My engine removal thread

[Loose Cannon]

Or should that be re-titled my begging for help/ a cry in the dark thread?

The GT3 needed a new manifold, and it soon became apparent it was never going to come out insitu, at least with my fat fingers doing it. So taken the plunge to remove the engine and do some "while you're in there" future-proofing jobs as well (following on from my request for advice about what jobs to with engine out, thanks chaps). I'm going to recondition everything I can afford to do, but due to the cost of the manifold itself the budget is a bit tight. That means niceties like the turbo will have to wait. It would be nice to emulate some of the heroic threads on here replacing everything with stainless/titanium/platinum etc but you have to admit your own limitations!

As there is no particular rush I've been doing an hour or two over a few evenings since the beginning of December. I'm lucky to have a garage but still progress is slow whilst on your own and trying to be methodical so everything sinks in. This is my first bash at this on an Esprit, if nothing else it can amuse those people who have done it all before and bear the scars.

Engine is now a mass of masking tape labels, and been taking pics/videos to help remember the details I'll inevitably forget in a few months time when it goes back together. Now have the generous offer of an engine crane loan (thanks Mike) so can press on.

 

Observations on removals so far:

Translator: The shift change has been getting noticeably worse recently and no wonder. Whilst not rusted solid it was pretty ropey and been badly adjusted at some point. All going back together with stainless ends and a turnbuckle adjuster. This is the single biggest improvement I'm looking forward to when it all goes back together, can't wait!

Wiring: This was a surprise, but shouldn't have been. Under the untidy mess of cooling hoses (which was obvious) lies the equally ill thought through wiring loom which all has to come off from end to end. I cursed my Eclat for this approach but it seems nothing has changed at lotus since the 70s in this regard. Multiplugs? Nah why bother.

Pipework: This is going to test memory come reassembly as it snakes in and out of the bulkheads for no particular reason. The charcoal canister pipe for example passes through the OS bulkhead 3 times, including through the air intake. Is this deliberate, i.e. does it need cooling?

Driveshafts: This was the part I dreaded, but took Sparky's advice of sliding out the bearings (after removing the lower link at the gearbox end). I was still apprehensive as I've only done the ones that leave you with a handful of ball bearings if you get things wrong, but these seem pretty foolproof. However i would say they don't just pop out, they have a long travel which needed a bloody big lever bar to fight against the bushes and spring. Bear this in mind if working in close confines of a garage, you need plenty of space at the sides.

 

Questions so far:

Turbo and intake system: There's more oil in the intake than I expected. This was collected above the outlet of the turbo. Any problem? Could the green separator need changing if so where do you get them? I don't want to add boy racer stuff like catch tanks really.

Turbo itself is also oiler than I thought witha lost of misting, is this just getting past the flexi?

Leak: There is this oil misting at the rear around the MAP sensor and I can't work out where it's from. It's odd because it's just on the block and hasn't plastered the vacuum pipes nearby. Any ideas where it could be creeping from -  didn't think there were any oilways this far up

[Barrykearley]

That looks cracking - good luck.

the oily bit - are you sure it is oil? - from memory though - the cam towers are stuck on with bonding gasket stuff rather than a real gasket - and do have such issues - I may be wrong and a real expert who's done it will be along soon I'm sure.

take out the fuel tanks and repaint, treat or replace whilst you can get to them.....

[Chillidoggy]

I reckon the oil mist was coming from the red turbo pipe to the chargecooler, it's only visible because you've removed it. I had similar oil in the turbo inlet pipe when I took mine off.

The green separator can be cleaned, so you probably won't need a new one, and in any case I think they're NLA. I'm sure there's info about it on here somewhere.

Tips -Photograph absolutely everything, no matter how insignificant you think it might be at the time, and label absolutely everything. Make sure you route and secure all pipework so it doesn't chafe when you're putting it back (a bit premature, I know!).

Where in the country are you? Anywhere near Margate?

[Loose Cannon]

Fuel tanks were a deciding factor to pull the engine. I know you can never really tell with them, but my car has a lot of rust underneath considering it lives in a garage. Hope for the best, expect the worst etc.

I live in the North East, not a busy place Lotus wise but there is someone nearby with some experience to tap into.

[top-plumber]

The crankcase breather pipe is fed back into the air box via a boss connector. I have disconnected this and put a dump valve re circulating pipe in its place ( I would install a dump valve ). With the crankcase breather pipe, either put an oil catch tank or a small cone air filter to prevent debris being drawn into the crankcase through the open pipe.

This will stop any oil mist from getting into the induction side.

Worked for me.

Wayne

[Loose Cannon]

Should have updated this periodically but been a bit preoccupied with living in the garage and flu (probably inter-related!).

It's oot! Big push last weekend in between thunderstorms. Only a couple of sticking points (literally) a manifold-side engine mounting bolt that didn't release and is still steadfastly stuck in the casting; and  couple of water pipes I forgot. Allowed myself a brief moment of triumph at this milestone before remembering I am barely a third of the way through the process....

The obligatory empty engine bay shot for this kind of thread;

I'm also really digging the car's new ride height! It's a lot easier getting in and out plus ferry ramps should be a doddle. Perhaps the factory suspension kit should be next winter's "nightmare" job?

A mate also made this nifty engine trolley for me at zero notice, and helped me get the engine out where I would really have struggled alone, top work Dave

 

With the engine like this the manifold didn't take too much effort, also knowing the manifold was being ditched helped with getting to those awkward little nuts;

The Turbo to manifold nuts were just blobs of rust and needed hammer, chisel and dremel. A whole evening lost on those little swines.

However the turbo appears in good nick at least visually, vanes clean/intact, spins nicely. I would really like to replace that horrible rusty oil drain pipe with something stainless and long lasting. Anyone up for a group buy if I find a fabricator?

However I have hit a bit of a stop now with 3 things. The first is easy, a snapped bolt in the thermostat housing (one of the few jobs I let someone else do 5 years ago) will need drilling out before the water pump can go away for reconditioning.

The other two are a bit of a worry and need some advice on.

1. I forgot when the car was on the ground to crack the crank pulley bolt. What is the best way to lock the engine to loosen this and get the cam belt off?

2. More worrying, and indicative of my lack of experience in such things, I may have turned the engine "the wrong way" which I have seen in big block capitals all over the internet, after the event of course. With the engine out the timing marks were thus;

I rotated the crank pulley clockwise to align them, overshot by a few teeth then backed it up. Have I done anything wrong? I didn't expect it to rotate so easily with the plugs in.

 

[TAR]

I don't think you need to worry about turning the cam. By hand it would stop as soon as a valve opened enough to touch a piston so you would feel that. Just turn it back to the correct place. As for the crank bolt, an impact driver would be your best bet if you can get hold of one.

edit: Sorry misread what you said. Engine is best rotated the correct way but you wouldn't cause any damage going the wrong way and back again by hand.

[lotus4s]

If the cam belt is still in place, the only reason not to turn the crank back is to not reverse the chargecooler pump and knacker the rubber fins on the impellor. You're probably going to be rebuilding/replacing the CC pump anyway so no big deal...

And good job getting the engine out. 

 

[910Esprit]

Just put a socket and bar on the crank nut, pre tension the socket with your hand, so it doesn't fall off or slip, then whack the bar with a heavy baulk of wood. It will almost certainly free the nut without any additional locking of the engine.

Alternatively, you can lock the flywheel by removing the starter motor and locking the flywheel teeth against the casting with a bit of wood or whatever.   

[Chillidoggy]

There are grown men weeping whilst looking at the photo of you simply whipping those exhaust manifold nuts off.

[Loose Cannon]

Whilst not exactly plain sailing the engine removal route hasn't been too bad so far but I expect the real pain is yet to come with the tanks and on re-assembly.

The chargecooler pump was made electric a while back but will be seeking a better location than before.

The other pulley bolts have walked off, fingers crossed I'm worried about nothing but I had to ask about the reverse engine thingy. I'm OK at spannering in general but my knowledge of engine first principles, timing etc, is very limited; I've always shied away from it TBH, the potential for expensive cockups is too great without training or experience!

[Chillidoggy]

Shout if you need any specific photos of my engine out job to help you out, I've got shedloads that weren't posted.

[Loose Cannon]

Thanks, and bollocks, I've just cocked the timing up. Whilst taking off the crank pulley bolt the belt bunched up and skipped some teeth. I hadn't retightened the tensioner going to need some assistance now. I presume with the dots aligned a theflywheel at TDC all will be well, but as the dots are now poles apart, to get to that point should I just turn each pulley 5 degrees at a time?

Neither the pulley bolt or pulley was that tight actually but it must have been at some point in the past judging by the amount of levering someone has done;

The damage hasn't transferred to the belt tracks but that's been a bit brutal. I presume they must have been levering off the timing mark too which is well burred;

I'll clean those up with a file.

By the way, can I get an opinion on the ancilliaries and whether to rebuild or leave well alone?

The tensioner bearing is obviously getting done, and by way of reference is a bit stiff and gritty, so timely. By contrast the idler bearing spins not too bad, the PAS pump is OK and the spindle feels firm. However there is a lot of resistance to the oil pump and no "fee spin", is this normal ? See the video;

 

 

 

 

[TAR]

with a 4 cylinder engine, two pistons will be tdc and 2 at the bottom of their stroke. If you turn the crank 1/4 turn in either direction, you will have all pistons half way up (or down) their stroke. At this point it is highly unlikely the valves could hit the pistons so you could turn the cams to the correct position and then turn the crank back 1/4 turn. This will get your timing correct.

I'm sure someone else can also confirm that this method will be fine.

[Loose Cannon]

Progress has been delayed somewhat by a week of flu and a lack of willingness to freeze to death outside! However I have got half the engine cleaned up removing 17 years worth of accumulated gunk and nastiness with gunk and a toothbrush. I really should have done this about a year ago so the source of various leaks etc. could be accurately traced and attended to now, but you live and learn.

One oddly placed oily patch pictured above (the one with the cam cover in) I'm now pretty certain to be emanating from the crank case vacuum/breather system on it's way back to the charcoal canister. It's seeping past the threads on the plastic elbow fittings! I don't know if this is caused by the charcoal canister or green oil/air things not working but overall I've been surprised by the amount of longstanding oil present in various places I'd only expect to find air.

Next jobs:

1. I was going to leave the cam/crank seals alone for fear of buggering things up with my fat fingers, but after cleaning so much oil from off and around the pulley wheels figure it would be lunacy to ignore them. Has anyone any installation tips for dealing with either, especially the crank?

2. Going to crack on with the manifold now the incredibly seized engine mount bolt has been released by soaking in de-rust for a week, oil for a day and blowtorching! Is it better to mount the turbo on this before or after tightening up?

3. There is a large oily area at the rear of the gearbox to clean up, emanating from the cross shaft bellows (item 3 below) which doesn't seal to the casing. A quick look at the parts diagram reveals it should have a pair of retaining collett (item 5), one part of which is snapped/missing;

Being split I'm assuming this can be put on without taking the end plate off, though I can't quite figure how it keeps it tight to the casting from the diagram.

 

 

Now for the first witheringly expensive order to SJ Sportscars which will no doubt come back in a medium sized jiffy bag!

[Bibs]

If you need OEM parts Mark, I can get them for you at a 10% discount if you want to save some £££. 

[Loose Cannon]

Bloody hell, the manifold took about 10 mins to fit; this is the first time the benefits of removing the block have become readily apparent.

About 5 mins of offering up and head scratching followed by 5 mins of "one pipe at a time with a bit of levering" as per the excellent advice on here, and it was on. There's no way I could have levered correctly without doing this on a bench, honestly don't know how anyone manages  to dothis job in situ, hats off to anyone who has

 

7 hours ago, Bibs said:

If you need OEM parts Mark, I can get them for you at a 10% discount if you want to save some £££. 

 

Thanks very much Bibs.I'll have to check how much of the stuff I need is common vs NLA from Lotus.

If possible I would take you up on that offer a bit later in the year as I'm saving up for a glass sunroof panel to make touring holidays a bit nicer. The 2nd hand ones that occasionally crop up seem sell for practically new money anyway and someone said Lotus have had a new run made up. 10% off that would be quite a saving!

 

 

[Loose Cannon]

Cleaned up all the accumulated gunk in the engine bay, at first glance the through-chassis pipes look good thankfully, possibly due to a previous owner rustproofing inside the tunnel. The rubber pipes are fine except the large engine hoses are a baked hard, so a Chinese silicone set is on order from Ebay, we'll see what they are like.

Loosened the side panels to access the tanks - as with the manifold another job hich would have been a bitch engine in. Rivnuts are the work of Satan, I had to take them off with an angle grinder. After all that the tanks are....well, OK really! They look fine on the outside, not looked inside yet. May as well get them stripped nd painted anyway as we've got this far.

QUESTION: If the tanks look un-rusted  inside would you bother sealing them with a Frost kit, just flush and clean or do nothing?

Although I swore I wouldn't get sidetracked I've been investigating oil leaks and damp patches, as it would be torture looking at a drip after all this work. I'm changing all the front seals in the interests of future access, but one place that has always shown a really thick buildup was on the cold side of the block at the junction with the bellhousing. Suspecting a rear crank seal I took the box and clutch off to find no contamination there, and the seal looks dry itself although the sump and/or crank seal housing gasket itself may be at fault.

There is noticeable amount accumulating between the webs in the top left of the block casting which ends up seeping out of a hole onto the outside....the hole seems to have been put there for this sole purpose! I can't think of any other reason why it's there, perhaps borne out of 20 years development to stop clutch contamination?

 

QUESTION: What do you reckon, is it worth disturbing the seal to fix the housing gasket? Is this what you'd expect in a 50k engine

[Chillidoggy]

I'd definitely be changing that rear crank seal and gasket. If you don't, then sure as eggs are eggs the damned thing will leak when you drop the engine back in.

Might be worth rejointing the cam towers and camshaft seals while you're at it, as no doubt you'll be checking and adjusting the valve clearances while the engine is out?

[Escape]

On the other hand, if it ain't broken, don't try and fix it... You wouldn't be the first to change anon-leaking seal as a preventive measure, only to find the replacement does leak.

[Loose Cannon]

Oh no, that's just the what's going on in my tiny mind

 

Somethings leaking at the back though not excessively, looks more like the carrier gasket or sump gasket than the seal though, and the dampness doesn't leak down to the bottom. I can't work out why it's being flung around and collecting in that one spot between the block webs?

The valve clearances are beyond my abilities, and were supposedly checked 5 years and only a few 000 miles ago. There is a Lotus experienced local engineer who has agreed to do a "house visit"

One good thing about getting this far though, is that I can get the flywheel ground, as it's showing very obvious high and low spots

[Loose Cannon]

Just a quickie - I'm needing to press the eccentric spindle into the cambelt tensioner bearing using a bit of hot and cold to help things along.

With the spindle sitting in the freezer.... how hot can you get the bearing without damaging the soft seals or melting the grease? Someone suggested sitting it on a candle bulb for half an hout just to heat the centre

[silverfrost]

On 2016/2/2 at 22:13, Loose Cannon said:

Cleaned up all the accumulated gunk in the engine bay, at first glance the through-chassis pipes look good thankfully, possibly due to a previous owner rustproofing inside the tunnel. The rubber pipes are fine except the large engine hoses are a baked hard, so a Chinese silicone set is on order from Ebay, we'll see what they are like.

Loosened the side panels to access the tanks - as with the manifold another job hich would have been a bitch engine in. Rivnuts are the work of Satan, I had to take them off with an angle grinder. After all that the tanks are....well, OK really! They look fine on the outside, not looked inside yet. May as well get them stripped nd painted anyway as we've got this far.

QUESTION: If the tanks look un-rusted  inside would you bother sealing them with a Frost kit, just flush and clean or do nothing?

Although I swore I wouldn't get sidetracked I've been investigating oil leaks and damp patches, as it would be torture looking at a drip after all this work. I'm changing all the front seals in the interests of future access, but one place that has always shown a really thick buildup was on the cold side of the block at the junction with the bellhousing. Suspecting a rear crank seal I took the box and clutch off to find no contamination there, and the seal looks dry itself although the sump and/or crank seal housing gasket itself may be at fault.

There is noticeable amount accumulating between the webs in the top left of the block casting which ends up seeping out of a hole onto the outside....the hole seems to have been put there for this sole purpose! I can't think of any other reason why it's there, perhaps borne out of 20 years development to stop clutch contamination?

 

QUESTION: What do you reckon, is it worth disturbing the seal to fix the housing gasket? Is this what you'd expect in a 50k engine

LC , I personally would replace the seal, murphys law dictates that if you put this back together it will leak badly eventually and then you will curse yourself for not changing it. preventative maintiance is the way ahead and will save you plenty of agro. 

Regarding the hole, i would of though it would be a drain hole for to stop water accumilating if it got inside maybe ?  or maybe to show an oil leak if the rear main blows as a tell tale sign, a bit like the hole in a water pump to show the bearing have gone maybe ? 

[Sparky]

I wouldn't be touching that seal.  It doesn't appear to be actively leaking, and I've seen replaced ones fare worse.  For 20 years of accretion, that block and sump look very clean.

[Loose Cannon]

ooer, it's out a while back! Literally just putting it together now and having a headscratchy moment. SJ suggested using Wellseal when bedding the seal into the carrier but it want to keep popping off. Should this be permabonded in?