Round 2 @ a 1/4 the price

[Cabriolet]

Another long day for us both and another one coming tomorrow.
My package from RyanG arrived with my shiny new CF tail pipes in it.

Dad has been pulling heads from the junkyard for 2 weeks, hens the reason for me not updating here. Nearly every head has been milled too far or is cracked or warped. But this one might been a keeper. It looks to be just slightly warped in the middle, about .5mm or less and was pulled from an E34 525i.

But tired of waiting we decided to pull the engine out with the tranny. No matter how much I complain I can’t get him to switch to a manual. So m20 autotragic is will remain.
So disconnecting the wiring harness isn’t a fun job many brackets have to come off or be carefully moved as to not snap any of the brittle wires. It took us nearly 2 hours to disconnect everything.

Stock suspension is shear crap. I just keep jacking the car up and up trying to get the damn back wheels of the ground.

At this point I had to put my bran new DSLR away because I was not about to touch it with my greasy nasty hands. Plus, I had cut my arm pretty bad on a brake line bracket will trying to break loose the giubo.
Hours later tempers flared as we ripped the engine out, in the heat of the day. All kinds of fluids poured from the block, rear of the tranny and hoses. After it was out on the hoist we disconnected the tranny and put the block on the engine stand.

And I grabbed a shower as dad cleaned his tools to put away for the day.



something to come....
So until tomorrow, enjoy and feel free to ask any questions. This is our 3rd m20 engine restore.

[e30trooper]

looking good man!

[mikeedler]

looking good. I miss working on classic cars with my father like back when I was 13 or so. we went to some swap meet/car show EVERY Sunday too.

keep it up!

[Cabriolet]

looking good. I miss working on classic cars with my father like back when I was 13 or so. we went to some swap meet/car show EVERY Sunday too.

keep it up!

ya my dad is starting to get to the age where it's not easy on him to work at 10 hour day in the sun on the car.
we were going to for a full factory restore on his 1974 260z but well see if he has it in him for that.

[!AjHoWzA!]

Nice! Love the verts

[BlueIX]

I envy, how much you actually get to do with your Pops. One day I hope to be able to have those memories with my Son.



Good progress guys. :up:

x2

[Cabriolet]

Despite a late start we got a lot done in 3 hours.
Taking off the oil pan is made so easy with this Yamaha impact driver. It takes like 1/10th the times as doing manually. But after it was off we noticed that a chunk of the oil pan gasket had been sucked in to the oil pump. The whole oil pan gasket looked like there had been a vacuum on the engine for years. I have never seen a gasket sucked in, in such a weird way.

Dad tried to short cut taking off the fan but grabbing to water pump pulley with a vice grip. Told him not to do it and ya the CPS support snapped. Mocking him shortly followed. LULz. At least it wasn’t me doing that or he’d have been pissed.

After the fan, water pump and crank pulleys, pulling the pistons is the next step at this point. We don’t have the 100% correct tool for the job. But a 10mm 12 point socket works perfectly. A breaker bar and quick punch and they are loose. Then tapping on a wood block to get the bottom of the rod to pop away from the journal and then they slide out (kinda). We use a wood rod to push them out. Every bearing looked bran new except cylinder #6. It was worn in the center of the bearing. Maybe slight oil starvation…

Taking pictures with a waterproof camera is a must. We try to document ever step because we will forget, after the engine has been apart for a few month, how everything will go back together. Here he is taking a picture of the worn journal.

Here are some pics for me. Hehe
[IMG http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6070/6044243642_33146734f8.jpg[/IMG]
So getting the crank bolt off is a PITA. Seriously it takes about 600lbs of force to get it to pop loose. BMW makes a tool for the job, psha who needs the right tool. My old steel bunk bed rail was cut, drill and repurposed for this task. The fatter the operator, the better for this job.

If you need to make one. Use the pulley as a stencil for getting the correct outline. The tool needs to be steel, aluminum will tear. We drilled two holes and then used a drimmel to cut the ½ moon for the center. 22mm impact socket ½ inch flex wrench in a four foot pipe makes quick work of this bolt.

[beybedba]

wow!.. nice find

[Dj Buttchug]

i hope you dont mean .5 warpage... you can only allow +/- bout .006 for that head

but you probably know that

[Cabriolet]

i hope you dont mean .5 warpage... you can only allow +/- bout .006 for that head

but you probably know that

ya it looks so good. but then we flipped it over. might be another weekend of head pulling to get a good one.

[Cptcarisma]

Whats that hiding out in the garage? An old school Cougar? (one of the last pix, your dad is cranking on the engine, and you can see the tailights in the background)

CAPP.

[Cabriolet]

Whats that hiding out in the garage? An old school Cougar? (one of the last pix, your dad is cranking on the engine, and you can see the tailights in the background)

CAPP.

yes he is trying to sell it to pay for mods on his bimmer and a full factory restore on his 1972 260Z.
you can see the cougar here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59570093@N08/sets/72157625925513799/

[Kershaw]

awesome man. congrats.

[poopin04]

I wish my dad wasn't such an dickhole drunk that I couldn't stand.... I envy what you and your dad have sir. I can only hope my kid likes to take shyte apart like me so we can work on cars. Dude, good luck on the build.

[Cabriolet]

So I have been pretty lazy about posting.
That last head was a POS. warped wasn’t a good enough word for how bent the head was.
But two heads pulled later and he (my dad) found a good one on a 1987 325i vert automatic. Note of advice, if you need a used head get one from an automatic. After pulling about 10 heads, automatic heads have a ton less wear.
Two weekends ago he painted the block, polished all the aluminum parts and he finally got the head on Sunday, so we went able to really examine it for another week. He took it to a machine shop and it was checked for flatness. It was so flat they recommended not even milling it. So to get it perfect lapping compound was used on a huge 1” piece of flat glass. I was skeptical but as you will see, the results were perfect.

We did a ton of cleaning of the pistons after they came out.


The rest of that weekend we spent getting most of the rust and cosmoline off the engine bay.



Yesterday we rebuilt the head after all the valves were lapped and polished.
Being our 4 head rebuild it went together so perfectly and fast.
We used a ton of assembly lube to make sure that at first start the engine would not be staved of lubricant.




So 9 months about we did the same thing to my car, where we did a full engine refresh. But in that about of time pelican parts has changed the oil rings. The new ones are 4 pieces and a PITA to put in. the rings are much more flexible and kept popping out of their groves.
Old:

Newer:




We wet sanded journal


We finished today with putting new seals on the auto transmission.
DO NOT DO THIS EVER, huge PITA!
I can seem to talk him into a manual so oh well, seals needed to be patched up and ready for tomorrow.


Got the oil pan on and sealed up the block where it has notorious leaks.

7-8lb torque to tighten the bolts down.

Tomorrow: We will end up mating the engine to the transmission and dropping it in…