Esprit Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share Posted February 19, 2011 A rather heartbreaking day today... feels like a million steps back... car now looks like it did a year ago Still, looking on the bright side, I found out the gearbox drain plug was stripped, so at least I can assume that that would have shaken loose at some point in the future and I'll never have a better chance to helicoil it than I do now.... still doesn't make looking at these photos any easier though I'm off for a drink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullitt Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 On the bright side of anything that could have gone wrong and caused you to have to take the motor out again this is about the cheapest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteretep Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 I constantly take the engine out of my car, its just part of the game Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 Well, after the recent setbacks, it's time to reinstate the characteristic British stiff upper lip and follow the motto: This afternoon I rolled my sleeves up and got back into the garage and whipped the clutch and flywheel off the engine and proceeded to examine the crank seal. It didn't appear to be leaking too badly, maybe a slight weep, but certainly it didn't seem bad. I already had a spare one anyway so I decided to pull the old one (after a whole 15 miles of driving) and replace it... this time myself, so making sure that everything was scrupulously clean and just-right before reinstalling. I degreased everything, removed all the old RTV and wiped everything down several times with acetone. I made up a special tool to help me press the new seal in squarely and then lubed up the seal and the crank journal with fresh engine oil. The seal was then dressed (as per the Rover manual) with Loctite 587 RTV before being inserted home: Let's hope that third time's a charm eh? Now, because the crank seal didn't seem to be leaking that much, I've also decided to pull the sump and clean everything up here too and re-do the sump-to-cradle seal. I did this before when I pulled the sump from the engine to insert the baffles, and there's a possibility that it might be leaking from here too... it's also a case of it being a lot easier to do with the engine out and the sump fully accessible. So the oil got drained (I believe the 4th time, or the 5th time I've drained this engine... at least it'll be good and flushed of build debris now! I've also pulled the manifold off in preparation for dropping the sump. So tomorrow's job will be to pull the sump and clean all this up immaculately and get it back in place with a fresh Loctite 510 seal in place.... hopefully this means the engine will stop weeping the good stuff. Tomorrow's job is to see is I can order some fresh snap-rings and seals for the gearbox driveshafts..... I've had them in and out so much now that it's probably a good idea to replace these as a matter of good procedure. I'll also talk to Ken at KW Historics in the morning. I had booked him in on Wednesday to pull my engine out, but since that's now out, I might enlist him to strip, inspect, repair and reassemble the gearbox... as I doubt I'll have much free time this week. All going to plan, I might be able to book next weekend out to getting the engine back in the car, and hopefully this time in seven days I can post an update that the engine runs again... then I've just gotta reinstall the bodywork and get the bloody thing run in.... not before time! Oh and just a quick thanks I missed off in my last update. Massive thanks to my friends Ian Wilson (for lending me his engine hoist) and Heath Simone (for donating muscle, beer and spanner time) this weekend... it's nice when fellow petrolheads help each other out at times like these... Cheers guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 Another long evening in the garage and the juggernaut rolls onward.... I got the sump removed this evening and spent a couple of hours cleaning up the flanges before resealing them with Loctite 518. The sump was then re-torqued in place and is ready to go again. The flywheel and clutch have also been reinstalled and torqued along with the manifold. I also went around the engine and re-torqued everything as per factory spec. So that's the engine finished and ready to go back in. Tomorrow the attention turns to the gearbox. I'm dropping it off to Ken at KW in the morning and he'll strip it down tomorrow afternoon... fingers crossed, by Wednesday we'll have it on the mend and ready to mate to the engine again.... hopefully meaning that late this week we can hoist the whole lot back in the car and begin the long process of hooking everything up again and making it look tidy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 23, 2011 Author Share Posted February 23, 2011 Just a quickie update on the run. The gearbox came apart this morning and Ken focussed his attention on the reverse gear shift mechanism, as I suspected this was the cause of the issue. He was quickly able to discover that the gearbox had been assembled missing a single ballbearing detent on the reverse lockout mechanism, meaning that (as I suspected) the reverse idler was moving into contact with the input shaft under LH cornering loads. A cheap, quick fix and hopefully the source of the noise. There was no evident damage caused by this rattle in the gearbox. As I suspected the contact was very light and sounded worse than it was. Still, it's better not happening at all, so I'm happy. Will work on getting the engine and box bolted back together in the next couple of days and hopefully have the engine hoisted and bolted back in the car by the weekend. Then it should be about a day's work to get everything hooked back up, refilled, bled and fired up. I'll do a few test-drives around the neighbourhood with the body off to check for leaks and rattles before the bodywork is reinstated. By mid next week I hope to be in a position to take the car for a WOF. Also, some of the international readers might like to know that yesterday's earthquake in Christchurch is about 900km South of where I am in Auckland. We didn't even feel it up here, so, me and the car is completely fine. Obviously, everyone in New Zealand is preoccupied with our Cantabrian brothers and sisters, and it's at times like these where one's own troubles fade into somewhat less significance. Onwards and upwards! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 24, 2011 Author Share Posted February 24, 2011 Engine and gearbox are back as one tonight! Took a bit of struggling and swearing to do it singlehandedly but now the donk is ready to drop back in. Just need an extra pair of hands tomorrow night or Saturday to help guide the engine back in the hole and get it bolted back up to the mounts. From that point on I've got several hours of hooking everything back up, re-running wiring and then adding fluids/bleeding etc, and she should be a runner again. As motivation, I've uploaded this little clip to youtube. It was taken last Thursday when I was trying to diagnose the rattle, and is just me driving and giving it a little squirt. rev limiter cuts in at about 5650RPM so it's only just getting interesting by the time it does, but she seems to go as well as she used to, even with the foreshortened rev range. The camera doesn't pick up the engine noise that well and seems to pick up more background noise than anything else, but hey... it still sounds nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlownCorona Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 So on my aircraft engineering course, we were shown a video of one of these out maneuvering an Apache helicopter gunship with Jeremy Clarkson driving it, made me pretty jealous of you. however he said it runs a vtec style system with the economy and power cams etc.. but he claims it has some kinda system that wont let it drop below the 6200rpm level for the power cams, i assume it magically knows when you want the power and when you want to keep the fuel in the tank. how does this work and how does it feel driving with what sounds like an anti rev limiter and driving with the accelerator jammed on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raizer Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 So on my aircraft engineering course, we were shown a video of one of these out maneuvering an Apache helicopter gunship with Jeremy Clarkson driving it, made me pretty jealous of you. however he said it runs a vtec style system with the economy and power cams etc.. but he claims it has some kinda system that wont let it drop below the 6200rpm level for the power cams, i assume it magically knows when you want the power and when you want to keep the fuel in the tank. how does this work and how does it feel driving with what sounds like an anti rev limiter and driving with the accelerator jammed on. That is the 2ZZ powered ones with VVTL-i Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Yeah mine's one of the earlier, lighter, more powerful Rover-engined cars. The S2 Exige has the VVTL-i Toyota engine that switches to a high-lift camshaft profile above about 6000RPM. Mine's the same, only it's in high-lift configuration from 0RPM upwards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlownCorona Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 oo i see, very nice, guess ill have to put some effort and google the anti rev limiter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 The rev-limiter is just a set point in the ECU whereby fuel is cut and the engine will not rev past. On a programmable ECU like the Motec in my car, you can set this to be whatever you like it to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlownCorona Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 oh yeah i know what the rev limiter is, this was a seemingly odd system, that when the 2zz is on its power cams, the ecu wont let the engine rev under 6200 when shifting gears or letting off the gas, thus switching to econo-cam mode. and to me this sounds about as desirable as a throttle jamming on mid turn, but logically thinking, its a sports car and it must work to a certain degree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 A successful evening's work tonight. I started off by doing a job I'd missed first time around and figured that now was a good time to do it. Lubricating the rose joints on the rear toe links. Getting grease to these under the dust covers isn't easy, so thankfully having a sister who's a vet and can get me giant needles, I ground the tip off the needle to blunt it and it worked rather well for injecting the grease into the joints. Top job! Then SELOCers James and Nikki came around to say hello and to lend a hand hoisting the engine in. Another friend, Brad, turned up shortly thereafter and between all of us the engine was in in about 30 minutes. Another hour and the driveshafts were in, the engine mounts were bolted in, the hubs were reassembled and the clutch slave was half-reinstalled. A successful night's work! Back into it early tomorrow to begin the long task of hooking everything back up, adding oil and water etc., bleeding and getting the thing running. By tomorrow, night, hopefully I'll have the engine running and have the car test-driven to check that all is well. Hopefully that leaves Sunday for reinstalling the bodywork, interior, undertrays etc.... Game on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 oh yeah i know what the rev limiter is, this was a seemingly odd system, that when the 2zz is on its power cams, the ecu wont let the engine rev under 6200 when shifting gears or letting off the gas, thus switching to econo-cam mode. and to me this sounds about as desirable as a throttle jamming on mid turn, but logically thinking, its a sports car and it must work to a certain degree. Aah, I think you misunderstand... I think he was just saying that when you're going flat out and shifting at redline, you don't drop off the high cam in the higher gear... there's no system to keep the revs up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corbie Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I approve of your choice of Refreshment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Well when you have mates around helping you bolt stuff in, it's rude to feed them substandard beer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlownCorona Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 ahhhuh! i just did a small amount of googleing and the truth is somewhat in the middle, the 2zz has a basic system where the rpm for power cam coming on is 6200 and the rpm for dropping down to econo-cam is 5800, to give it more of an operational range. sorry for the thread hijack, however you don't come across many exige owners Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 26, 2011 Author Share Posted February 26, 2011 She runs again! No gearbox rattle either.... great success! I will leave it overnight now to check for leaks etc, a little more tidying in the morning before the clam goes back on. I've still got to do a little more bleeding on the coolant too, as I suspect I've still got some air in the system.... but we're on our way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 26, 2011 Author Share Posted February 26, 2011 Oh, and some before/during/after pics of the engine hoist-in thanks to Nikki (I'm the muppet in the yellow JEG's cap, James is the guy helping me wrestle with the K) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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