October 5 - 11, 2002
Before I ordered any parts for the rebuild, I wanted to
tear down the engine and see what was needed. In order to keep
track of which parts went with which cylinder, we marked off a piece of
plywood into eight squares and labeled them 1 through 8. As we
removed parts from each cylinder we were careful to place the parts
on the corresponding square on the plywood.
A careful inspection of
the pistons, cylinders, and bearings didn't reveal any major problems so
we decided all we needed was new standard bearing and rings. I
checked around on the
internet for engine re-ring kits and stumbled across
a local company, Nebraska
Engine, that carries a full line on re-ring kits at competitive
prices. I've always been partial to buying local when I can, so I
drove over to their store and ordered the kit. The re-ring kit
consisted of Clevite rod and main bearings, Hastings cast iron rings, and
a full set of Fel-Pro gaskets. In addition to the re-ring kit I also
picked up a set of timing gears and chain, oil pump, oil pump pickup
screen assembly, and a complete set of hydraulic lifters.
In
every project (at least every project of mine) it seems there are a few
bonehead incidents. This project was no exception. In our
haste to "get on with it" we rushed into installing the main top
main bearings with the crank shaft still in the engine. It took a
little ingenuity and the fabrication of a special tool, but we were able
to get all the top main bearings in place without removing the crank
shaft. Feeling pretty smug about our progress, I happened to mention
our "great accomplishment" to my machinist. He's reply
was, "Did you run a brush through the oil passages in the crank
before you installed the bearings"? I mumbled something about
how I thought they were probably clean enough, even though I knew I had no
idea how clean they were. The next day we proceeded to do it the
right way. We pulled the crank, which was as simple as lifting it
out, and gave it a proper cleaning. Then we cleaned the top main
bearings, reapplied pre-lube, and reinstalled them. Who'd have
thought -- the main bearings go in a lot easier with the crank removed.
Duh!
Next we installed the front and
rear mains seals following the instructions provided with the gasket
set. With those in place we inserted new bearings in the main
bearing caps, liberally applied pre-lube, and torqued the caps to
specs. To torque the cap bolts, we first torqued to 1/3 full torque,
then 2/3, then full torque. We had two torque wrenches, which made
it go a lot faster. One of us would torque to 1/3 and the other
would follow behind and torque to 2/3. We then used one torque wrench
to torque each bolt to full torque and then retorqued each bolt to full
torque a second time using the other torque wrench. We were careful
to reinstall the main bearing caps back to their original location.
Having the plywood to keep track of the original location came in real
handy here.
Before we installed the new rings on the
pistons, I cleaned the
pistons using diesel fuel and a tooth brush. It took a lot of elbow
grease to get the baked-on carbon off the top of the pistons, but
eventually they cleaned up real nice. Some folks say to just leave
the carbon on but I couldn't see putting dirty pistons back in my clean
motor. Call me anal.
It was at this point, our second
bonehead incident reared its ugly head. I had purchased a deglazer
from Bob's Tools to deglaze the cylinder
bores before re-installing the pistons. It now
occurred to me that I should have done this job before we reinstalled the
crank shaft. Oh well, I wasn't going to take the crank shaft back
out, so I went ahead and deglazed the bores with the crank
installed. Definitely not the best plan but sometimes that's just
the way it goes. I was careful to keep the hone away from the crank
and I kept the crank wrapped in a diesel-soaked rag to catch any
fillings. All in all I don't think it hurt anything.
After deglazing I used 150 grit sandpaper on a sanding block to clean up
the block surface. I was going to use Scotch-brite pads in a drill
to clean them but my machinist said there's too great a risk of rounding
edges. He recommended using the sand paper on a sanding block for
the job.
With
the cylinders deglazed and the pistons all cleaned up we could now start
installing the pistons. First, we put the new rings on the
pistons. Not much to this job, other than making sure to follow the
directions on how they are to be installed. We worked on one
piston at a time to make sure we didn't get them out of order.
Again, the plywood location board came in handy here. We waited
until we installed the piston in the cylinder before we applied a liberal
coat of motor oil to the rings and the wrist pins -- easier to keep clean that way.
With
all the rings on we began installing the pistons. Two sets of hands
sure comes in handy for this job. To install each piston we first
installed the rod bearing and applied pre-lube to the bearing and the rod
journal. We then placed about
6" of plastic gas hose over each of the rod bolts to keep them from
damaging the rod journals. Using a long hose rather than a short
piece that only covered the bolt threads make it much easier to guide the rods in place. I would grab the hoses while Dave
compressed the rings and tapped the pistons in the cylinder with a rubber
mallet. As Dave was getting the next piston ready I would put the
bearing on the rod cap, apply pre-lube, and install the rod cap.
Only took about 30 minutes to get them all installed. We then
torqued them to specs using the same procedure we used for the crank
shaft.
The machine shop wasn't finished with the heads yet,
so we put a big plastic bag over the engine to keep everything
clean. Waiting on the heads would give me time to work on restoring
the various engine parts and cleaning up the engine compartment.
I'll detail that work in the next episode.
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