Engine tear down and setup

[TPXX]

Awesome info and pictures! What did you do with all the solution afterwards? Anyway to neutralize it for disposal?


Edited: Score! Found a local machine shop that the owner is into old style engines, and has a few of the hit and miss type and knew what a listeroid was. He will oven bake at 800 Deg and then bead blast for $75! Sweet Deal I think!

[Quinnf]

After the dust settled, so to speak, I pumped the clear liquid off and sent it down the drain. The stripper is drain cleaner, after all, and we're on sewer here, so no problem.  You probably wouldn't want to do that if you were on a septic, though.  The paint residue, which might have contained some lead precipitated as lead hydroxide from the caustic solution, if indeed the paint ever contained lead, amounted to only a few ounces or so once it dried.  I dumped it out onto newspapers, let them dry then folded them up and into the trash they went. 

Bead blasting should be fine after oven baking.  I looked into having that done, but was quoted $75 vs. about $15 for the drain cleaner, so that's the way I went.
Be sure to remove the liners from your cylinder block.  They are held in with rubber O-rings that would make a real mess if they passed through an oven.

Quinn

[fabricator]

Make sure he knows you want the inside of the block blasted too, as good as he can get it, that's the most important part of the whole process.

[Quinnf]

While you're at it, make sure you give the Dude your TRB bearing carriers; the ones on my engine were full of grit.  And have him blast the underside of the piston, too.  They can be gritty, too. 

[Horsepoor]

I was amazed to find sand UNDER the pistons. I would never have believed it. I added this comment so that you can preform a double take in that area.

[BruceM]

I also had a big gob of black grease mixed with casting sand under the piston. Invisible until the connecting rod was removed.
It's hard not to assume intentional sabotage when you see such a thing.  Rajkot revenge?

[Quinnf]

Yeah, and INSIDE the wrist pin, too!

[TPXX]

Wow! Not just poor workmanship but deliberate disregard or sabotage. I'll begin the tear down this weekend, being sure to take lots of pictures to aid reassembly. Should I work to set timing marks before I take it apart or after reassembly? Also for those who have a twin, The center crank bearing, how does it come out? Is it split? I really appreciate all of the advice!

[dieselgman]

Center main will be split just like the connecting rod bearings and resides in the block (top half) and a bearing cap (lower half).

dieselgman

[vtmetro]

Great to see the pictures of the engine stripping process.

It also brought back a very early memory -- I was 6 at the time -- my mother and father boiled some wooden house shutters in a barrel with lye and water in it to remove the paint. And yes it was a wood fire underneath. They made me stay at a distance and explained what lye could do.  Just funny to think that it was a more common practice back then by everyday people, before canned paint strippers were available. I remember the lye can with a big red skull and crossbones on it. I definitely kept my distance.

Anyway, interesting to see it isn't ancient history to do this at home.

[TPXX]

Well I got some more done today. I pulled the heads off . The injectors had just a little rust on them in one spot. The cylinders looked good. I could see the hone marks, kind of a cross hatch. Did not see any vertical scoring, so I'm thinking, I had some relatively clean oil used for the factory run. The heads and valves had a fairly heavy black coating. I have not got  the heads heads/valves disassembled yet. I also have not pulled the con rods yet. Once I get a look at the big end bearings, I'll have a better idea of how clean my engine is.  Also noticed holes in my fly wheels on the inside. I assume this means they actually balanced the engine?

[BruceM]

I agree TPXX, inspection of the upper bearing shell surface was a good indicator of grit remaining (somewhere) on my engine.

[TPXX]

So I got the lower bearing on the con rods off. I can see striations in the bearing shell. So if the bottom half has some, I'm sure the upper bearing has more. The oil was still golden in color though. There was a shim on one side of the lower con rod. Was that for clearance? My dippers were not on knife edge. One was in full paddle and the other was on a 45. I took a picture of the lower bearing half, which I'll post later.

[dieselgman]

Your conrod will be shimmed for just the right amount of bearing crush - and oil clearance.

dieselgman

[Tom]

That rust spot is on the exterior of the injector that is not exposed to combustion. No worries about that, the top end looks good.