Captain curiosity changes the plan

Taking off the pan - this was not part of the original plan

The plan as conceived was to ditch the engine components that I didn't want to mess with (heads, cam, carb). I was simply going to throw the new heads and cam on and button it all back up. This of course was a fiction I told myself. I don't even know why I fool myself into believing I won't disassemble the engine down to the bare block. I mean, I am the same guy who in 4th grade, took a very nice wristwatch given to me by my grandmother and disassembled it during class in a fit of curiosity.**  This weekend I came clean and acknowledged that we're going all the way.

Don't ask the Internet how to do this

ZOMG Danger! (not really)

This all started when I decided the clean off the deck of the engine block - there was a lot of old gasket material on the one side. This stuff was more stuck than I've seen in the past, so I Googled "remove head gasket material", which produced a zillion forum posts and YouTube videos, most containing full-on flame wars about all the ways people go about this, followed up with posts by other people exclaiming that using any of the methods explained would somehow ruin the engine.*** After starting and stopping a couple of times, I decided that having the opportunity to go through everything shouldn't be ignored. And if I go down to the bare block, I can just hot tank all that crap off (I can keep making excuses - like I said, I gotta be honest about my predisposition towards just taking everything apart. I'm good with it)

 

Back to the teardown then

The kid, pulling the harmonic balancer.

Since we now need to remove the crank, thought I'd show Xavier how to use a puller to pull the harmonic balancer. We took the time to discuss what the balancer does, and about rotating assemblies, forces, and physics in general.

So here's the list of what we removed this weekend:

• Oil pan, oil pump
• Distributor
• Harmonic balancer
• Timing chain cover, timing chaing
• Lifters, cam, cam sprocket
• Flywheel

Only thing left is to remove the main bearing caps, pistons and connecting rods. We will then send the block out for cleaning.

 

Inadvisable color plan - let's do it!

This photo has nothing to do with the color - I just like it :)

 Xavier and I have been tossing final color plans around, but since we're going to be working on the engine bay and engine soon, we decided to nail down some colors. The color we're picking for the finished car is a 2013 BMW color called "Black Sapphire Metallic"++ which looks damn near black, sheens blue under the sun gun. To get the contrast we want, we decided to get crazy and paint the engine bay and the block Alpine White and Gunmetal Metallic, respectively. Yeah - white engine bay. Should be awesome looking, if we can keep after the "clean+detailed" part. And if the engine doesn't spew oil everywhere. The practical part of me cringes, but the artist in me loves this scheme.

 

Camshaft Forensics

 

So last week, we were wondering why we found a valley full of bent pushrods. Since we pulled the cam this week, I wanted to explore one theory as to why the valvetrain was damaged: AKA the "crazy cam profile" theory, which posits that if the cam produced a valve opening greater than 0.5", it could bend something.  I took some time to measure the cam and see if we can't figure this out.

I measured the cam lobes as:
1.575" DIA
1.735" Eccentric
(intake and exhaust were identical)

The rocker arm ratio for the Ford 289 is 1.6, which gives us:

1.735" - 1.535" == 0.16" cam lobe height

0.16" x 1.6 == 0.256" valve opening height

Disproves the crazy cam theory. Maybe I'll go through the old heads later on to see if we have 7 stuck valves.


** For the record, I was using whatever "tools" available in my desk during my brief amateur horology stint. Think pen clips, safety scissors, and spiral notebook wire. After getting the bezel off the back to expose the jeweled escapement and fiddling with a miniscule screw, the main spring exploded out of its little nest and shot across the room, as the wide-eyed 10-year-old me watched in amazement. Gramma believed every young gentleman should have a smart wristwatch. I got sort of grounded. Despite the punishment, I am still trying to prove to myself that given the right attitude and tools, I could repair that damn watch, if I ever happened to locate that damn spring.

*** I read screeds about everything from "red ScotchBrite will rain aluminum oxide down into the bearings" to "the plastic Roloc discs will remove enough material from the engine deck to screw up the cylinder head mating surface". Mostly, I observed a whole lot of professional mechanics calling each other names. For the record, I found this guy to be the most reasonable.

++ Color codes: 
BMW-MINI-475 (Black Sapphire Metallic)
BMW-300 Alpinweiß III (White)
no paint/manufacturer picked yet for "Blue Gunmetal Metallic"

More pics from this weekend: