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I think I found the CAUSE of that crushed wire. I was looking up at the wire loom that runs along the side of the oil-pan. When I realized that that section of the wire.. lay directly in the path of passanger side swing arm bracket?.. thingie?.. In any case.
Rather then some gross error by an incompetent mechanic, which was my first assumption. It looks like my front axle had smashed up in there and crushed that wiring. Either my bump stop is too short, or I was doing some serious bouncing around.. (which I've done) and that axle just squished that bump stop beyond it's ability to keep the sharp bits away from the soft bits.
Borrowed a neighbor kids engine hoist. And with the help of my son and a good friend, we got the block installed. New engine mounts.
I followed the advice of many forum posts from here. I used a drop of red locktight on the flywheel to crankshaft bolts. (Then torqued to 105' lbs). And blue locktight on the flywheel to torque converter bolts.
Bell housing all bolted up with tin. Starter, and alternator installed. Had to forgo redoing the breather tubes. The free use of the hoist was time limited. So I abandoned my plans to redo the breather tubes in favor of getting the block installed. I'll go back to those tubes later.
Last edited by outersketcher; 07-05-2018 at 08:39 PM.
Wire wheeled down the exhaust manifold last night, etched the metal with a sprayed on drenching of phosphoric acid. Then painted it with high-temp, ceramic header paint.
Went from this...
To THIS...
And.. ALAS.. just as I was finishing up the last touches of paint. I found this crack.
....sigh....
I'll weld it on saturday. We'll see how that goes.
thanks. I just hope that I'm not focusing too much on the easy things.
I hope that when it comes down to the IMPORTANT stuff, like properly set valve lash, accurate timing, and understanding what the #$%@ difference is between an ECU, an MPC, and an ECB.
I'll get it right where it counts.
Yep, the exhaust was cracked.. bummer. No problem tho. I dragged out the 110 Mig welder I bought at SEARS back when Sears was a cool place.
Wire-wheeled the area.. used a grinder to cut a v-groove into the crack as best i could. And drilled an 1/8" hole at the end of each side of the crack. The hole may seem like a strange thing to do. But it's a sound way to stop a crack's progress in its tracks. I've been doing this in repairing plastic parts for vintage motorcycles. Works in plastic, works in steel. Same concept.
Filled in those holes and that crack with a decent bead of molten steel. Not beautiful.. but solid.
Repainted the manifold once again.. and mounted it to the block. Here's to the unrealistic hope that it lasts ANOTHER 270,000 miles.. heh.
P.S.. Yah yah.. I know.. "Hey OUTERSKETCHER!.. You've got two different gloves on man!." I know. I have a whole plastic milk crate FILLED with leather gloves.. none of them match. I don't understand it either. I mean.. how.. I.. pfpfpf.. don't know what to tell you. I just shrug and use miss-matched gloves.
Last edited by outersketcher; 07-09-2018 at 02:01 AM.
Drilling the holes is an old trick from way back and works. If you can actually find the very end of the fracture. Sometimes it reaches beyond where it looks like it is.
Drilling the holes is an old trick from way back and works. If you can actually find the very end of the fracture. Sometimes it reaches beyond where it looks like it is.
heh.. yes. I was worried about that too. Let's hope I got it right. If not.. I'll just re-drill, and re-weld.
Yah, I'm taking my time.That's because I don't know what the hey I'm doing. I mean, I've rebuilt a couple of VW engines in the past. And dozen or so 4 stroke, vintage trail-bike motorcycle engines. But, this.. this is a bigger chunk of mechanical nougat to bite off and chew.
I'm taking my time. Reading over instructions. Reading over them again. And being careful.
The next 4.0 I tackle will be a much simpler process because I am gaining an understanding of how the machinery works.
And so... I filled up the engine with five quarts of conventional, 10-30 oil. And primed the oil pump. Now, I've read about people grinding down thier largest flathead screwdriver in order to be able to get the end of a cordless drill on its end. Or going out and buying, or renting a special tool for spinning that oil pump.
Well, I found an ideal solution that worked beautifully for about $9.00.
I found a screwdriver set with strike end caps on the backsides at Auto Zone. The set cost about nine bucks.
The Tool set part number is #W1729.
I slipped on a socket that fit that endcap. and then an adapter I've had for years.. think I got it at Home Depot, that fits into the 3/8" socket and ends as a bit that fits into the chuck of a standard cordless drill.. like so.
It worked beautifully. Spun the drill a couple of times and oil started spurting out the oil filter tube. I screwed on a cheapie fram oil filter. And hand tightened it.
Next, I set the engine to top dead center. used a little white out to mark the notch in the harmonic balancer and in the markings on the Timing Chain cover. And I installed the distributor by following Dallas Hunters video instructions. (His video, is simple. clear, and easy to follow.)
I can't recommend his video more highly. Everything went smooth as butter.
Looking pretty good.
Cleaned out the injectors using a 9 vlt battery. A pair of alligator clips, a tire valve with it's valve removed, some heat shrink tubing, and a can of throttle body cleaner. I used a rebuild kit I'd found on ebay. New o-rings and filters. My original filters were nasty. Black and filmed with scum. So it was a smart idea to replace them.
I loved the tire valve idea. It fits just PERFECTLY over either side of the injector. So you can back flush it. And then flip the injector around. Press the tire valve over the other end and front flush it. AFTER having removed the little filter first by screwing a wood screw into the old filter and just pulling it out with a pair of pliers gripped at the head of the screw. I got the Injectors installed with a little drop of oil smeared over each of the new o-rings. The only problem I had was that I had wrapped up that wiring loom so well.. it was now too large to fit into that plastic housing that runs across the top of the intake manifold. Soooo.. I had to carefully clip OFF all that electrical tape and split wire accordion tubing. And I'll have to re-wrap the wiring to make it fit into the housing.
Also, discovered that my electric fan shroud had broken in several places..
Went to the junkyard and found another. It was off of an older model XJ. An '89 I think or a '90. Anyways it was a straight-blade fan and housing.
I switched out the curved-blade fan from my broken shroud to the clean one from the older XJ.
Discovered that the older fan shrouds aren't deep enough for the newer fans. I think it will work okay for now. But I'll replace that shroud with a newer one later.
Down to buttoning it up! Looks good! You will be able to build about anything now. Once you get the general concept of how it is put together and the important details and cautions you are good to go! Just have to jump in and do it once!
As a landlord myself, I love that you used the landlord's bathtub to clean the grit off some of your huge parts.
Well.. if it helps your landlord soul a bit. We did scrub that bathtub afterward till it shone again. And I had lain those parts down onto a rolled out length of padded toolbox liner. I didn't want to scratch the porcelain surface of the tub.
07-05-2018, 06:59 PM
