Engine Screwups

Engine Pull Screwups

5/7/2009 to 7/3/2009

I made a bunch of mistakes doing this job. So on this page I fess up about the damage I did.

Lesson 1. Use your brain before your impact wrench. For some reason I assumed (in spite of my own pictures that I did not look at first) that this pulley sits flush with the end of the crankshaft. Broke the bolt but I had another one.

Lesson 2. Tighten everything. Then do it again. I thought I had but obviously I missed this one.

Lesson 3: Think again. The ammeter on the car showed more charge than I expected. So I put my digital voltmeter on it and saw 20 volts on a 6 volt system. I panicked and started assuming voltage regulator problems. I should have thought that just maybe the points in the regulator opening and closing 50 times a second might throw off a digital multimeter. Turns out it does and I don't really have a problem.

Lesson 2 again: Tighten everything. I guess I sort of forgot to torque down the spark plugs. They started working loose and the engine began to sound weird. When I opened the hood the plugs were just rattling around. Lucky I did not blow a plug up though the hood!

Lesson 2 again: I was a little nervous about stripping the brass nuts on the manifold. The manual has no torque data for these so I was guessing. I guessed low and the nuts worked loose almost immediately and we have an exhaust leak. I used some blue Loctite and got on the nuts a little harder this time. If they come loose again we might need a new gasket and stainless hardware.

Lesson 4: Don't time the engine with the vacuum advance connected. I timed the engine but it did not feel right. So I static timed the engine again. It was maybe 20 degrees off. Here you can see the IGN timing mark under the pointer on the rear engine plate and on the rights the points have just broken.