So... I took 3 days off work last week and gave myself 5 whole days to do three main jobs on Lady C's engine:
1. Replace the side plates
2. Replace the timing chains and tensioners
3. Replace the mains and big end bearings
I'd decided the engine and gearbox would come out so I could get nice and comfy(ish) in the garage to do all this work. As well as those main jobs I also wanted to fix a few oil leaks and replace the engine mounts with new VW ones. So I started on Wednesday morning with the car on the drive, the back end up on ramps, the bonnet removed.
The weather stayed dry for the whole day, which made life a whole more comfortable. I photocopied the relevant pages from the workshop manual to keep the manual clean and kept the pages in the order I wanted to work in. Once the coolant and oil were drained out of the engine and gearbox, and everything was disconnected the engine was ready to come out.
Note the "sharp angle" as the manual describes it, that the assembly has to achieve to clear the slam panel. The rope sling I used here is a tad too long and even at full height the rear gearbox mount just failed to clear it. I ended up standing in the engine bay and lifting the back end up and over the slam panel whilst also trying to push the hoist away.
Assembly out and resting on blocks on the garage floor.
Things you don't realise will hinder you until you experience it
1. Block paving on a drive is not the easiest to pull/push a heavily laden engine hoist
2. The garage door sealant strip along the bottom of the entrance represents a significant bump for the same :roll:
We live and learn I guess. Now my plan had been to split the engine and box, remove the clutch and flywheel and mount the engine on a stand. Except the mounting plate on the stand I have wouldn't fit this engine. No matter how I tried to configure it, it just wouldn't fit. So I was resigned to working on the floor with the engine on blocks.
You can see the source of one oil leak here at the rear main crank seal. This would be replaced.
...and the gearbox needs a good clean!
Once all ancillaries were removed (dynamo, starter, exhaust manifold, oil pump, auxiliary drive housing etc) I was able to get the side plates off. Most of the bolts came out very easily...
arthuy said:
The engine mount bracket bolts are a pig to remove, I used a big stilson wrench and that did the trick with minimal cutting in to the thread.
...yes even those ones. I had to lock a couple of nuts onto one to get it out, but no major dramas. With the side plates off you could see the level of sludge in the water jacket.
Left hand side (exhaust manifold)
Right hand side
That's about an inch of solid sludge at the bottom. I took advantage of the nice weather to get the engine onto the creeper and get it out into the sun. Covered the top with polythene and plugged up any apertures before scraping out what I could and blasting the rest with the pressure washer.
Then back into the garage and new side plates fitted. I used Hylomar Blue on the gaskets, drain plug and the big plug in the right hand side plate (more on that later). That was enough for one day and as Thursday dawned wet and miserable I was glad I was able to work in the garage all day. I started by lowering the engine down onto one side and removing the sump.
I painted lots of alignment marks on various bits to check during reassembly...this one on the front pulley with the crank locked at EP. Once the sump was off I discovered the source of the rattle coming from the bottom timing chain...
The fixing lugs on the vibration damper had sheared completely and it was resting against the block. The chain had clearly struck the damper at some stage as there was a big witness mark on the underside. I called a couple of suppliers but no-one had a spare. This was around 4:30pm on Thursday so panic was starting to set in at this stage. A plea on Facebook resulted in a message from a fellow forum member to say he had one and could post it to me special delivery to arrive on Saturday. I was saved (more on this later too)! So I carried on removing the crankshaft and bottom end bearings. That probably takes me into Friday, which was another nice sunny day
With the crank removed I had my first look at the top bearing shells
and the crank journals
They look pretty good.
Main shells out for a closer look
Apart from a deep score in the bottom shell of number 4 main (which I knew about) the rest looked in fairly good condition for 90k miles
Some numbers for you
Big end shells out for a closer look
Top shell on number 3 piston shows most wear. More numbers:
Numbers on the new big end shells
...and the mains
The manual gives a specific method of checking the mains' caps for wear and for selective fitment of the new shells. After checking with the feeler gauges it didn't matter how the shells were selected, the clearance was much the same across all caps give or take 0.001". All big ends and mains were fitted after smearing with Graphogen and checking for free rotation of the crank as I progressed. Once that was done I started on the timing chains. A bit tricky with the engine on its side, but I managed to get the aux housing drive dog through both intermediate sprockets. Next came the oil pump and pipes. I soaked the oil pump in fresh engine oil, replaced all rubber seals and coated all mating surfaces with Stagg Wellseal. That was it for Friday.