Project: Rebuild!

[bigdog]

I didn't see any allowance for crack testing Sabre - hope you tested the crank and rods for cracks, it is cheap insurance. Linishing rods is usually done prior to shot peening too. My dad just broke a steel crank in his race car - it had cracked around an oil plug. He had the forged rods tested and found one of those was cracked too... $$$$$$! You can never be too careful with crack testing.

[sabretooth]

I'm pretty sure I asked for x-raying and crack testing as part of the package. In fact I'm very sure I said to the guy, \"Shotpeen and polish\".

I'll ask them what their work involved and see what they say about linishing or xraying.

[sabretooth]

Matty:

• head: ARP
• mains: unsure, but probably stock
• rod: stock

With all of the parts now sitting in the garage in boxes, plastic, or on an engine stand getting their regular sprays of water dispersant, it was time to actually do something. I'm only missing a few bits and pieces so far - head studs, oil pump, woodruff key and a few valve stem seals.

The previous photos I took of the head showed it wrapped up in plastic, so here it is with the plastic removed:





Based on what parts I have, I decided to start with the head. I don't have a sump to seal the bottom end with, nor have I made a final decision on what mains fasteners to use (ie, do I go stock, or ARP?). I'm short on a couple of valve stem seals but that won't really be of consequence until the head is torqued down onto the block. One thing that does worry me about the valve stem seals though, is that the texts I've read stipulate a difference in the valve stem seals between the exhaust and intake valves. All of the valve stem seals that I have are identical. When I get the set of stem seals from Supercheap, I'm going to check to see if they are different to the ones I have. If they're different, and look different to the ones installed on the head then I may end up pulling them off and using the ones from Supercheap. Also, the ones from Supercheap are ACL - apparently you can get that sort of stuff ordered through them if you can present them with a part number.


While it looks pretty squeaky clean in the photos, there is still going to be crap lodged in various places in the head - from the acid dipping, machining and whatever else was done. Washing the head was fairly straightforward, but I was overly paranoid about the formation rust on the newly machined surfaces - so I made sure beforehand what my wash procedure was going to be. What I'd decided on was:

• Remove all valves from the head, making sure that the numbering written on the face of each was not rubbed off
• Take the head outside near the hose and sit it on something soft so that the machined face of the head does not get scratched
• Hose it all out using good hose pressure
• Run the pipe cleaner through the oil galleries
• Rinse
• Use water dispersant and degreaser to do some further cleaning
• Rinse, dry with a towel/rag where possible
• Pick up the head and tip any water out of it
• Water dispersant + degreaser again to prevent any rust forming
• More water dispersant, concentrating on the oil galleries and head face.

And so, it was done pretty much as above. I moved as quickly as practical, ensuring that the job was still done properly. When hosing the crap off of the cement I did noticed a bit of blackness in the water, so it definitely did pull gunk out.


The cleaned head. The white stuff is just what you get when water and degreaser mix.

[sabretooth]

Next, assembly actually began. I picked up my bag of 14 stem seals and started applying them to the valve stems. I didn't actually bother to do any measurements of the stems, valves or anything else as the engine shop had replaced all of the stems and machined the valves for me. I'd actually gotten a 3 angle valve job done - unknowingly, but not that I'm complaining! The back of each valve had also been lapped according to the cylinder it lived in by the engine shop, so each valve was going to get a good seal in the cylinder when in the closed position. Which are the intake and exhaust valves will become obvious when inserted - the intake valves are actually larger and won't seat too well if you try to stick them in the exhaust side of the head.



Above, you can see the stems themselves. They're not too tall, and have a cutout in them so that when the stem seal is on all of the way it will sort of grip around and get a tight hold on the stem.

The text I was reading from actually said to apply the stem seals with fingers, but I found that a 9mm socket fit over the end of the stem seal, and firmly but not tightly gripped it. Using this, I didn't have to worry about dropping the seal or pushing it on crookedly. So what I did was push it on with that (using a light tap from a mallet), and then push them on the rest of the way with my thumb.



And, success:



Rinse and repeat a further 15 times.

[sabretooth]

Now it's time to replace the valves. Two of my valve stem seals looked a little sus, so I left them out. Also taking into consideration that I used two of the seals when I replaced the valves in the Familia engine (after burning one of them out), I actually only had enough stem seals for 12 of the 16 valves. So as you can see here, only 12 valves are in the engine. So, I fitted what valves I had:



Next came the scary, and probably the most difficult part of this whole process. The valve collets/retainer assemblies. I'd had a shitload of trouble with this when doing the Familia head, and this time I've got sixteen valves to assemble instead of two. Here's the process for each valve.

First, the spring itself:



Note the coils here. The densely-coiled part of the valve needs to be on the head side of the engine, not the top. I didn't actually know this when reassembling my Familia engine a few months back, so I don't actually know what orientation I put those two valve springs in at!

Next, I measured the free-standing length of the valve spring with my verniers. The springs were actually a little out of spec as stated in the Haynes manual - but not overly so. I can't remember the exact measurements but I quickly dismissed the difference as being minor - I was happy that the spring's free standing length was close enough to spec. The order of parts was: valve seat washer -> valve spring -> spring retainer -> collets.



Those are the hands of my trusty assistant, henceforth known as... The Stig.

Anyway, on went Spectral's uber custom home jobbie valve spring compressor of doom. One hour later, I had.... ONE valve spring done. ONE. It was a TOTAL, FREAKING, NIGHTMARE.

Honestly, I need a proper tool for that sh*t. But, here lie the spoils of my victory, nonetheless:



The notion of having to do this a further 15 times isn't a happy one...

[jules]

Sabre,

Surely the big forum has some info about getting these bastards on quick??


Jules

[sabretooth]

Surprisingly, I couldn't find much aside from people buying the tool to do it.

I just came out of Supercheap and bought a set of cheapie (Best Buy brand - quality++) deep sockets ($16). I'm going over to a mate's place tomorrow and we're going to modify the most appropriately-sized socket to have two large windows. Think something along the lines of a corkscrew, where two prongs reach down to a ring which pushes on the neck of the bottle. The windowing will be similar. Having two thin prongs doesn't work too well as they can slip off of the top of the valve spring retainer and go down the side, potentially scratching the smooth surface which the lifters sit against.

So, after modifying the socket, we'll test it out and then (probably tack) weld it to the clamp.

[4sfed5]

i know this is a little off topic, but a club member rebuilt his engine recently and was told by a mazda Tech NOT to oil the ring/piston assembly when installing into the block. this helps the oil control rings bed in and seal correctly.

Now please feel free to correct me here ...

[Matty]

i know this is a little off topic, but a club member rebuilt his engine recently and was told by a mazda Tech NOT to oil the ring/piston assembly when installing into the block. this helps the oil control rings bed in and seal correctly.

Now please feel free to correct me here ...

I think it depends on the sort of oil or lubricant. Some lubes will have such low friction that the rings won't bed properly. But regular oil I don't think would be a problem.

[CT]

Or, you should use assembly lube which is dino oil based. The trick is to avoid any trick moly lubes in the bores. Assembling pistons into bores without oil is an odd notion. Never heard of that before.

Sabre, the mains are the ones I'd certainly use ARP for too. BPs have a habit of the centre journal loosening and the ARPs will help to avoid that and the obligatory crank walk. Also, with having spend good money on the engine so far, another $200 or so is a good investment for mains studs. Looks like it's all going well though.

[sabretooth]

Mineral oil all around for the breakin period.

I'm still undecided on mains studs but I probably will go ARP just for peace of mind. Another purchase.

Due to the aforementioned issues with the valve spring compressor and taking 2.5hrs to assemble 2 valves, I decided to take some action. I decided that cutting a window into something strong like a socket and leaving a ring on the end to press down on top of the valve assembly would be the way to go. Initial plans were also to make a single large window in the side of the socket for getting fingers into.

One trip to Supercheap later, and I had my socket set. I was just going to purchase a single 3/4\" spark plug socket but was unable to find anything. What was available though, was a socket set of \"Best Buy\" brand. Probably sloppy tolerances and made from average quality metal - but it would do the job. I'd be shelving the rest of the 9 sockets, but at $16 for the entire set I wasn't concerned. The other thing going in the favour of these sockets was the design - they were the longest sockets that Supercheap sell, which means a large enough window could be cut in them. The $16 was also peanuts in comparison to the cost of a good valve spring compressor - plus I wouldn't have a bunch of extra sockets that could also be butchered for whatever purpose.

So, on Saturday morning I got stuck in the detour around the Riverside Expressway (hooray for resurfacing works) but eventually made it to spectral's. I had my cheapie socket set with me, and with that we picked out an appropriately-sized socket which would fit nicely in the head above the valve collet. I decided that maybe using two windows (once for each finger) would be easier, but after dry-running the proposed setup before welding or cutting, we found that the camshaft journal would block one of the windows, and changed back to the original plan of a single big window.

I marked the big window I wanted in the socket with a marker, and then spectral got his angle grinder out and started cutting away. After a few cuts we had a window of the desired size - the inherent strength of the socket meant that the strength of it wasn't compromised for the use that we were going to give it.

Next up came the welding - due to the angle of the head and size of the camshaft journal, we had to be selective of how the socket was welded on. It had to be on and centred such that the window was facing the outermost part of the socket. So the socket was ground a little with a die grinder and wheel wire brush and the socket clamped into the appropriate position. A few tacks later and the socket was welded on! I gave it a test run and attaching a collet only took 5min! A big contrast to the previous average of 1 per hour. I did a few more to make sure it wasn't a fluke - and yep, it was all working perfectly.

I took the tool home and gave it a clean, and a coat of paint to protect the welds - and then also went and painted the rest of it. Anyway, here's a pic of the finished tool:

[sabretooth]

Cripes, I really babbled on about what really was just the making of a tool...

Anyway, enough about the valve spring compressor. More progress was made over the weekend. I began disassembly of the lifters and was seeing what I could do to resurrect the ones I was given by a friend. They actually came from a head that had bent valves - no idea how - maybe it had the bejesus revved out of it and the valves floated and collided. The lifters looked fine though, and seeing as they're easy to replace and not critical to the engine's operation (as opposed to an oil pump) I decided I'd yank them apart and fix them up. I'll have a post about them later once I've sorted out the cleaning procedure for them. I do have my doubts as to how well this will work, but there's only one way to find out. I'll be making sure that any lifters I redo are extremely stiff when I try to push them down.

Yesterday was spent at my parents' place with their air compressor, some degreaser and WD40. I yanked all of the valves from the head and began the cleaning procedure on the head again seeing as while at spectral's place I noticed more gunk still in the head. I basically ran the same procedure as before, but this time with an air compressor to blow the crap out.

I took an early mark from work today and went and picked up my valve stem seals from Supercheap - they ACL part number HR649 if anyone is interested. This is where I encountered the same snag as with the other valve stem seal set I had - all of the seals were the same. I did some research, and it would appear that according to many people that 89-93 (1.6L) MX-5s used the same stem seals on all valves, whereas the 94+ (1.8L) used different stem seals on the exhaust and intake valves. I don't actually know what the difference should be between them, but ACL say that these suit my engine. Once again the handy digital vernier calipers came out and I measured the stems of the intake vs exhaust valves. Suffice to say, they were identical. To keep everything the same, I yanked the previously-installed valve stem seals and put the new ones on.

Valve installation:
With the assembly lube handy, I lubed up the stems of each valve as I inserted them. All valves were numberred, so they all went back into their appropriate positions:



And now, the actual valve spring assembly.

Start by dropping the washer down around the valve, and make sure that it sits properly in its place. Now, with a dab of assembly lube, grease, or whatever else takes your fancy, wipe a little of it on the indentation in the valve stem:


Now drop the valve spring on, and the retainer on top of that:


This is the interesting part. With your handy dandy home-made valve spring compressor, clamp down!

[sabretooth]

With the help of a mildly-magnetised screwdriver, put a collet on and then use the screwdriver to put the collet in place. This where the assembly lube helps, as the lube will grab onto the collet and hold it on the stem - otherwise the thing'd just fall off again.



And eventually, success:


Eventually you just raise the compressor so that the retainer grabs onto the collets and it's done! The only pain is having to do that a further 15 times. I think that I was averaging about 5min per collet with the new tool and method of putting things together. I'd say it all took a good 90min or so to do. To say I'm happy with the new tool is an understatement. Big :thumbup: to spectral for doing the handiwork fabricating it.

[OMY005]

With the help of a mildly-magnetized screwdriver, put a collet on and then use the screwdriver to put the collet in place

I have found that using a set of tweezers will do this job as well. One can hold and position them quite easily.

Oh and an excellent write up there Geoff.

Andrew.

[JBT]

Good stuff there Mr Tooth. I'm really worried about this valve seal thing though.

From Haynes Note: intake and exhaust valves require different seals - DO NOT mix them up! When looking at the top of the seal, intake seals will have one or no ridges, while exhaust seals have two ridges.

From the parts diagram - note different part number for intake (KL01-10-155) and exhaust (KL02-10-155) seal.