Tearing down the engine.
To prepare ourselves for the work that lies ahead my son and I (mostly I) read the proper sections of the Haynes and Bentley manuals on the removal and teardown of the engine. Some of the procedures that we decided to follow are: Bag and Tag everything that’s removed. We used zip lock baggies, masking tape and a ball point pen and mark all the wires that are disconnected, clean and bag all of the nuts, bolts and other small items as they are removed. Make a flag tape on all of the push rods and tappets (lifters) as they are removed from the engine. Etc…
Saturday 4/13/02
My son and I started working on pulling and tearing down the engine of the 79 spitfire this past weekend. Some of the things that we ran into: When empting the cooling system only about a quart of green coolant came out. This was way too little of an amount. When draining the oil, lots of water came out with it. I don’t recall the water being green though. I’ll have to put it into a glass jar and let it settle and take another look. If it’s clear then I know that it must be from when I de-gunked the motor. If it’s green, then I know that something major inside is wrong.
What a pain the starter was. It was simple enough to disconnect, with only one wire and 2 bolts. But try to remove it was another story. It would get caught between the steering shaft and the oil pressure-sending unit. We decided to leave it there and maybe it would come out when we lift the engine. That didn’t work well either. The plate kept getting caught between the block and the steering shaft. Hindsight would have been to remove the oil-sending unit and remove the starter.
We pulled the motor out of the car and removed the clutch and pressure plate. The clutch disk was worn and will be replaced along with the through out bearing. With 57k miles on the engine they’re probably original. The flywheel was next. The gear ring is worn and will need replacing too. One of the bolts that hold on the back plate was loose and out about a ¼ of an inch. Another one was out ½ inch and rubbing against the flywheel. Half of the head is ground off. That must have made a lot of noise and some nice sparks.
Time to mount the block on the engine stand. The stand didn’t come with mounting bolts, so it’s time to stop work and go to Sears Hardware to find some 5/16 x 24 bolts 3 inches long and a large socket to remove the nut on the end of the crank. They had one bolt, but I needed 4. The store was so busy that no one could help me get the socket besides, the sockets over 1-1/4 inch were ¾ inch drive and my max is ½ inch. Run to Home Depot and no luck at all with either the bolts or the socket.
Sunday 4/14/02
I tell Beverly (the Mrs.) that I had to go to Lowe’s to find some bolts. She wants to go with me so we can be together. After all, I have been spending too much time out in the garage and she misses my company. I say, ok, but we’re going on a mission, not to lolly gag around. No luck in Lowe’s for the bolts or the socket, but we did pick up two curtain rods, replacement rod for the light post, two flame type light bulbs for the light post, and 8 semi round bricks for the planting bed around the light post.
On the way back home I decided to stop at the auto parts store that’s ½ mile from the house. They had the bolts, and an adapter to convert ¾ to ½ inch drive. Stopped back to sears and pick up a 1 ¾ inch socket for the nut. After trying the socket on the nut it was back to Sears Hardware for a larger socket. This time I got the right size, )1 13/16 inch incase you need to purchase one).
Mounting the block to the stand was another difficult task. I did manage to get it done though. Start stripping down the engine. No problems encountered. The spark plugs looked new, but were fouled with black soot. Must mean that the carburetor is running too rich or the chock is sticking. I did manage to snap off 5 of the studs that hold the manifolds on. Luckily the broken studs were sticking out ½ inch, enough to use some WD 40 and lockjaw pliers. One stud snapped off flush, but that was from a previous owner’s handiwork. I’ll have the machine shop remove it when I get the head work done.
Removing the head was a little difficult. I used a rubber mallet and whacked it all over with no results. Next came the 22 ounce ball penned hammer and a block of wood. After 10 – 15 minutes of whacking, success.
Once the head was removed and the lifters out the engine was swung around and the oil pan was removed. CAUTION: make sure you place a pan under the block; LOTS of coolant will come out of the passages when it’s rotated 180 degrease. The oil pan was removed and then the oil pump. I noticed that the bottom of the pump is scored with groves. In the manuals it tells the reader to check for shims between the distributor and block. I didn’t find any. I wonder if someone removed the distributor and didn’t replace the shims causing pressure on the oil pump when the distributor was tightened down.
The nut on the end of the crankshaft was next. I had to wedge a 2x4 block of wood in between the block and the crank to stop the crank from turning. After trying and trying to turn the nut with my new 1 13/16 socket and breaker bar it was time to bring out the big guns. I pushed as hard as I could on the breaker bar while whacking the end of the bar with my 24-ounce ball peen hammer. A few whacks and the nut started to move.
Wednesday 4/17/02
I have a few hours before dinner is ready so I go out to the garage and finish striping the engine. The timing cover, chain, and gears come off with no problem at all. The teeth on the cam gear is nice and pointy and will defiantly need replacing (I’ll replace the chain and both gears along with the tensioner in the rebuild). The cam comes out nice and easy and doesn’t show any wear at all.. I remove the back oil cover bolts, but cannot remove the cover as it hits the engine stand.
Next thing to be removed are the pistons. I started with the number one piston. It comes out really nice. I inspect the rod and it has a number one vibro-peened on it. Did the factory do this, or has someone else been in here? Number two comes out the same way. When removing the bolts on number three I notice how loose the connecting rod is on the crank. After the end cap is removed, I look and there is no bearing. I start pushing the piston thru the bore and I find the 2 bearings, or what’s left of them. They were totally flattened and were only half the length and twice the width of the others. See a picture here The two bearings on the left side of the picture are from the number two cylinder, while the mangled two on the right are from the number three. You can’t see the large scrapes that are in them along with the connecting rod. The crank looks as if the metal from the connecting rod welded itself to the crankshaft journal. Number four came out like numbers one and two.
The main bearing journals are removed and the crank is removed. All of the little plugs are removed and now the block is ready to go to the machine shop. Time to start calling around.
Friday 4/19/02
Well, I called around on Thursday and settled with a place a couple of towns over. The owner has a great reputation with the local hot rodders and does work for area drag racers and round track.
When I was younger, I hung around a bunch of guys with big block Chevy’s Fords, Mopars, etc and remembered everyone wanted to have “Don Scinto” do the machining work on their cars.
My son and I placed the block and crankshaft into a plastic tub in my wife’s Windstar and drove to the machine shop. We entered the front of the building and was greeted by Don himself. We explained our lack of experience with rebuilding process and calmed by his assurance that if we keep everything clean, followed a good manual with the torque specs, and thought logical, everything would come out fine. In my younger years I worked in a machine shop and was pleasantly surprised at how clean his shop was for a working machine shop.
There were lots and lots of heads, blocks and other engine parts neatly positioned all over the shop. Aluminum heads that were nice and shinny, having just been skimmed. His helper had blue surgical gloves on was assembling a large engine. We dropped the block and crankshaft off and were told to call in a couple of days and he’ll have inspected it and will know what the next steps will be.
