I pulled the motor and transmission out last night. I didn't get any pictures because it was dark and I was getting tired. The car is still outside, not even on the driveway (big lot and no HOA thankfully) so an engine hoist was not an option. I really was just too lazy to move my stuff in the garage around so I lifted the car up high in the front, lowered the back of the transmission onto plywood and slid the motor back and down, using boards to guide it past the subframe. The engine and trans are both junk so I really didn't care if I ended up ruining the oil pan or catching the snout of the crankshaft on the subframe. It came out surprisingly smooth and gentle. This probably would never have worked if I actually needed to save either one. Anyway, the whole powertrain is out of the car and in the garage, the is back on the ground with the hood closed and it doesn't look like a junk yard. I have a lot of part cleaning ahead of me next.
Looks like they used sandpaper on that crankshaft. Should really have a mirror polish, done on a lathe.
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I've been working to clean up the head out of the white sedan, this is the third head that I've cleaned up on these cars and it is the worst by far. In the past I have scrubbed and scraped the ports using with seafoam, carb cleaner and berryman's fuel system cleaner, splinters of wood and toothbrushes which was a pretty gentle approach. This one had thicker deposits and I resorted to a stainless steel round brush made for cleaning the inside of copper fittings prior to soldering. It finally cut through the bulk of the buildup of the exhaust ports, I was careful to keep this away from the compression chambers and valve guides but will still end up doing some mild polishing to ensure I don't leave any gouges for carbon to cling to. The aluminum is finally visible in over half of the exhaust port surface area. I've also switched to seafoam's deep cleaning spray which seems a bit stronger than the normal seafoam. This is also the first of the newer style castings 070 versus the earlier 400 series that I've broken down and there are some subtle differences.
I expected the head cleaning to go much faster and to have the heads to the machine shop by now but should be there next week. I'm anxious to get a price to bore out one of my damaged blocks in case I am able to find a reasonable set of stock s52 pistons. I certainly won't ask them to start without a set of pistons to work to but I just want to have a rough idea for budgeting and decision purposes. Most likely, I'll put it off until I'm willing to invest more in the build. The ebay seller I bought my last overhaul kit from sells a set of 84.5mm pistons with rings around $270 that pazi88 (youtube) inspected and gave a fair assessment to them. I haven't heard of anyone running them but it would be an interesting option. This would be about the same price as used m54b30 pistons and a new set of rings for them. I can't seem to continue in the same direction within a forum post, much less day to day with this car.
There was a guy trying to sell m52/s52 exhaust manifolds for $500 on here the other day which was good for a laugh, if that was the going rate, I could sell off a few sets and have a nice build budget. If they sold for that, I believe 66_6 could retire.
Build a s52 at some point, but initially it will be a just a stock m52 and automatic cleaned up and resealed from my running but rough and rusty hellrot daily driver. It is almost more of a shell swap than a motor swap.
I have two parts motors and a couple good (need to confirm) heads, s52 cams and now a 89.6mm crank that I'm figuring out my future plans for. I have a m52 stroker in my manual hellrot vert that I plan to sell this spring.
It has taken me a long time to get the exhaust ports cleaned out. The head is still pretty messy but the carbon deposits are finally gone. I didn't take any before photos but I took one about halfway through and more after I got the exhaust side cleaned up. I have gasket residue stuck to the head surface that doesn't want to come off but I will let the machine shop resurfacing deal with it. I ended up using dremel buffing wheels which are similar to scotch brite material. I had to be very careful to keep it away from any sealing surfaces. The intake side only had minor deposits which cleaned up easily and has some oil varnish staining but will be fine.
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Progress continues to crawl along. The heads are at the machine shop for inspection and surfacing. I sent off the power steering pump for a rebuild through rockauto because I couldn't find a rebuild kit for the Luk pump that was used on 328 & 323's. The parts for the ZF pumps are readily available, they were used on the 325's and all M3's, basically they align with the model of the oil filter housing. Unfortunately they were unable to rebuild the pump because the rotor was damaged. I have two others that I could send off but will wait to get mine back and see for myself. I did not disassemble it before sending it in. Part of me suspects that they don't have the parts and just have me an excuse. The service I ordered was specifically for the later model pump. I think I will try out one of the others as is. Something in the steering is off in my daily driver and I wanted to start off fresh with every part so this is frustrating. I could buy a rebuild pump which range anywhere from $45 to over $200. Quality of the cheaper parts is always questionable but it can be hard to justify the expense, I would much rather rebuild it myself and know the condition. I am rebuilding the steering rack, it is apart and I am waiting for the new parts. The ball joints, tie rod ends and FCAB's will be replaced as well.
I really hope that both heads get a clean bill of health, selling the spare would help fund the build of a s52 short block.
I got the returned core and the damage was clear. The part was not rebuildable.
The rack and pinion seal and bushing on the driver side of the housing are a bit tough to remove. I was able to find a socket with the exact outside diameter to catch the bushing and drive it out (towards the passenger side). I didn't bother to measure it, I just used the passenger side seal and housing to find the right size. I ordered the Gates rebuild kit and hope it includes everything I need.
I got word from the machine shop that both heads are bad. Pretty disappointing news. Now I need to decide whether I will pull the head off of the motor from my daily driver when I swap the motor to clean it up and replace the valve stem seals or if I should just replace the valve stem seals with the head installed, which is a bit tricky but saves time.
I keep running into challenges most of my own creation. When cleaning the disassembled steering rack, I used degreaser and a pressure washer to get the bulk of the grime off of the casting but I failed to remove or even dry and lube the lower pinion bearing so it was rusted and stuck. It freed up and I probably could have used it but I ordered a new one and have to wait for that. In the meantime I started reassembling the rack. My next mistake was installing the driver side seal and integrated nylon bushing backwards. It actually came back out in one piece but I noticed that the teflon seal was nicked so I ordered a new set of seals and will try again. Waste of money and a result of being in a hurry. I paid the price of being stupid.
Last edited by gdavid; 02-13-2020 at 07:54 PM.
Man that sucks. Interested in the overall progress though! Seems like you are going to have a lot of fun.
I pulled the subframe and control arms out which is extremely easy withou a drivetrain. Most of the grime is off the subframe, little more cleaning to do as well as degreasing the engine bay. I removed and pressed new ball joints into the control arms today. Honestly, I don't think the time and effort was worth the savings but I'm glad I have access to a good press and it is done.
The last time I took my vert out for a spin, I gave it a couple of hard pulls, on one I lost three fan blades which induced a troubling vibration. Fortunately the radiator was unscathed and it was an easy fix.
I pressure washed the engine bay and reinstalled the subframe and forward control arms on the car this past weekend. I replaced the control arm bushings with a set from ebay I've never seen elsewhere. They have solid rubber, no metal around the perimeter but are retained by end plates with machine screws connecting them. They are much firmer than the stock bushings that have gaps in the rubber but offer more compliance than polyurethane, it will be interesting to see how long they hold up. I need to complete the assembly of the steering rack and get it and the tie rods into the car so I can roll it into the garage for the engine and transmission swap. Resealing and repainting the engine were among my top priorities for this project but I'm concerned about having my daily driver off of the road for too long. On one hand, pulling the head would make replacing valve stem seals much easier and it would be great to have a clean engine, on the other hand, I'm much less likely to build a S52 if I put a lot of energy into this engine. I'm planning on inspecting the car and getting it on the road as soon as the motor and transmission are swapped. I haven't touched the rear suspension or axles but am planning to rebuild all of the spare parts from my current daily driver and swap them into the car at a later date.
I gutted the good m52b28 and auto transmission out of my daily driver this weekend. I felt like I was killing an old friend but I found plenty of additional rust and fluid leaks along the way to assure myself it was necessary. The forum isn't allowing pictures to be uploaded right now for some reason but I'll get some up soon. In the process of disassembling everything under the hood, I discovered the cause of my longstanding stiff steering. The upper universal joint (the non giubo joint) was practically seized up and should have been replaced long ago.
I ended up bringing the engine and transmission out of the top together. My next set of tasks are resealing the transmission, replacing its filter and seals, then breaking the engine down to the short block and cleaning it up with fresh paint and seals. The head is coming off for new valve stem seals, cleaning the ports and putting the S52 cams into it. If I can get all of this accomplished and ready to go into the new car, it will be a productive week of evenings. The white sedan this is going into needs another round of engine bay clean up and I'm going to replace the engine and transmission tunnel insulation with some kind of stick on mat product. If all goes well the car should be together and ready for inspection within 2 weeks.
Last edited by gdavid; 03-02-2020 at 01:49 PM.
This thing is an oily pig. I replaced the oil filter housing gasket 3 years ago but it appeared to be leaking.
Too late to mention it now, but I believe member "66 6" is in your neck of the woods, and he has good heads for $100.
When doing my OFH gasket I noticed that the gasket was not as thick as it should be so it doesn't surprise me when people find it leaking again.
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Oh I am one of his regular customers. He is about 2 hrs away and is a great guy. I didn't realize he sold heads so reasonably but will probably grab one next time I'm up there. He could probably sell them for more but he does a good amount of volume. I buy as many used parts from him as feasible. I think my machinist is probably on the picky side but I have the good one out of my former daily driver anyway. I pulled it off the motor last night and plan to pull the valves out and start cleaning it after I put the kids to bed. It and the piston crowns were nasty looking for a motor that has run so well. I think it was thoroughly neglected before I bought it.
I removed the valves and started cleaning up the exhaust ports. I'm using a set of abrasive polishing wheels for a Dremel, they are a knock off brand from amazon and much cheaper of course, 40 for $12 rather than 2 Dremel brand for $7. The wheels wear away very quickly on both the knock off or brand name regardless of the grit. I'm averaging about 1-2 wheel per port. The knock offs each have their own shaft where the Dremel brand needs to be screwed onto a threaded shaft. I will need to be especially careful get all of the abrasive material cleaned out of the head when it is all done.
I'm not bothering to take this head for inspection because I have run it for the past 65k miles without issue.
Looking around for wear and staining in this head and engine is interesting so far, there is significant varnish/staining inside the top of the head (cam area) but sections where oil runs down in a stream have left a cleaner path. My assumption is that most of the staining occurred over it's first 64k miles and 21 years of conventional oil before I owned it and the detergents and frequent oil changes over the past 3 years have cleaned some of it up. This is most evident on the casting next to the exhaust cam sprocket where oil is slung off of the sprocket. Another interesting note is there is a little bit of rust on second to top coil of each valve spring. Based on the car's low mileage when I bought it, it probably sat unused for a significant period of time prior to being repainted, cleaned up and sold to me. Ideally I'd like to replace them with stiffer springs but for now I'll just use a cleaner set of springs from one of the warped heads I have laying around. I'm pretty certain the valve cover has never been removed before and amazingly the gaskets for all 6 spark plug holes where still doing their job. The #1 cylinder had the smallest stain down the wall of the plug well as if a single drop of oil rolled down it but did not reach the bottom of the well.
I cleaned up the valves with a wire wheel and shade tree lapped the valves and seats. As always, the exhaust valves were substantially worse than the intakes. Here is an intake before and after, exhaust before and after and my setup for lapping the seats.
Man. I’m invested in this post. Keep it coming!
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I accomplished a good bit more on the project this weekend but also in a disjointed fashion and didn't stop to take pictures. The head was pretty corroded where the thermostat housing seals so I sanded and ground out the corrosion with a Dremel, built it back up with JB weld and sanded it flush to get a good seal. I also pulled the engine and transmission apart, got the motor mounted on the stand and got most of the exterior clean up completed. The intake side of the block was disgusting with oily grim and dirt, the exhaust side was much cleaner but had surface rust and a bit of oil from valve cover leaks. It really needs to be thoroughly stripped and degreased in order for primer and paint to stick. I removed almost 1mm of carbon from the crown of each piston, the valve reliefs were pretty filled much flush with the rest of the piston and I don't know how they were avoiding contact. I'm guessing there is some room for error engineered into the clearance.
As I was cleaning the pistons up, I closed out the weekend in a brilliant display of stupidity. I was using Berryman's Chemtool to soak the top of each piston as well as a razor blade to remove the bulk of the carbon. The 5 other pistons were soaking as I worked on the 6th piston. After scraping carbon loose, I leaned in and blew the carbon away with my mouth, not realizing that my not-so focused airstream would create a venture effect and blast the Chemtool from the adjacent cylinder directly into my eyeball. I have used both Berryman's chemtool as well as Seafoam to remove carbon and fuel deposits over the years and the last time I flushed out injectors, I managed to blast my face pretty well with seafoam. At this point I have a pretty good basis for comparing the performance of the two detergents as well as the effects on one's eyeballs. In my experience, they clean about the same but Chemtool burns longer.
Aside from avoiding fuel detergents as eye care, I can suggest purple power for removing oil varnish from aluminum castings. The topside of my cylinder head was pretty well stained brown but now glistens like new. I've used a variety of solvents and cleaners before but the purple power is by far the best I've used. The staining really doesn't hurt a thing but it is much more rewarding to assembly something that looks like new.
Last edited by gdavid; 03-09-2020 at 09:06 AM.
The engine is primed and will be painted tonight. On my last engine built, I really liked the look of the engine when it was in prime so I am going with a gray finish coat this time. The last engine was red to match the car.
Last edited by gdavid; 03-09-2020 at 07:16 PM.
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