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Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From Michigan

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:32 pm
by Amskeptic
This was a project and a half for an Itinerant and a Troll From Down Below.
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It was to remove old "three-legged dog that ran like a cheetah until it dropped a valve" engine, and install this poor sawdust and bird crap replacement engine that sat in someone's basement collecting thoroughly unhealthy levels of sawdust in the left side cylinder head.

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It was a task that had many detours warning to derail the day, missing studs, plenty o' filth (you must, you must, you muuuuust, clean the intake runners and plenum exceppppppppppppptionally well after a valve drop, the pieces of piston and valve head were all in there like little mines waiting to grenade the new engine), an engine carrier that bonked me but good when the torn engine mounts did not hold it up as we lowered the engine, an old timesert that screwed out of the new engine's head, and a stubborn exhaust system that held on dearly to the exhaust studs as we dropped it as a unit.

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We ran right the heck out of time by the witching hour of 11:05 PM. I await with bated breath to hear of the "new" engine's first start. Went to the local store and bought beer to come home and drink beer in the garage because that is exactly what was called-for.
Colin

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:19 pm
by hippiewannabe
Oooh! An engine swap! As an engine-drop virgin, I would have slaved away along side you for the chance to observe the proceedings. I thought about PM'ing you both, just to to say hi to Colin and meet TFDB, but didn't want to impose. I sure wish I had, sounds like you could have used a FLAPS Gopher and Associate Grime Scrubber.

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:23 pm
by Amskeptic
hippiewannabe wrote:Oooh! An engine swap! As an engine-drop virgin, I would have slaved away along side you for the chance to observe the proceedings. I thought about PM'ing you both, just to to say hi to Colin and meet TFDB, but didn't want to impose. I sure wish I had, sounds like you could have used a FLAPS Gopher and Associate Grime Scrubber.
Man, I woulda put in a plug for you to crash the party! As it was, we pressed his SO into the operation because there was cleaning to do all right. She also adjusted the valves. . . and liked it.
Colin

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:30 am
by TrollFromDownBelow
Sorry I didn't post earlier....honestly didn't have the time...as it is I've had maybe an hour's worth of sleep, and that 1 hour was next to my harley on the ground in some liquor store in northern michigan....but that's another story...that's still in progress.

To Colin's credit, I was woefully unprepaired...there's a lot of things I knew I should have done, but didn't because of time constraints. We were winging it by the seat of our pants, and somehow, at every little twist Colin always managed to pull something out of his @ss to keep things going (thanks for the intake gaskets!).

Although the "new" engine may not have been stored correctly (this is putting it very nicely) Crankshaft endplay was only .003 and the engine still had what looked like a perfectly unmolested thermostat. We came to the concensous that this was probably a low mileage, unmolested engine.

Colin put in one of his marathon 14 hour days....he really wanted to see it to completion (ie fire it up), but I had to go to work...had to have at least 3 hrs of sleep :).

The next visit should be much easier on Colin's back.

Cheers,
Mike

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:12 pm
by TrollFromDownBelow
Hey hippie....you shoulda PM'd me; to Colin's point, we would have been more than happy to have an extra set of hands! I'm a fan of the more the merrier...

Cheers,
Mike