Project: Rebuild!

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:14 pm

Now the interesting stuff can go on. One trip to Mazda later, and I was $370 poorer, but was in possession of an oil pump, and the necessary bolts for both it and the water pump. It was by this stage that I noticed my \"engine parts\" box diminishing - always a good sign - assuming of course that the engine is getting bigger in the process!

So, on went the oil pump. The 2 longest bolts went into the bottom, the next 3 mid-sized bolts, and finally the smallest bolt into the top. All I had to watch out for here was that I correctly put the RTV silicon in the correct places on the pump - you basically make an upside-down U shape on the back of the pump so that it can properly contain the oil. We don't need it on the bottom half, as the bottom half just leads to the sump.

The water pump required its metal gasket - what I have always done is cover the gasket with a bit of permatex insta-gasket - just for a bit of extra peace of mind. This gasket will only go on one way, so I actually spent a bit of time flipping the thing over trying to find the correct orientation. Once the correct orientation was found, saboteur's excellent suggestion was to put 2 bolts into the pump as I slowly pushed it against the block. The point of this was to ensure that the gasket did not move around. If it moves, then we break the permatex seal, and have potential to misalign the gasket. Once it was in the block, the bolts were done up finger tight, and then both the water pump and oil pump's bolts were tightened down to spec with the torque wrench. And now, it's really making progress...

Next, on went the timing cog and woodruff key:

One important thing here is to ensure you put the key on the correct way. On one end, the key is slightly chamfered - and the end of the crank has a gradient on it. The chamfer needs to meet this gradient. Get it wrong and you might end up causing a few problems. It needs to look like the picture below:

I won't actually put the main crank bolt in til I have set the timing - which requires another bolt for the timing belt idler. So once I get that bolt, I can set the timing - that rusty-looking thing that goes on the crank nose (which I believe to be a timing belt guide plate) will block putting the timing belt on - but, in hindsight I can 'cheat' by just putting the belt there, securing the plate and setting the timing later.

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:00 am

With some time to burn and a parts bin to try and empty out, I dug around for the appropriate bolts, and decided that the rear main seal was to go on next.

Despite being close to the engine stand's mount, the crankshaft's rear face was still accessible with the right tools:

So, looking at the back of the rear main seal's retainer, you can see channeling where RTV silicon is meant to go. So with the tube - on it went:

As an aside, the shorter of the bolts there were not used, but bolts the next length up were. I'd gotten the sizes one step off...

From there it was just a matter of fixing the seal to the block, and to the correct torque:

And it's done.

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:07 am

I'd now reached a point where there was no real reason not to put on the timing belt. The remaining work can all be done with everything in place, so it was finally time to make it look more like a working car engine.

First up, on went the timing belt pulleys - the idler pulley went on the right, and then the tensioner pulley on the left. The tensioner pulley pivots on a notch on the pump, and has a pulling force applied to it by a spring that's latched to another part of the pump. This spring is what puts the tension on the belt. So, when putting the tensioner pulley on, I pulled the tensioner right out of the way and then only nipped the tensioner bolt up a little bit - just enough to lock the pulley in place so that it placed no pressure on the timing belt.

The crankshaft requires about 116ft.lb of torque, so I needed some way to stop the crank rotating. What we did was brace the crank at the rear by using 2 old flywheel bolts and a long, tough screwdriver (the widowmaker makes a reappearance!). The screwdriver was placed so that the bolts 'locked' onto the screwdriver:

So, I slipped the timing belt around the crank cog, put the crank timing plate on and then followed with the crankshaft bolt. The screwdriver prevented crankshaft rotation while I torqued up the crank bolt:

And now to finally set the timing. First, we align the crankshaft to the timing mark on the oil pump:

And then line up the camshafts. Here you see my previously mentioned patented (cough) technique for camshaft locking - grab two shifters and turn the crank so that a) the E and I on each camshaft lines up with each E and I on the black timing plate, and b) the shifters overlap when condition A is met. If you're soloing this, then you need a clamp that you can operate single-handedly, as it's expected you'll be holding the shifters with one hand, and the clamp with the other. Once it's clamped, you should end up with something similar to:

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:10 am

You should be able to count 19 teeth between the small notches at the topmost part of each camshaft sprocket. If not, you'll have to adjust as necessary until there is. Now, once set - remove the clamp and shifters, and everything should stay in place! Rotating the crank now should result in clean rotation of the camshafts, crank and pulleys. Here you'll note that particular parts of the belt are slack, and some may be tight. What we need to do here is rotate the whole assembly and move all of the slackness over to the side of the belt where the tensioner pulley is. So give the crank at least 2 full rotations so that you can get a feel for when the belt is definitely slackest on the camshaft pulley side. Once rotated there, back the tensioner pulley's bolt off a little bit, and the tensioner should spring into place and place tension on the belt. Do up this pulley and the other pulley to their correct torque, and we have now successfully set the timing.

jules · Postby **jules** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:09 pm

Getting all ready for Dodgy Day install there Sabre!

Jules

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:39 am

Hell yes! Things are largely on track now

neil d · Postby **neil d** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:55 am

Hi Saber

The donk is looking good

What pistons are you using?

Neil

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:39 am

Hi Neil, cheers! The pistons are Wiseco forgies.

So, more engine stuffs. I still need to purchase a second thermostat gasket (due to using a coolant reroute spacer), some running-in oil (any recommendations/experience?) and some other bits and bobs. I went to a bolt place in Woolloongabba to replace the exhaust studs, but unfortunately they couldn't help me - the studs they had there were to suit Holdens, and one side wasn't long enough. I'll have to look elsewhere, and if all else fails I'll just run the die over the threads to clean them up a bit.. just in case.

No real excitement today, but progress is progress. I went again to MX-5 Plus - unfortunately my coolant reroute pipe wasn't completed, but I should be able to get it by Wednesday. What I did come back with though, was a matching alternator. Fixing my existing one would involve the purchase of a large enough die - which I estimate are about $30. The thread was butchered when a mate removed the pulley from the alternator when trying to fit another one to it. So, $50 later and I just got a whole replacement alternator! A bit of cleaning with some autosol, a steel brush and some degreaser got a lot of the surface rust off of it - it's looking a fair bit more respectable now.

Fitting the alternator - well, it doesn't get much easier:

The only thing worthwhile noting there is that the alternator pivot bolt goes in from the rear for ease of future removal - else if you want to remove it with the engine still in the car you'll just find it a rather difficult task.

The alternator came with the appropriate tensioning bolt and bracket - which I've been unable to resist blinging. The bracket, water pump pulley and crankshaft pulley have all been hit with a coat of brake caliper paint and will hopefully turn out shmick! Right now the parts are sitting in my engine bay - absorbing a bit of heat to help the paint cure.

Boags · Postby **Boags** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 10:10 am

Super nice effort Sab...

One question, why were you up curing paint at 2.39am???

Boags

sabretooth · Postby **sabretooth** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:30 pm

I posted at 1:39! Fix your timezone, Boagsy!

I did the painting earlier, and figured, \"Well, warm engine, and parts only painted a few hours ago...\" - popped the bonnet and plonked the parts on top!