I Finally Did It!
09-03-2003, 12:40 AM
#22
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Helena, AL
Posts: 96
Another day and another 4 hours in the garage. The bad motor is completely stripped. Most of the parts are laid strategically around my garage. Everything except the upper intake and TB has been cleaned and is ready to be installed. I am having trouble getting the gasket off the lower intake manifold, I hope that a can of the "gasket remover" I saw at AutoZone works. I will pickup a can of that tomorrow.
I have a random question to take this thread even more off topic (it is my thread.. I guess I can do that!).
Did every year 13b have the spacer washers behind two of the studs for the water pump? This old motor did NOT have them. Every other motor I have disassembeled has been an '86-88 model. And all of them have had the washers.
I have a random question to take this thread even more off topic (it is my thread.. I guess I can do that!).
Did every year 13b have the spacer washers behind two of the studs for the water pump? This old motor did NOT have them. Every other motor I have disassembeled has been an '86-88 model. And all of them have had the washers.
09-03-2003, 11:39 AM
#24
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2002
Location: California
Posts: 22,465
Originally Posted by KorovaKharne' date='Sep 2 2003, 09:40 PM
I have a random question to take this thread even more off topic (it is my thread.. I guess I can do that!).
Did every year 13b have the spacer washers behind two of the studs for the water pump? This old motor did NOT have them. Every other motor I have disassembeled has been an '86-88 model. And all of them have had the washers.
Did every year 13b have the spacer washers behind two of the studs for the water pump? This old motor did NOT have them. Every other motor I have disassembeled has been an '86-88 model. And all of them have had the washers.
mike
09-03-2003, 10:59 PM
#26
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Helena, AL
Posts: 96
Originally Posted by epion2985' date='Sep 3 2003, 07:07 PM
any pictures yet?
Patience my friend... I am still on old 35mm film technology and I have to finish the roll before I have them developed into digital photos. I will post them as soon as I can.
I spent another 2 hours in the garage tonight. The gasket remover spray did not work as well as I though it would but I did finally get all traces of gasket from the lower intake manifold. It is now clean and on the motor. As well as the new oil injector lines. All that is left is to clean up the vaccum spider mess and upper intake manifold. The rest is just assembly. I should have that done tomorrow.
09-08-2003, 08:47 PM
#28
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Helena, AL
Posts: 96
NO PHOTOS YET!! Just a long update.
I have made great progress on the car (although slow) but it has been put aside for a few days. My wife had surgery today and I cannot leave her alone for the next day or two.
But I will fill you in on the disaster of a weekend I had.
I got my new clutch on Friday. Saturday I spent all day putting on the clutch and all the other accessories had ready to install. I then put on all my new heater hoses and bled the hydraulic clutch system and cleaned the engine bay a bit more. I also stole the speedo cable from my race car because this one was broken (that is a pain to change out too!)
I then tried dropping the motor in. That is when the nightmare began. After close to an hour just trying to get the motor lined up with the transmission I gave up and pulled the motor back out. I then pulled the transmission (dropped it off my jack to be accurate) and called it a day.
Sunday started with a 20 minute tag team wrestling match featuring me vs. motor and tranny. At one point I actually threw the transmission across my garage in frustration. I think that is when I broke it's spirit and began to win! I FINALLY got the motor and tranny to mate up. And when it did line up it was as easy as I have ever done it.
Keeping up with everything else I have touched the transmission was scrubbed clean with some Simple Green.
Then the real fun began. Dropping the motor and transmission in the car together only took about 10 minutes. Getting it on the motor mounts started a re-match bout between me and the Motor/Transmission team. I gave up trying to feed the drive shaft back into the end of the transmission at the same time and the motor finally came to rest on its mounts.
Then started my drive shaft battle. I unhooked my cat-back exhaust and dropped the drive shaft from the rear end. I could slide it back far enough but it just would not go into the transmission. I had pretty good visibility of the output shaft of the transmission but it just would not go. To see if there was anything binding I dropped the rest of the exhaust and the associated heat shields. Once that was out of the way, with the same motion of hands as before the drive shaft slid right in the transmission. So a 10 minute drive shaft job turned into a 2 hour exhaust job.
At this point everything under the car is done. The exhaust is back on, transmission has new fluid (my hand pump broke and I ended up wearing 1/2 quart of Redline tranny fluid, that forced me to take a shower in the middle of the day because that stuff BURNS).
Most everything on the drivers side of the motor is connected, A/C, P/S, alternator, fuel lines, etc. etc.
I still need to install the radiator, fan, schroud, battery, intake , and feed the wiring harness through to the ECU.
I don't consider myself a newbie mechanic. I have done 4 motor swaps in the past, this has just been my first rebuild. I cannot explain the ridiclious difficulties I have had swapping this motor out. I would of been better off sending the car and motor off to someone else and paying for the swap. This has turned into a 3 week debacle of pay-per-view proportions.
More descriptions of this one man circus to follow!
I have made great progress on the car (although slow) but it has been put aside for a few days. My wife had surgery today and I cannot leave her alone for the next day or two.
But I will fill you in on the disaster of a weekend I had.
I got my new clutch on Friday. Saturday I spent all day putting on the clutch and all the other accessories had ready to install. I then put on all my new heater hoses and bled the hydraulic clutch system and cleaned the engine bay a bit more. I also stole the speedo cable from my race car because this one was broken (that is a pain to change out too!)
I then tried dropping the motor in. That is when the nightmare began. After close to an hour just trying to get the motor lined up with the transmission I gave up and pulled the motor back out. I then pulled the transmission (dropped it off my jack to be accurate) and called it a day.
Sunday started with a 20 minute tag team wrestling match featuring me vs. motor and tranny. At one point I actually threw the transmission across my garage in frustration. I think that is when I broke it's spirit and began to win! I FINALLY got the motor and tranny to mate up. And when it did line up it was as easy as I have ever done it.
Keeping up with everything else I have touched the transmission was scrubbed clean with some Simple Green.
Then the real fun began. Dropping the motor and transmission in the car together only took about 10 minutes. Getting it on the motor mounts started a re-match bout between me and the Motor/Transmission team. I gave up trying to feed the drive shaft back into the end of the transmission at the same time and the motor finally came to rest on its mounts.
Then started my drive shaft battle. I unhooked my cat-back exhaust and dropped the drive shaft from the rear end. I could slide it back far enough but it just would not go into the transmission. I had pretty good visibility of the output shaft of the transmission but it just would not go. To see if there was anything binding I dropped the rest of the exhaust and the associated heat shields. Once that was out of the way, with the same motion of hands as before the drive shaft slid right in the transmission. So a 10 minute drive shaft job turned into a 2 hour exhaust job.
At this point everything under the car is done. The exhaust is back on, transmission has new fluid (my hand pump broke and I ended up wearing 1/2 quart of Redline tranny fluid, that forced me to take a shower in the middle of the day because that stuff BURNS).
Most everything on the drivers side of the motor is connected, A/C, P/S, alternator, fuel lines, etc. etc.
I still need to install the radiator, fan, schroud, battery, intake , and feed the wiring harness through to the ECU.
I don't consider myself a newbie mechanic. I have done 4 motor swaps in the past, this has just been my first rebuild. I cannot explain the ridiclious difficulties I have had swapping this motor out. I would of been better off sending the car and motor off to someone else and paying for the swap. This has turned into a 3 week debacle of pay-per-view proportions.
More descriptions of this one man circus to follow!
09-09-2003, 10:36 PM
#30
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Helena, AL
Posts: 96
It RUNS ................. like CRAP!
Today I installed the radiator and hooked up the wiring harness at the ECU (amoung other small miscellaneous crap). Filled it with fluid, primed the fuel system and fired it up.
First few attempts it only ran for a few seconds. I got to where I could keep it running if I kept feathering the gas. The entire time it just sounded bad just missing (no backfiring or popping). I let it run for around 5 minutes at first. i shut it down to check for leaks.
If I hold steady throttle it surges by 400 or 500 RPM always souding better on the up revs. I found it would not run at all if I tried to keep it under 2000 rpm. I finally set the idle to around 2000 rpm but it still surged a bit and sounded awful.
I had good oil pressure and the temperature came up nice and quick and stabilized around the half way mark on the stock gauge.
Total I let it idle for around 25 minutes today. What concerns me is that the add coolant buzzer went off twice. Both times I shut the motor off immedietly and added more coolant (about 1/2 quart both times). I feel I did a good job getting all the air out of the coolant system. Every time I added coolant I disconnected the top coolant line on the TB and let it vent air out.
I guess with it running so poorly and it apparent loss of coolant I am fearing the worst with my first rebuild. I hope the bad running can just be attributed to a bad vaccum leak and low compression because of the new apex seals. And the coolant problem was just air in the systm.
Tomorrow I will start it again to let it come up to temperature then do a compression test. I will also try to use some eather in a can to find any vaccum leaks.
Pictures should be developed and posted tomorrow. And if I have the time I will make some .mpeg's of the first start.
Any tips for diagnosing a bad running rebuild would be appreaciated.
Today I installed the radiator and hooked up the wiring harness at the ECU (amoung other small miscellaneous crap). Filled it with fluid, primed the fuel system and fired it up.
First few attempts it only ran for a few seconds. I got to where I could keep it running if I kept feathering the gas. The entire time it just sounded bad just missing (no backfiring or popping). I let it run for around 5 minutes at first. i shut it down to check for leaks.
If I hold steady throttle it surges by 400 or 500 RPM always souding better on the up revs. I found it would not run at all if I tried to keep it under 2000 rpm. I finally set the idle to around 2000 rpm but it still surged a bit and sounded awful.
I had good oil pressure and the temperature came up nice and quick and stabilized around the half way mark on the stock gauge.
Total I let it idle for around 25 minutes today. What concerns me is that the add coolant buzzer went off twice. Both times I shut the motor off immedietly and added more coolant (about 1/2 quart both times). I feel I did a good job getting all the air out of the coolant system. Every time I added coolant I disconnected the top coolant line on the TB and let it vent air out.
I guess with it running so poorly and it apparent loss of coolant I am fearing the worst with my first rebuild. I hope the bad running can just be attributed to a bad vaccum leak and low compression because of the new apex seals. And the coolant problem was just air in the systm.
Tomorrow I will start it again to let it come up to temperature then do a compression test. I will also try to use some eather in a can to find any vaccum leaks.
Pictures should be developed and posted tomorrow. And if I have the time I will make some .mpeg's of the first start.
Any tips for diagnosing a bad running rebuild would be appreaciated.