of the ridge to get the pistons out with a hand stone, sandpaper or even a Dremel with a polishing wheel, but this last only if you're extremely careful.

If you know you're going to reuse everything but just want to remove everything so you can boil it out, some motors have enough internal clearance to allow you to remove the pistons from the bottom, once the crankshaft is removed. Typically the ridge at the bottom is not as pronounced (if present at all) because of the constant presence of oil and no combustion going on down there. Don't know if the A4 fits into this category, maybe somebody else can help. Before you take them out this way, determine if your ring compressor will work when you go to put them back in. Finally, if you do this, you need to make doubly sure everything is properly marked to go back into the same hole and in the same orientation from which it came.

[baileyem]

Nut removal

Duncan,
If the nut is not rounded off too much, you may be able to get it off with a 6-point socket rather than a 12-point. It is worth the investment of a few bucks to try using a 6-point before going to more expensive methods.
Good luck.
Mike

[JackConnick]

I have an old Jeep and do all the work myself with the help of a couple of well-thumbed manuals. These are great manuals because they have a lot of pictures, for some of the procedures they have pics for each step. I don't have a natural aptitude for things mechanical and I'm an extremely slow learner/thinker, but once I get it, I get it - and the pictures help me get it.

How about some more pics in a Second Edition of the Manual?

To get this thread back on track, I just wanted to say - I agree! We need more diagrams, even if they are the OEM parts blowups of some of the parts of the engine that have common service issues, like my rear seal that needs replacing. There really aren't any diagrams showing how that all goes together.

Jack

[Don Moyer]

Jack,

Many of us benefit from the old adage of a picture being worth a thousand words, and any follow-up we eventually get into for our manual will include a lot of pictures.

In the meantime, with the age of convenient digital photographs upon us, there are many photos showing up throughout the Community Forum. In addition, the OEM parts manual shown in our online catalog contains schematics of many of the parts about which you're inquiring, including an exploded view of the area the location of the rear seal on page 123.

Don

[msmith10]

There is an excellent parts manual which shows some exploded drawings and illustrates a lot of the internal parts and their relationships at the following link--

http://pearsonvanguard.homestead.com/files/Atomic_Four_Parts_Catalogue.pdf

This is downloadable in pdf format. I keep a copy on CD along with my Moyer manual for reference.

[JackConnick]

Thanks MSmith, very useful link!!.

Don, I hadn't noticed the OEM Manual in the store, thanks. It would be great to gather the photos, along with the .pdfs that you've posted, into an area of the forum for easy access, it can take some searching around to find these very useful items.

Jack