Heya folks... Been threatening to tear down the spare engine for my '82 Mazda 626, and do a full clean/inspect/repair/rebuild on it from top to bottom for a while now, but I've had a minor shortage of discretionary funds, special hardware, clear space, and time. Today, that changes.
Now, here's the "you tell me" part: I'm thinking seriously about writing up this adventure as it unfolds, perhaps as a series of newsgroup postings, a website, or both. What say you, oh denizens of rec.autos.tech and rec.autos.misc? Would you like to see the tale "as it happens"? Let me know. See my .sig if you want to do it via email.
Now, to help you decide if you'd want to see the whole gory show, here's Day 1 in "Don's Diary of the Rebuild". Enjoy!
New project for Don time. It's a "spare" engine from a 1982 Mazda 626. Odometer showed about 128K miles, which I tend to believe are all on the original equipment, and the car drove reasonably well from Long Beach CA to Oroville CA when I bought it. It overheated a couple of times on the way up (Surprisingly, NOT on the Grapevine, where I expected to encounter any trouble that was likely to happen) it was a bit "doggy" - nothing serious, but enough to be noticable, was burning some oil, had a bit more of a lifter tick than I really liked, and just generally seemed vaguely unhealthy. So I swapped it out, and have been running the engine from the wreck (See google for my posts around May 12 last year if you want to know about that) ever since. All along, the plan has been to throw a rebuild on it so I've got a spare on hand and ready to go should the engine I'm currently running decide to give up the ghost. That's been refined a bit since the plan first occurred to me. As of now, I intend to be a bit more thorough than just "throwing" a rebuild on it. I'm thinking that by the time I'm done, I'll have effectively "blueprinted" the engine like the racing folks do. (No, I'm *NOT* interested in racing the beast!)
Along the way, I hope to learn a whole lot more than what I think I already know about engines, how they work, and how to work on them.
Yesterday, I snagged an engine stand that I've been putting eyeball tracks on for the last couple-three months, so it's time to get started on this project.
First thing I had to do was figure out how to mount it on the stand "sideways" (with the exhaust manifold side to the stand, after removing the exhaust manifold), as that's the Mazda recommended method of attachment. And now that I've got it up there, I can see why. NOTHING is inaccessible when mounted that way. Nice... VERY nice...
Pulling the exhaust manifold revealed a truly amazing situation... Apparently, during the 10 months or so that it sat there waiting for me to get around to working on it, a squirrel decided it would make an excellent acorn repository. The exhaust manifold was stuffed solid with acorns! Oddly enough, they're a species that I haven't seen around here. The oaks we have anywhere near us drop acorns that are the classic "round" shape. The ones the squirrel stowed are more like what would come off what I know as "pin oaks" - long and slender, almost like some sort of small, hard chili pepper. Pulling the intake manifold revealed the same situation - The squirrel had crammed acorns behind the valve stems, and the manifold was stuffed solid, including one of the darn things tucked neatly into the EGR valve's tube!
Anyway, back to the teardown. After cleaning out the acorns, I drained the pan, and got rid of the emissions hardlines that were bolted to the front, pulled the thermostat housing and thermostat (Housing was absolutely SCRUNGY with powdery/crystaline deposits. Thermostat was pristine - Looks like it was just taken out of the package) and yanked the AC/Power Steering/Air Pump bracket, then popped the valve cover. Nice cork gasket. Too bad whoever put it on reefed the nuts down so tight that they basically cut it in two. Oh well. I've got a new one to put on it anyway. Got to looking at the lifters and cam, and noticed something that might be a bit "off" or could be perfectly normal.
Looking at the camshaft, it's quite apparent that the lifters don't "ride" the cams constantly. On the #3 and #4 cylinders, the cam lobes were nice and clean, smooth, bright and shiny, obviously polished to near perfection by the frequent contact with the lifter arms. But the "low" spots have a "congealed oil" film on them that clearly shows that the lifter isn't in contact with that part of the cam at all. So I started turning the flywheel to see if it was true for the other two cylinders. Sure enough, it is. The rocker arms ARE NOT maintaining contact with the cam throughout the entire revolution, on any cylinder. I haven't yet determined if this is normal for this engine, or if I'm looking at a badly done adjustment. Service manual (The real deal - not a Clymer's/Haynes/Chilton's, although I *DO* have a Haynes that covers this car in my possession if I decide I want a "second opinion") shoud be able to tell me, I figure. But checking on that isn't until later in the process, so I'll be leaving that sit for now.
And thus, the sun falls on day 1, leaving me wondering what's for dinner.
Next session - lose that darn alternator! It's in the way. And that fan... That's just GOT to go! It's covering up the water pump.
Let me know, folks... should I continue posting about the adventure? Make a web page out of it? I really ought to get some pictures as things progress, so that probably makes a website mandatory eventually.