Continued:
Here's the engine timing chain covers bolted on. Looks quite good to see her coming back together.
But I can't forget the rear of the engine. Here, I'm installing the rear head oil seal. I think the gasket looks like a duck with a ball on its tail
And the rear head oil seal is installed. I also installed a fresh gasket on the rear coolant channel. I have been using Permatex gasket maker throughout the build. I put a thin coating on both sides of paper gaskets to not only keep them holding in place, but to also provide extra sealing power.
Before I install the intake manifold, I use my tap and die set to sweeten the threads in the block prior to stud installation.
You can see the difference between the sweetened vs. unsweetened threads. However, this job was getting quite tedious doing it by hand....
...So I used my power drill to do the job MUCH quicker! How I did this was I started the tap by hand, ensuring I wasn't cross-threading, and when I was confident it wouldn't cross-thread, I then put the drill directly on the tap, using it like a bit. This method worked great for both intake and exhaust manifold stud holes.
While I chose to use fresh intake/exhaust studs, I did reuse my old valve cover studs. These things install rather deep, so I used vice grips on a section of thread that would never see a nut. This is how I removed, and then installed the studs.
With all intake manifold studs installed, the next step was installing the gaskets. Here, I have one layer of gasket installed.
And the second manifold gasket is installed. I chose to use a dual-gasket setup since our manifolds are metal, they have a propensity for heat-soak. Heat soak, of course, heats up incoming air, which lowers its volume, thereby robbing the engine of power, since the air isn't as dense, had it been cold. In performance setups, an intercooler is used to cool down the air after it runs through a turbo or supercharger.
Bottom line: for internal combustion engines, the colder the incoming air, the more power can be made.
And now, the injector-stage manifold is installed.
Here, the exhaust studs are installed. I cleaned out the threads via the tap as well.
And the exhaust gaskets are installed.
And the exhaust manifolds are installed. I found that the studs weren't long enough to bottom out in the head and also give the nuts a full "bite". My solution was to remove all studs, install a nut onto each stud, where each thread of the nut is being used, and then reinstall into the manifold/head. This worked well, and there was plenty of "bite" left to secure the manifolds.
When it came to wear components, I got new ones, even down to the timing chain tensioner ball.
Here's the timing chain tensioner piston. The ball rests on the inside, closest to the toothed side.
And here's the spring. Note how it tapers at the top, this is where the ball is held by the spring against the inner-piston. I used assembly lube on everything, but I found that it was a good ball keeper, so, while keeping the spring vertical, I placed the ball on top the taper, and then installed the piston on top of that. Applying moderate tension, I then carefully installed the assembly into the tensioner housing, making sure the teeth were on either side of the tensioner surface.
I then used my flashlight to verify that the ball didn't dislodge, and it was still secure. So I closed it up with a fresh crush washer and its nut.
There are still a couple things I need to take care of on the throttle body.
On the bottom of the throttle body sits the coolant flow channel. One of the feeds has so much corrosion that a pinhole had formed. I special-ordered a replacement directly from Germany. Also, one of the bolts had broke off, so I got a replacement for that as well.
Here's the fresh coolant channel.
And the bypass is installed. Again, I used a light coating of gasket maker with the paper gasket.
And, moving on to the distributor, fresh for installation.
The blue "bible" says that the distributor is to be installed with the rotor facing in the 0730 position. As it is slid downwards, the splines will then rotate the rotor to the 0900 position. Also, the rotor should be parallel with the indentation on the distributor housing as shown here.
And here's the rotor set to correct position. Honestly, setting timing on these M30's is quite easy!
A sidebar: I had more details to keep track of when I installed timing chains on our Buick Enclave, which has a V-6 engine with VVT. On that engine, I had to install the left-hand chain, rotate the crankshaft some, and then install the right chain.
I had put off the injectors until now. Here, they are still dirty and need to be cleaned ultrasonically.
Cleaning the outsides is all good, but the innards are the most important part. Here, I'm making a disposable injector cleaner. I'm using some fuel hose, an aerosol nozzle, and low-temp hot glue.
Here, I'm using an injector so I can properly center the aerosol nozzle.
I wanted the nozzle to be inside the injector inlet, the thinking being that it keeps the carb cleaner as far away from the hot glue as possible.
A blurry image, but this is the end result. This DIY cleaner actually lasted through all six injectors! One day, I'll make a proper injector cleaner that lasts longer than a single job. The hot glue by the end had all but melted, but still held pressure through the final injector cleaning. What I did was open the injector via 12 volts and then spray carb cleaner, that way, the cleaner favored the injector nozzle instead of the hot glue.
To give the engine a bit of color, I decided to paint each injector the same red color I gave the oil filter housing. Plus, I noticed that this paint doesn't hold up well to acetone/gasoline, so it will also act as a "tattletale", should there be any slow gasoline leaks around the housing or hose fastener.
Painted injectors ready for tape removal.
And the final result. The gunk on both ends of the injectors is simply the glue from the tape. I think these red injectors will look nice...plus, since they are red, doesn't that mean they are now high-performance????
The reason why I've kept the oil pan off this whole time is because I wanted to spin the pump manually, to "prime" the oil channels before any of the rotating assembly....rotates.
I had my degreasing pan under the block, with cardboard set up to divert any leaking oil into the pan. The oil filter housing has a fresh filter installed. I had not oiled the filter housing yet; I wanted the pump to fill the housing.
I was amazed at how QUICK the oil pump worked! Here, I am cleaning up a mess from the oil pressure sensor hole that I forgot to close off
This was my setup. I had the sump in the fresh oil, while I spun the pump with the impact wrench. Again, it was remarkable to see how quick the oil was sucked up into the block. I'd estimate that it took ~ 5 seconds for the oil to reach the oil pressure sensor hole...and this was with a DRY oil filter! So, in that short timeframe, it filled up the filter housing and then rushed up to the head!
I'm glad I rebuilt the oil pump!
A better shot of the oil pump sprocket and the chain safely out of the way. While a bit messy, this worked quite well
Like before, MTF.
Mike