Starting a rebuild

[BryanLee]

Hello, I just wanted to say I am starting an A4 rebuild, and very excited about it! I have been reading this site a ton, but only posting a little as I am still quite a newbie with the A4, but learning lots quickly! Thank you all for all the great information and thank you to Moyer for giving us such a great resource!

I just picked up the engine parts from the machine shop today, and am looking forward to getting it all back together. I am sure you will hear a lot from me as I progress. Even though I have the mighty Moyer Manual, I already have a few questions I will post shortly!

Here is a picture of some of the parts, freshly cleaned up by the machine shop, had the cylinders re-bored, 4 new valve seats, the other four reground, valves ground, hot tanked the block and head, new valve seats installed, crank and cam polished... I think that's it. (Head was resurfaced recently and was fine)



I am able to rebuild this engine from a spare while the other engine is still running in the boat, however I am hoping to do the replacement this spring.

Lucky for me, I have a few very smart and helpful helpers to make sure this goes right, cause I am not sure I could do it on my own!







These are pics of tearing the engine down, these are my 9 and 11 year old daughters, who are having a blast helping me. They probably did about 70% of the work to take the engine apart! We built a dingy as a family a couple winters ago, and they did a huge amount of work on that too. It's amazing what they can and will do, how much they learn from it and how much fun they have doing it, as well as the sense of accomplishment and ownership they have in the finished product.

Anyway, enough bragging on my girls, gatta get back to work on the engine. Questions coming soon!

Thanks,
Bryan

[Al Schober]

Ahhh, I'm glad to see someone is training the next generation of A4 mechanics! I'm full confident they'll have engines to work on for a long time.

Al

[domenic]

THAT BIG CAM GOES IN THAT little engine?

Domenic

[Dave Neptune]

Memories

Bryan, ah the memories. I was raised to a great extent by my grandparents when I was little. My grandfather was a tough ole' guy and ran a garage~car lot and he took me to work during the week all summer long. He did not believe in child labor laws so if I wanted something I needed to work for it so as I was interested to work I went. I could pretty much rebuild an engine by the time I was 10 years old. I bought my first car when I was 14 and it was a hot rod of sorts by the time I was fifteen and I had to wait another year before I was old enough to drive it ~ a 1956 slide window Parklane Ford 2 door station wagon with a supercharged (McCulloch) 406 ci in big block. I wish I had it back today.
Seeing your daughters working on the engine reminds me of many good times in my childhood~~thanx for that!
Your girls will grow up with a confidence and a closeness to you that is irreplacable.
Besides it will be nice to sip beer while they are below fixing the engine when you get older.

You go girls
Dave Neptune

[ILikeRust]

THAT BIG CAM GOES IN THAT little engine?

In that pic, the camshaft already is in the block. What's laying on the bench is the crankshaft, and yes, that crankshaft goes into that block.

[lat 64]

Bryan,
Did you get new cam bearings installed in the block? A hot tank caustic can ruin the babbit material in cam bearings.

One way we used to protect the cam bearings while we gave a "rare" engine a bath was to coat them with grease and the slip the camshaft back into place to cover the babbit surface. We put it in the tank for only a hour or so. This would loosen the dirt and grease but not have time to eat up the bearings.
I think modern shops have a giant dishwasher or something that uses solvent. This would not be so bad on bearings and soft metals.

Awesome kids. My daughter is 16 now and wants to rebuild the old '61 chev pickup out in the yard. I guess we're going for it this summer.
russ

[BryanLee]

Russ, that's great, I hope my kids are still as enthusiastic about doing things like this and things with me when they are that age!

The shop pressed out the bearings before cleaning the block, and since they where still in good condition they but them back in for me. So no new bearing, but they where not exposed to the tank chems either.

Thanks!
Bryan