986 3.2 home engine rebuild

[OldManMo]

Originally Posted by palindrome

Love watching the progress. What type of ultrasonic machine do you use?

Thanks @palindrome

I have a totally rubbish one as it went bang on Friday waiting to hear back as to replacement hence why I don’t want to say the make

When it worked It worked well. It was a home unit, 30L, 800w ultrasonic 600w heat but it did run both 28hz and 40hz which helped. Cost about £300

Going forward I think I am going to go bigger and more powerful though still limited to single phase unfortunately. Cost goes up significantly once you get around 50L and higher, but you get what you pay for

Ultrasonics are awsm. I have some great videos showing a parts which were cleaned using carb cleaner, degreaser, vapour etc then within 20secs in the bath (temp around 50-60 degrees C) and the crud that comes from out is amazing. Especially from internal parts for example the oilways of the camshaft.

Its a little mesmerising, like a lava lamp. You are watching the part and nothing really happening then in a split second this wisps of oil, oxidisation, etc just start coming off the part.

Below is a screenshot of one of the vids I had. The pipe was cleaned using carb cleaner and degreaser for about 10mins, outside looked like new, within 20secs the caked on oil inside started to cloud away. I put a snake cam into the first part and it was spotless




This is another screen shot of the IMS, lots of cleaning an polishing and the inside I cleaned using carb cleaner and a large pipe brush. The photo below shows the clouds of "stuff" coming from the inside. This dislodges some particulates which must have been caked on inside the ims.



Another great example of what is possible is the sump cover, vapoured, carb cleaner, pressure washer and again look at the impregnated crud coming off



My learning is to go as big and as powerful as possible. I now have two small units, which though are ok for small parts like nuts and bolts, are not really useful for otehr parts.

Also, learnt the hard way, the detergent or degreaser is important, had to replace some alloy parts which the detergent/degreaser, may in combo of the ultrasonic made them unusable. I now only use a sensitive metal detergent at the exact mix ration and I am getting some great results and ofcourse a rinse tank with anti flash added.

[OldManMo]

I do have to say that my son and I are loving this rebuild, not loving the cost of parts, but the investigation of some of our observations, the learning, even the research. We would see something that in my sons words, looking kinda sus, then both gran our phones and start researching. Sometimes we would run an experiment with the parts, accepting we may kill it by the end but that’s a learning in itself.

An example is the PAS, we researched that there is no service kit readily available for refurbishing it, so we have broken it down and found it to be a simple centrifugal pump which is mostly O rings, very serviceable if I can get the right sizes

I currently have the engine completely broken down and bagged, lots of container with new or refurbished parts all over my living room and I love it. Sometimes while sitting and watching TV I pick up a part and start looking at it, then research, clean it (again) and so on

I love it

[PaulE]

Great Work Mo! Thanks for the update!

[palindrome]

Originally Posted by OldManMo

Thanks @palindrome

I have a totally rubbish one as it went bang on Friday waiting to hear back as to replacement hence why I don’t want to say the make

When it worked It worked well. It was a home unit, 30L, 800w ultrasonic 600w heat but it did run both 28hz and 40hz which helped. Cost about £300

Going forward I think I am going to go bigger and more powerful though still limited to single phase unfortunately. Cost goes up significantly once you get around 50L and higher, but you get what you pay for

Ultrasonics are awsm. I have some great videos showing a parts which were cleaned using carb cleaner, degreaser, vapour etc then within 20secs in the bath (temp around 50-60 degrees C) and the crud that comes from out is amazing. Especially from internal parts for example the oilways of the camshaft.

Its a little mesmerising, like a lava lamp. You are watching the part and nothing really happening then in a split second this wisps of oil, oxidisation, etc just start coming off the part.

Below is a screenshot of one of the vids I had. The pipe was cleaned using carb cleaner and degreaser for about 10mins, outside looked like new, within 20secs the caked on oil inside started to cloud away. I put a snake cam into the first part and it was spotless




This is another screen shot of the IMS, lots of cleaning an polishing and the inside I cleaned using carb cleaner and a large pipe brush. The photo below shows the clouds of "stuff" coming from the inside. This dislodges some particulates which must have been caked on inside the ims.



Another great example of what is possible is the sump cover, vapoured, carb cleaner, pressure washer and again look at the impregnated crud coming off



My learning is to go as big and as powerful as possible. I now have two small units, which though are ok for small parts like nuts and bolts, are not really useful for otehr parts.

Also, learnt the hard way, the detergent or degreaser is important, had to replace some alloy parts which the detergent/degreaser, may in combo of the ultrasonic made them unusable. I now only use a sensitive metal detergent at the exact mix ration and I am getting some great results and ofcourse a rinse tank with anti flash added.

Thanks for the info! Intriguing. I hate carb cleaner and other evil solvents.

[986tate]

So, Mo, how’s it going?
😀

[OldManMo]

Originally Posted by 986tate

So, Mo, how’s it going?
😀

Yes, thank you @986tate, my bad as I have been slack posting progress. Have lots to share but time, money has been a killer.

Quick update, lots of cleaning, refurbishing and waiting on parts. I have rebuilt crank carrier with a super finished crank and am about to bolt the refurbished and balanced con rods to new and balanced pistons. Apart from seriously dodgy chain guides nothing seems to be too far gone and tolerances are within values for many existing posts.

Will do a more detailed post with all the photos I have soon, promise 😁

Thank you to all
Mo

[OldManMo]

hi all

first off, my bad for not updating in a while. As mentioned my ultrasonic went bang and it took a while to get to the point the seller was willing to refund the cost. While that was going on and while I was waiting for parts I decided that I wasnt totally happy with the level of clean I was getting on the cams, crank, IMS, heads and block so sent the cams, sprockets, crank and few other bits off to be superfinish'ed and loved the result, not just how shiny everything was (ooohhh shiny) but also because I could feel the difference on the lobes and journals with my hands and fingers.

To demonstrate, here are some before and afters of the crank and IMS

Crank straight out of engine


First clean via Ultrasonic tank


Second clean by hand


Superfinishing




Now, I completely understand that it is my responsibility to check, double check and ensure no media had entered any of the oil ways (I was also reminded by the company that did the work) and I did just that, and while I was using a number of pipe cleaning brushes and yes, media did drop out so it does pay to check.

[OldManMo]

Also IMS before and after

[OldManMo]

Blocks and heads were aqua blasted, though I need to dig out the heads before pics the results was amazing. Still need to thoroughly check all pathways and do my own cleaning to ensure no glass beads remain









Will take better pics of the heads later and oh yes, thats a new oil pump

[OldManMo]

Crank carrier cleaned up nice after one go in the ultrasonic tank, though when I looked carefully I could still see crud on the seats





Some loving hand cleaning later and all is clean. I did check for any out of round but there was very little deviation

[OldManMo]

so next was to reassemble the carrier. At this point I pulled in my son to learn. Laid out all the parts to check we were ready to go

[OldManMo]

Next day we got to work as soon as he came home from school.

Oil squirters go in



Bearings


Things are bit too heavy now so I stepped in. All bearings lubed up and crank on


and back together. A bit of panic at this point as the crank did not spin as freely as I though it would. My son then pointed out what we saw on Jakes video that the carrier must be torqued down first. Good he was paying attention when we watched the DVDs

[OldManMo]

so he then torques the bolts


and once torqued and witnessed it spins sooooo smoothly


next the IMS goes on with new scrapper, bolts, guides, chain and bearing. Again torqued to the right setting and witnessed







Notice above the superfinishing media in the dowel, already been removed. Carrier is now wrapped in plastic film to protect it from dust etc while the next steps are in progress

[OldManMo]

So will share what we did next soon as need to take photos but they include pressing in a new small end bushing for each con rod, drilling oil hole, honing bush and balancing con rods within 1g of each other. I used an engineering company for this

All pistons are new so piston pin was honed to small end bushing, and pistons were balanced to within 0.4-0.5g of each other.

The next step would be to attach the con rods then drop the carrier into the block. Will post soon I promise

[OldManMo]

Oh yes forgot to mention that we removed the broken exhaust manifold bolts and tapped in new threads after we sent the heads to be cleaned.



Heads have all new valves, spring, washer, collets, guides, seats etc and will be cut to a three angle profile

[PaulE]

Beautiful work Mo, you've got a great assistant in your son, hope he is enjoying it too!

[pilot4fn]

Awesome that you do all this real nice built with your son - great fatherson time spent there and great learnign for the youngster

[OldManMo]

Thank you PaulE and pilot4fn

He is great though initially there was a lot of protesting and to be fair to him he is not able to do as much as he would like as he hasn't got the strength yet to lift the parts, unbolt, etc and spent a lot of time after I taught him what I was doing and why, watching me struggling to get a rusted part off

Fortnite will always be more appealing during those times

As the car will be his when he is old enough I made a point that he needs to know how it works and how to maintain it.

I was stripping car engines, gearboxes with my father from about the same age as my son and when I was 17 i worked non stop to save up and I bought a 2.0s Capri which I resprayed, added a double x pack body kit and lowered it to an inch off the floor and also rebuilt its engine. I haven't stopped since and hopefully he will have some interest and experience to maintain his own cars