June 23, 2020. Engine re-assembly Part 1.

further major work on the engine had been stalled waiting on parts to turn up from Summit Racing which (a covid delay) eventually they did so I could take the valve stem seals down to the engine guy so he could finish the heads off.

With the heads back reassembly can begin.

The Mahle gasket is a MLS type and look to be very good quality which is what I’d expect from them.

with both heads on I moved onto the the timing belt pulleys and promptly pulled the thread out of the oil pump case on the tensioner side. I believe the previous owner had damaged the thread when fitting a timing belt (I’d been told when I bought the engine a new belt had been fitted, but I didn’t really believe it at the time). As a result the sump had to come off again and the oil pump to get the thread repaired.

Getting the sump off again proved Three Bond 1207c really does stick well and is recommended stuff.

Now as the oil pump was off I put a new front crank in and changed the O ring between the pump and the block. With the thread reapired I could move on.

The timing belt is a simple operation (I hope) to get right. Just put the cam pulleys and crank into the right positions, line up the marks on the belt to the marks on the pulleys and crank fit the belt like that and job done. I looked at it, walked away came back and looked at it again several times before I pulled the pin (literally) on the tensioner spring.

This is the later crank position wheel from the VVTI engine it has a lot more teeth than the original version. This should make sequential injection / spark easier to achieve.

Doing up the bolt for the harmonic balancer was an issue as I do not have a torque wrench that goes to 180 ft-lb. I also didn’t have the tool to hold the balancer still whilst doing up the bolt.

I didn’t have obvious scrap metal to make a tool from and it did not occur to me to jam the ring gear, which apparently a known method (I find out afterwards) So I printed out the required tool, to slot into some steel tube that was available.

I had a tube to use as an extension on the breaker bar (1m long) so using a lifting scale and the engine crane I could pulled the required 25kg on the tube.

I fully expected the printed part to fail, it made some noise but didn’t let go. So job done.

Next I made a block off plate for the engine oil level sensor, I had thought about trying to make this work but the complication in the electrics is not worth the effort as this thing is not a simple level switch.

I’ll replace the old once the new one arrives. Below, bolted up in place, this just tidy’s up things a bit on the engine.

Beyond this there is ongoing cleaning up of redundant part, below the IAC valve body is losing its water connections. As I don’t live in Canada this part wont need heating.