Thursday, May 31, 2012

blown head gasket, part 6, plumbing

With head back on, next big step was intake and exhaust headers installation.
If you can remember, we demounted head from block together with exhaust headers,  because there was no way to unscrew 2 bolts. Solution was quite easy, bolts with imbus (allen) head.
Easier said than done, in 3 bolt shops they didnt have them. After long search I sourced them for 5 euro/piece, what an expensive bolts :D
Headers gaskets on:
Headers on:
And yes, plumbing. As you can see I had to source few new hoses and tune them:

This is how the 5 euro bolt looks like:
After that everything went like breeze. Hoses on:
Carburetor back:
Air filter dish and all vacuum hoses:
Patched midle section of exhaust piping:
And everything back in place:
Right after that I fired it up and pulled Starlet out of garage.
At first I wasnt really sure if everything is all right, because it didnt maintain idle revolutins and engine was shaking. But after last weekend i solved everything.
Idle problem was in throtle cable, and shaking was solved by cleaning spark plugs.
Tomorow Im going to do emissions test and we are back on roads.
Stay tuned for more plans with Starlet.

blown head gasket, part 5, cooling system flush

We wanted the cooling system to be perfectly clean.
I demounted radiator and gived it good flushing:
After that I prepared block surface for head mounting:
Things back on head:

New head gasket installed:

Head back on:
Dojci torquing down head bolts:

Pushrods installed:
Rocker arm shaft back on. It was pain in the ass to put all those little fuckers into pushrods at the same time:
Then we spend good 2 hours by figuring out how to set the rocker arms play right :D
Valve cover back:
And flushing engine cooling system with hose:
Same with heater system:
In part 6, plumbing.

blown head gasket, part 4, lapping


Hi, I'm back.
I'm not really a blogging type of person, as you can see.
And I'm sorry. But if you wonder what's up with starlet and head repair, here are 3 fast updates for you. Right where I last ended:
Before lapping I cleaned bunch of things:

This is my lapping rig:
Acu drill was dead really fast:
Comparsion:
Not bad in my opinion.
My apocalyptic valve spring compressor in action:
And head back together:
And because I'm stupid and I didn't instal valve stem seals, I had to use spring compressor few more times...
In part 5: cooling system flush