23 March 2021 A quick trip to the garage this evening and I got the water pump fitted and the cylinder head bolted down. I had fitted new dowel pins to the block and the head needed the corresponding bolt holes just cleaning out to let it sit on the dowels smoothly. 26 March 2021 Not been in the garage much this week but have been thinking and startng to plan what I am going to do with electrics. I already have my Canems ECU and new loom so that takes care of the engine side of things. I still need to wire up lights, horn, ignition, gauges, ECU feed etc. I am planning to strip the Mazda loom down for the wires and reuse a couple of the plugs to connect to things like the ignition and column switches. CBS have just added some reasonably priced sets of waterproof connectors to their range which would be useful. I've been trawling the internet for something to help me with designing the wiring circuits but there doesn't seem to be much out there for the hobbyist car builder without a large commitment in software subscriptions. Plenty of options for designing PCBs and the like the biggest problem is finding something that has a set of suitable icons. In the end I built my own gallery for OpenOffice by borrowing shapes from open source galleries and creating the missing ones myself. Next task will to start drawing out the individual circuits. 27 March 2021 Had a few hours in the garage this afternoon and got the lifters and cams fitted. The lifters were placed back in there original locations and oiled up, I checked that they moved soothly in their bores. The cam bearings and lobes were coated with assembly lube and carefully poisitioned. Then the caps were placed in position and torqued up. Finally the cam oil seals were pushed in to place. 28 March 2021 I intended to fit the thermostat housing to the engine today, but my gasket set doesn't seem to have the right o-ring so had to place an order for one. Instead I cleaned up the cam cover to get it ready for painting. I stripped the VVT unit, cam sensors, PSV valve and all the brackets. I stripped the plates inside the cover so I could give it a really good clean and also so I could remove the PSV valve grommet. I went all over the outside surface with wire wheels to clear any loose corrosion off. Then I gave it ia good rinse in the parts washer and dried it off. I carefully drilled out the snapped EGR valve bolts. I was unable to save the threads but I can easily get bolt on the back to secure the EGR blanking plate. The intake manifold/plenum also got a similar cleanup and I also ground off the worst of the casting flash lines. I applied some aluminium putty to the cam cover to cover up the Mazda lettering. Once it is cured I will sand it off smooth. All the bolts, screws and brackets from the intake manifold and cam cover were run through the ultrasonic cleaner, dried and packed away. I also stripped the split conduit off the front to rear wiring loom so I could see all the wires and connections for when I need to look at the wiring. All the conduit and any fixings I was able to remove were put in a bix in case I want to use them in the future. There is still a huge pile of wiring loom to take apart.
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21 March 2021 Only got in the garage on Sunday afternoon, food shopping, potato planting and other jobs taking up Saturday. Had to go and buy another valve lapping tool because I can't find the safe place I put the other one! Lapped in the valves and then cleaned up the head and valves with wipes and plenty of brake cleaner. Fitted the new oil stem seals from my engine gasket set, a bit of lubrication and they can be pushed into position by hand. A deep 10mm socket sits nicely on the shoulders. Lubricated the valve stems and put them back into the head then took and each spring in turn fitted them to the head with the collets. This was a fiddly task and took the best part of 3 hours. The first few took the longest. I put an old rubber seal under the valve to stop it moving then slipped the spring over, ensuring it was the right way up with the upper spring seat on top. Then the fiddly task of compressing the spring and fitting the 2 tiny keepers in place. I found the most successful method was to put a bit of grease on the inside of the keeper and then use a little more grease on a small screwdriver which helps it to stick. Then manoeuvre it into place on the valve and repeat with the other keeper and release the spring. In reality it is a lot of fiddling about trying to get the keepers in the right position while trying to keep the spring compressed enough. It took several attempts for each valve but finally all 16 valves were done. I wiped off the excess grease and gave them all a good look over to make sure I was happy with everything. I put the new head dowels in place and checked the head gasket over to make sure it matched the old one. At first glance it seemed to be wrong as several of the waterways were sealed off by the head gasket but upon comparison with the old one it appears this is correct. 2 March 2021 Started the process of rebuilding the engine this evening. The block has been cleaned, painted and honed by my local machine shop. They've checked the bores and deck. The crankshaft was also checked and found to be OK and just needed repolishing. The pistons was checked for ovality and are OK too. This evening I started by removing the old pistons rings and cleaning the carbon and gum from the pistons, I used some cellusose thinners to wipe them off then used a plastic scoruing wheel to gently remove the carbon. Then a combination of handheld stiff bristled nylon and brass brushes to clean out the ring grooves. I checked the gaps for the new rings and fitted them to the pistons. 6 March 2021 Started on the block reassembly. Cleaned the big end caps and con rods and fitted the new bearings. Ran all the bolts from the engine through my ultrasonic cleaner, had to clean up the threads on the sump bolts as they were coated in silicon. Cleaned the block oilways with a small bottle brush and brake cleaner then inserted the galley plugs. Fitted the engine core plugs too. Then gave the engine another wipe over with lint free cloths and brake cleaner. Mounted the engine on my stand and wiped out the bores again, then lubricated them with engine oil, lubricated the pistons and slid them into the bores with a ring compressor. Turned the engine over, cleaned the main bearing caps and the. Inserted the the main bearings in the block and placed the crankshaft in place. Started to fit the main bearings to the caps but dropped one and it now has a nasty scratch on the bearing surface. What a pain in the arse I will have to order a whole new set now. Place the crank and big end caps loosely in place so they don't get lost and covered the engine with a bag until I can get the new bearing shells ordered. Made a start on cleaning up the cylinder head. Removed the worst of the carbon from the valves and combustion chamber and then set about removing the cams. I ran the bolts and cam bearing caps through the ultrasonic cleaner and greased them lightly with oil before putting them in to labelled bags. Removed the cams and the tappets and put them in labelled bags as I removed them. I had a go with my valve spring compressor and removed one valve so I could try it out, works well once I'd figured out the best place to bolt it in place. Removed the collets, spring and put them in a labelled bag. I'll need to make up a valve holder so they don't get mixed up. 12 March 2021 My new gauges have arrived early! Really pleased with them, I think they will look great in the car when they are fitted. 13 March 2021 Not much progress in the garage last week, been feeling a bit grumpy after the bearing fiasco last week. New bearings arrived in the week so back into the garage today and get on with the engine build. Started by unbolting and removing everything from the block (again). Gave everything a wipe over with a lint free cloth and brake cleaner. Removed the main bearings and fitted the new ones (without dropping any). Put the crank in and checked the oil clearance with plastigauge 0.05mm which is with the maximum tolerance (0.1mm). Cleaned off the plastigauge applied some assembly lube to the bearings and torqued it up. Crank turned nicely in the bearings so refitted the pistons and lubed the con rod bearings and torqued that all up. Fitted, the new rear oil seal, oil pump, strainer, main bearing support plate. Gave the sump a going over to clean the worst of the corrosion and old muck off then fitted it to the block. Bit annoyed that the crush washer I bought for the sump plug (supposedly the same as the diff and gearbox) are too big so will need to source the correct ones. Drilled some holes in a lump of wood to hold the valves then got on with removing the rest of the valve springs and valves. Labelled and bagged the valves and collets and put the valves in the lump of wood. Removed the valve stem oil seals then got on with removing any remains of gaskets and cleaned up the cylinder head face. Cleaned the last of the carbon of the valves and called it day. |
AuthorThis is my first kit car although I've messed about with cars all my life. Archives
November 2023
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