WarNose
Full Access Member
I'm really digging that sweet garage!
1993 F-350 tow rig
- Thread starter BrandonMag
- Start date
Well, it's been awhile.
Thanks! It's an 1800 sq ft detached shop. I've spent the last two years working on making it functional.
I just got back into the teardown today:
Unfortunately, I dropped piston #7 when removing it from the block. The piston got a slight flat spot, but I don't think it's serious. However, I am concerned about the cylinder:
There's a total of about eight nicks in the cylinder. I don't think any of them are deeper than about .005 to maybe .008. Hopefully I can just hone the cylinder, knock the edges down and run it. Thoughts?
Thanks! It's an 1800 sq ft detached shop. I've spent the last two years working on making it functional.
I just got back into the teardown today:
You must be registered for see images attach
Unfortunately, I dropped piston #7 when removing it from the block. The piston got a slight flat spot, but I don't think it's serious. However, I am concerned about the cylinder:
You must be registered for see images attach
There's a total of about eight nicks in the cylinder. I don't think any of them are deeper than about .005 to maybe .008. Hopefully I can just hone the cylinder, knock the edges down and run it. Thoughts?
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
I say to go for it. If worst comes to worst, this will at least give you the extra time to completely go through another engine to swap in place of this one.
WarNose
Full Access Member
Over here in California I spent around $800 or $900 to bore and hone the cylinders, buy new pistons and rings, and get the rods pressed on.
While cleaning the rear of the block today, this caught my eye:
It's the rear camshaft bearing hole viewed from the rear of the block. As you can see, the casting is rough on the back of the block, with significantly more material present on the right side of the hole than the left. I'm aware that this won't affect the performance of the engine, but it made me wonder, "What is the process of actually casting an engine block?" I hopped over to YouTube and found this:
It's dated and I'm sure the technology used in engine casting has evolved, but it was produced around the same time that our engines were poured. Hopefully some on here will find it interesting.
You must be registered for see images attach
It's the rear camshaft bearing hole viewed from the rear of the block. As you can see, the casting is rough on the back of the block, with significantly more material present on the right side of the hole than the left. I'm aware that this won't affect the performance of the engine, but it made me wonder, "What is the process of actually casting an engine block?" I hopped over to YouTube and found this:
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It's dated and I'm sure the technology used in engine casting has evolved, but it was produced around the same time that our engines were poured. Hopefully some on here will find it interesting.
Neat video!!! But, I kept waiting for the turbo encabulator part......
Directly from Wikipedia:
The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-deltoid type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremmie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the "up" end of the grammeters.
It's been a busy week. I pulled the crank:
I thought this was a cool shot:
As you can see, the cam bearings need to be replaced:
Who doesn't like new tools? I bought the Lisle universal cam bearing removal tool, the OTC valve spring compressor tool, and a cheapo piston ring remover off Amazon:
I read some of the reviews on the cam bearing removal tool; some good, some bad. Having now pulled four of the five cam bearings with it, I can say it's a quality tool. If you buy one I would recommend spending some time reading and understanding exactly how it works, but it's not really that complicated. I was surprised: the bores in the block under the bearings were scored from the factory. They weren't terrible and I'm sure it wasn't me (I was very careful not to damage anything). Also, I read the reviews for the valve spring compressor tool, some of which mentioned how difficult it is to fully compress the springs to remove the valve keepers using the small hand wheel on the compressor tool. Well, the people who mentioned it are right: tightening the compressor tool tight enough to remove the keepers is a hand cramping exercise. I'm going to follow a recommendation I read on Amazon: weld a cheap 3/8" socket to the hand wheel in order to be able to use a 3/8" drive ratchet to tighten the compressor fully. I've only used it on one valve and it dug into my hand pretty deep. No cuts, but I certainly don't want to use it to remove 15 more sets of keepers. I may not be explaining this very well, but I'll post a pic of what I'm talking about once I get the tool modified.
You must be registered for see images attach
I thought this was a cool shot:
You must be registered for see images attach
As you can see, the cam bearings need to be replaced:
You must be registered for see images attach
Who doesn't like new tools? I bought the Lisle universal cam bearing removal tool, the OTC valve spring compressor tool, and a cheapo piston ring remover off Amazon:
You must be registered for see images attach
I read some of the reviews on the cam bearing removal tool; some good, some bad. Having now pulled four of the five cam bearings with it, I can say it's a quality tool. If you buy one I would recommend spending some time reading and understanding exactly how it works, but it's not really that complicated. I was surprised: the bores in the block under the bearings were scored from the factory. They weren't terrible and I'm sure it wasn't me (I was very careful not to damage anything). Also, I read the reviews for the valve spring compressor tool, some of which mentioned how difficult it is to fully compress the springs to remove the valve keepers using the small hand wheel on the compressor tool. Well, the people who mentioned it are right: tightening the compressor tool tight enough to remove the keepers is a hand cramping exercise. I'm going to follow a recommendation I read on Amazon: weld a cheap 3/8" socket to the hand wheel in order to be able to use a 3/8" drive ratchet to tighten the compressor fully. I've only used it on one valve and it dug into my hand pretty deep. No cuts, but I certainly don't want to use it to remove 15 more sets of keepers. I may not be explaining this very well, but I'll post a pic of what I'm talking about once I get the tool modified.
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I've watched a few videos about cleaning an engine block using electrolysis, so I decided to give it a shot:
It was pretty simple: I filled a five gallon bucket up with about four gallons of water, dissolved 1 1/2 cups of washing soda in it, dumped it into the 44 gallon garbage can, filled the same five gallon bucket up with four more gallons of water, dissolved 1 1/2 cups of washing soda in it and poured it into the garbage can. I then dropped the block into the garbage can, filled the garbage can up with water from a garden hose until the block was covered, hooked up the electrodes and turned my little Schumacher battery charger to the two amp trickle charge mode. I let it sit for almost exactly 48 hours. The results? Eh, it turned out okay. I did not pre-clean the block at all and it was FILTHY. (I think this engine had been dribbling engine oil from every gasket for at least 20 years and was driven regularly on the beach at some point because the block had a fair amount of sandy gunk that was caked on.) I ended up hauling the block into the bed of my F-250 to hose it down with my pressure washer. It's still not 100% clean; I'll have to work on it some more, but it's better than it was. My lesson: I will wipe/scrape all the really thick gunk off the engine block before I use electrolysis to clean one again.
Here's how the block came out (this was right after I pulled it out of the garbage can, I had not yet wiped the water off and coated it with WD40):
Here it is after I wiped all of the water off and got it sprayed down with WD40:
Here's how the block looks now:
I checked all 16 of my pushrods for TIR; the tolerance is .015. Most were around .005, but this one was right on the edge:
Based on the measurements I've taken so far, I now know I need to order a set of standard-sized rod bearings, standard-sized main bearings and standard-sized cam bearings. I haven't measured the pistons, rings and cylinder bores yet so I've still got more to do, but at least I'm moving in the right direction.
xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media
It was pretty simple: I filled a five gallon bucket up with about four gallons of water, dissolved 1 1/2 cups of washing soda in it, dumped it into the 44 gallon garbage can, filled the same five gallon bucket up with four more gallons of water, dissolved 1 1/2 cups of washing soda in it and poured it into the garbage can. I then dropped the block into the garbage can, filled the garbage can up with water from a garden hose until the block was covered, hooked up the electrodes and turned my little Schumacher battery charger to the two amp trickle charge mode. I let it sit for almost exactly 48 hours. The results? Eh, it turned out okay. I did not pre-clean the block at all and it was FILTHY. (I think this engine had been dribbling engine oil from every gasket for at least 20 years and was driven regularly on the beach at some point because the block had a fair amount of sandy gunk that was caked on.) I ended up hauling the block into the bed of my F-250 to hose it down with my pressure washer. It's still not 100% clean; I'll have to work on it some more, but it's better than it was. My lesson: I will wipe/scrape all the really thick gunk off the engine block before I use electrolysis to clean one again.
Here's how the block came out (this was right after I pulled it out of the garbage can, I had not yet wiped the water off and coated it with WD40):
You must be registered for see images attach
Here it is after I wiped all of the water off and got it sprayed down with WD40:
You must be registered for see images attach
Here's how the block looks now:
You must be registered for see images attach
I checked all 16 of my pushrods for TIR; the tolerance is .015. Most were around .005, but this one was right on the edge:
You must be registered for see images attach
Based on the measurements I've taken so far, I now know I need to order a set of standard-sized rod bearings, standard-sized main bearings and standard-sized cam bearings. I haven't measured the pistons, rings and cylinder bores yet so I've still got more to do, but at least I'm moving in the right direction.
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IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
From what I see in your pictures, the block doesn't look too bad to me.
Just for curiosity, not criticism, Why did you only remove a few of the block plugs when you were cleaning it? Also why do you bolt it onto the engine stand with the adapter plate in place?
Just for curiosity, not criticism, Why did you only remove a few of the block plugs when you were cleaning it? Also why do you bolt it onto the engine stand with the adapter plate in place?
Nothing about the block jumped out at me as terrible, either.
I wondered if anybody would notice the block plugs (I actually removed all seven of them). Time to stir up the hornets nest: Justin of R&D has a few videos on YouTube. I've watched most. In one of them he says when he rebuilds a block he drills out the block plug holes with a modified 1.5" hole saw so that he can use a standard 1.5" brass block plug. (He uses Dorman part # 565-027. You can order a box of 10 from Amazon for about $25.) He then shows the process on a freshly cleaned block (he also uses red Loctite as a sealant). I like the idea of not needing special IDI-specific freeze plugs, so I followed his advice: I modified a 1.5" hole saw and bored out the block plug step in the block. I took my time and let the hole saw do the work. It was a little nerve-wracking: I don't normally drill into engine blocks, but the case he makes in the video convinced me.
You can see what I'm talking about here at the five minute mark:
There's not a great reason why I bolted the adapter plate back to the block before I put it on the engine stand; it seemed like the right thing to do.
I wondered if anybody would notice the block plugs (I actually removed all seven of them). Time to stir up the hornets nest: Justin of R&D has a few videos on YouTube. I've watched most. In one of them he says when he rebuilds a block he drills out the block plug holes with a modified 1.5" hole saw so that he can use a standard 1.5" brass block plug. (He uses Dorman part # 565-027. You can order a box of 10 from Amazon for about $25.) He then shows the process on a freshly cleaned block (he also uses red Loctite as a sealant). I like the idea of not needing special IDI-specific freeze plugs, so I followed his advice: I modified a 1.5" hole saw and bored out the block plug step in the block. I took my time and let the hole saw do the work. It was a little nerve-wracking: I don't normally drill into engine blocks, but the case he makes in the video convinced me.
You can see what I'm talking about here at the five minute mark:
xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media
There's not a great reason why I bolted the adapter plate back to the block before I put it on the engine stand; it seemed like the right thing to do.
IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
I was talking about the plugs in the oil galleys.
Oh, which ones? I'm looking at the pics and trying to remember removing any oil galley plugs but I'm drawing a blank.
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IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
In this picture, the block has been cleaned, but I can still see the three oil galley plugs on the back and the one on the driver's side that is right in front of where the lower part of the adapter plate sits. I can't see the ones that are by where the oil cooler mounts.
Oh, that's right! I did remove the plugs by the oil cooler. I forgot about that.
I didn't remove the plugs near the adapter plate for no reason in particular. I've got a 4 1/2" hone on the way; I think once I've got a nice shiny crosshatch pattern in the cylinders I will dunk the block back in a washing soda bath and try the electrolysis again for a couple of days. Before I wash it again I'll pull all of the oil galley plugs out. That way I'll have a truly clean block, oil galleys and all.
I didn't remove the plugs near the adapter plate for no reason in particular. I've got a 4 1/2" hone on the way; I think once I've got a nice shiny crosshatch pattern in the cylinders I will dunk the block back in a washing soda bath and try the electrolysis again for a couple of days. Before I wash it again I'll pull all of the oil galley plugs out. That way I'll have a truly clean block, oil galleys and all.
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