The Engine is Done!

Well, I got a chance to spend some time finishing things up on the engine re-do.  The intake, carberator, distributor, belt, air cleaner, engine tins, etc. have all been reinstalled.  I adjusted the valves and it is ready for new oil and the re-installation.  For fun, I have both the before and after pics of the engine.  Looks much better and it should be much more reliable and even have a bit of a performance increase with the higher compression ratio.

 

Next job is to clean and  paint the engine compartment, re-install the engine and take it for a test drive.  I am hoping to do this before the snow starts coming down and the salt trucks come out.

Update Appology

Sorry for not updating the log lately.  My son graduated from the Air Force BMT last week and my wife and I were in San Antonio for the week.  We really enjoyed seeing him and we are very proud of our new Airman!  Now he is off to 20 weeks or so of tech school.

Exhaust

I spent a bit of time fiddling with the engine last night, I installed the mounting strap for the generator and installed the exhaust.  It only took three times to get it right.  Every time I would get things tightened up, I would remember some other part that needed to go on before everything was tightened up.  Oh well, some days that's just how it works.  everything worked out pretty well.

 

Washer system update

I didn't get a chance to work on the bus last night, but I did reach in there and push the windshield washer button.  I had redone the hoses and fittings back in September.  The moment of truth?  It squirted all the way to the top of the glass, just like it was squirting back on Sept 30 when I finished the re-do.  Very cool,  and very lucky there were no additional leaks in the system.  It has held it's pressure that long!

More Assembly

I had a chance to work on the engine a bit last night.  I scraped the main engine cooling shroud clean on the inside.  It had many years of oily greasy built up on the fins.  It should move air much better now.  I then re-installed the oil filler/generator stand, and the generator.  I am waiting for the paint to dry on a couple of the generator mounting parts now.  It sure is nice putting a nice clean engine back together.

Moving along on the rebuild.

The engine re-do is coming along quite well.  I have almost everything media blasted and re-painted that needs to be.  I honed the cylinders and installed new rings.  I checked the torque on the rod caps and case nuts and everything seems great.  I re-installed the pistons, rings, and the LH cylinder head.  I discovered someone had been in there and had been messing around with the deck height.  The bottom of the cylinders has been machined off and there was a shim added.  When I re-assembled the engine without the shims, the head sits way too close to the block and the deck height is a bit thin.  I put the shims (1.25mm) back in and the deck height is just right.  The head seems like it is still a bit close to the block, so I installed a shim under the rocker shaft mounts so the rockers would hit the valves correctly.  This shim is about 1.5mm.  You have to wonder what was done to cause these things to be buggered up.  Someone obviously has been "adjusting" this engine to get a bit more power out of it.  They left the bore and stroke stock though.  Very strange.

As I was getting ready to install the RH head, I discovered a crack in the head right at the spark plug hole.  I don't think that is repairable.  After looking the head over completly, I discovered that someone had been in there welding.  There was weld next to the spark plug holes on both cylinder #3 and #4. Time to throw in the towel on that head.

I was fortunate enough to have a friend at work that used to be an air cooled nut and he sold me a mostly complete, stock 1600 that had two good heads for $20.  Can't beat that.  Now I have all kinds of spare parts! 
The heads come off the parts engine and get cleaned up next.  I will probably put the valves and springs from the cracked head into the spare parts head.  The valves that came with the engine in my bus look to be pretty new.