“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.”

 

Today involved installing the master cylinder guard piece on the pan, cleaning up a few random things and then removing the engine to get to the breather stand.

Close up view of what I saw when looking down the now open top end of the engine. - there's a bunch or weird shit in there - I think it's powercoated paint flakes/chunks that have come off of the breather tower.  Whatever it is, it doesn't belong in the engine.

Here's where the day ended - engine out, alternator, pully, & fan removed.

It seems like every step I take forward it met with a strong amount of resistance.  I have to keep moving forward, find new paths to success and try to find a reason to persevere.  Some days, it's really fucking hard to keep going when all I experience is abject failure.

The engine is going back to the builder to be torn down, cleaned and put back together.

I don't have a timeline and I'm not terribly concerned about it at this point.  I've got enough other stuff to keep me busy while I wait for this to come back.  I'm going to focus on getting the rest of the car on 4 tires with everything functional.  Now that my main goal is gone - who knows how long the rest of this will take.

Just like the tide

I gathered all of the parts to send back to the engine builder so we can exchange the damaged parts for new parts.  These are the o-rings that are in the middle of the case.  That white shit is sealant/silicone.

This main bearing stayed 'together' upon removal.  If you look real close - you can see the oil passages are blocked by, yep, white sealant.

 At the other end of the crank - there's more white sealant blocking oil passages.

It was never a matter of 'if' this engine would fail but rather a matter of 'when'.  I'm feeling pretty good about the decision to tear it down when I did.

I got started on the glue removal process for the interior - I'm spending about 2 hours per day cleaning up the body - doing things like removing old carpet glue, checking wiring connections, pulling out old/smelly insulation (keeping it to make patterns for new stuff) and planning the next steps of this restoration.

This is the left side - tons of adhesive from where the carpet used to be...I spent some time on the other side with a couple of different chemicals to remove it.

After about an hour, this is what I had for a result.  Not quite all of the adhesive came off but most of it did.

I may try another product tomorrow to see if I can improve the result slightly.  I'd like to get the interior cleaned out so I know what I'm working with...so far, it's looking pretty good though.

If you're going through hell, keep going

I talked with the engine builder today.  He apologized for the issues and is offering to replace all of the damaged parts at no cost to me.  While this thing is apart, a few improvements are going to be made...namely upgrading the heads to breathe better (from AA basic 043 heads to Panchito 44s), swapping out lash caps for swivel foot adjusters on the rockers and H beam CB Performance rods.  The barb fittings for the oil filter are being swapped out for AN fittings.  The rest of the engine will, largely, remain the same.  No machining is required so that'll speed up the process as well.

I'm very pleasantly surprised at the response by the builder - I wish I wasn't but...I expected way more push back than I got.  Shit happens...it's how people react when it does that defines them.

I'm cautiously optimistic that this will all work out 'okay' and I'll have it back in about a month.  The IRS conversion is off the table as a result of these costs so the swing axle rear end will go back in the car.  I may have to drop the rear end another spline in the back in an attempt to deal with the camber issue.  I may as well open up the axle tubes on the side covers of the transmission and add a gasket to loosen it up a tad bit while it's out of the car.

The cabinets are being rearranged and parts are being listed as they're found - the 'slim down' continues.

Fortune knocks but once - misfortune has much more patience

The case came apart today and I went over to watch it come apart and take pictures.

It's about as bad as I expected - nearly everything inside will have to be replaced for one reason or another.

26 mm oil pump for full flow: Scratched inside from metal filings.  Unable to re-use.

CB 74 mm forged crank:  Scratched main journals.  Cannot use as is.  These are supposedly super hard and are very difficult to polish/machine.

Build sheet indicates that a Gene Berg racing Chromoly gland nut is used:  Not Gene Berg, actually EMPI.

The entire case was covered with a sealant - there were several 'strings' of the stuff inside the case.

The case, so far, seems to have escaped damage, fortunately.

Sealant was used INSIDE the case to seal o-rings (WTF?)

Bearings are scored heavily for an engine with 200 miles on it and total run time of about six hours.

Sealant everywhere...

CB 5.4 I beams:  Not CB (see pictures)  All CB rods are marked CB from the factory. Unable to determine the actual brand.

Bearings are scored from metal filings and all require replacement.

Here's the rest of the diagnosis:

Cam:  Unusual wear, cannot re-use.

Scat racing lifters:  Cannot determine brand.  Flat instead of a slight dome.  Cannot re-use.

Aluminum cam gear:  Polished where metal filings were flying around.  Cannot re-use.

New stock 8 dowel (assuming this  refers to flywheel):  Not stock.  13 lbs instead of 17 lbs

The heads, pistons/cylinders, push rods and all of the external parts were fine.

It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to...

The engine was picked up today and a few hours later, I received the following text (and the picture to the left):

The bottom line is that this engine has so many problems due to poor assembly and inexpensive parts that very little will be able to be re-used.

Carbs:  Should be fine with re-jetting

Crankshaft free-play:  Should be .003 to .005, was .007

Heads:  These are AA 043 basic heads with 40 mm intakes and 35.5 mm exhaust, and single HD springs.  These have not been ported,  so the exhaust port where it meets the header is only about 1 1/4 inches

Compression ratio:  Approximately 8.9 to 1.  Lots of heat.  The builder cheated by putting in large spacers just to get  .040 deck.  AA cylinders have very little that slips into the case anyway.  The deck should be about .070.

Lash caps:  When I took off the solid shaft rocker assemblies, the lash caps fell right off.  Because everyone is using stainless steel valves, you have to use either lash caps or swivel foot rockers.

Sealants:  RTV was used to seal the case halves.  This material is too "fat" and does not allow the proper bearing crush.

Flywheel: A 12 or 13 pound lightened unit that makes around town driving a pain.

Metal in the sump:  There are long filings of metal in the sump plate that could be picked up by a magnet.  This usually means that cam/lifters have already gone flat.  I can assume this because there was an extreme amount of clearance between the end of the rocker arm adjusters and the valve.

There's a part of me that refuses to be defeated by this car and there's another part of me that just wants the fuck out.  It's at a point now that my wife (who largely avoids getting involved in my hobby or commenting) has asked me if I'd rather sell the car.  Hard to do now that it's in pieces in the garage waiting for work to be done.

Tomorrow is the day the case comes apart and the worst will be revealed.

Flaps, chapter two

The left side tin was removed today prior to the engine being picked up.  Now, perhaps I'm expecting too much, but this isn't the way the foam is supposed to be installed on a Type 3 engine.

Lightweight flywheel (probably Chinese) that will be replaced with a stock flywheel.  I'm not going to drag race so the faster drop in RPMs serves no purpose - other than to make the car slightly harder to drive on the street.

Before the engine went on its way - We pulled on the flywheel and pushed it back to see if there was any 'audible' end play - and sure enough, there's an audible clunk that shouldn't be present.  The end play was later checked and it's out of spec.  I'm sure this won't be the first thing that's incorrect that will be found.  The accumulation of issues will determine how far I can get with what's planned.

I pulled the flaps apart and replaced the rubber grommet in the center mount and replaced all of the hardware (and oriented it properly upon installation).

As shown in this picture - the flaps now open fully (and properly contact the rubber grommet in the flap with the fan shroud).

Additionally, I replaced the factory 'dent' in the right side flap to allow it to open properly.

Flaps are installed, work properly and this thing is ready to go back on the engine.

I was initially going to eliminate the flaps and thermostat system but, listening to that little voice, I'm going to use them.  If they're a problem, I'll remove the flaps and leave the rod.

In addition to the backward flaps, lack of thermostat spring (which led to the flap rod falling off), and the mutilated crank bolt, the engine tins are booger welded and powder coated with wrinkle finish.  I'm guessing that the wrinkle finish is chosen to hide flaws in the tins and disguise the booger welds.

The quality of this weld speaks for itself.  I've dug out some better condition used tin that will be powder coated in black - not wrinkle black.

The pulley shroud top has been a real hassle to get clipped on to the shroud because it's so deformed.  I dug through my tin stash and found another one that I'm going to send out for powder coating and sell (or attempt to) this one.

The next few days will be interesting as the engine is torn down and I'm provided with the results of what was used inside.

Just the flaps, man...

Today's short work was focused on the flaps in the fan shroud.

First thing that caught my eye was that the flap on the left side was not installed properly - it's backward.  The clue was that the end of the tiny bolts was making contact with the top of the inside of the fan shroud - preventing the flaps from opening all the way.  The flaps, oddly enough, were designed with this in mind - they're made to be flat on the back side and have an inset area for the screw head so that they do not foul the fan shroud.  It's a fairly small detail but anyone building engines for more than a few years should know this detail because it affects the proper operation of the flaps.

This is the right side flap - it was installed correctly but likely only because of the necessity due to the flap rod being attached to this side, even if they did forget the spring and the rod fell off.

The other thing I noticed about the flap that was installed backward is that the engine builder hammered the intentional 'dent' in the side of the flap.  They clearly don't know why it's there because it was put on both backward and altered.

When installed properly - the 'dent' allows the flap to clear the fan shroud as shown in the red area and open slightly more.

Again, anyone who has built more than a handful of Type 3 engines should know this.

This image shows the difference in opening between the way the flap is designed to be installed (top) and the way the engine builder installed it (bottom).

Yet another reason that outsourcing Type 3 projects and work to others can be a frustrating experience, to say the least.

I've also come across the 'eyeglass tin' from the engine and have noticed that it's not dual carb tin, rather it's for a fuel injected system.  The top of the tin is flat for carbureted engines and has a raised section at the top for fuel injected engines.  It does not fit quite right over carburetor manifolds.

For what I paid for this engine - there's a lot that's not right, places where shortcuts were taken and attention to detail was seriously lacking.  It's disappointing, to say the least.