it’s true I seems like I have worked on everything but the car. To be fair, I did get stuck and had to order and wait for a special tool. But that came 2 weeks ago and I used it successfully that week. Having worked mainly on big American V8s lately, I have to re-evaluate how robustly things need to be built to handle their job. Take the little oil pump for instance, on this little four-cylinder it is enclosed in the timing cover and has a thin aluminum plate covering it held on by two Phillips head, screw bolts and 110 mm bolt. It is tiny but I realize it doesn’t really need to lubricate much metal since there isn’t much in this whole engine. And the special tool that I purchased was an impact screwdriver specifically for removing these two Phillips head screw bolts. The tool worked perfectly and stopped me from stripping the heads.
But once I had the whole pump apart and noticed all the sludge in it, I ended up having to take apart the oil, pressure safety valve and clean it too. Knowing this was connected to the oil pick up tube I then realized I needed to remove the whole pan again and remove the oil pick up tube to clean it also. So that is bad news and that days worth of work.
I kept telling myself that I would make it back down to the shop sometime during the work week. But after taking on another project for a side job doing some AI work I didn’t have any time to make it down there. So here it is another weekend I have managed to get down there and took care of the oil pick up tube but it ended up coming back to the house so my FIL could say goodbye for the afternoon. At this point there’s truly nothing else to take off the engine. I am at the point to where everything now is just going to be putting everything back together. The head is already on but not torqued I have the torque specifications and the sequence that they need to be torqued in. I need to remember to take that note down there with me next time I go. The next big job is to install the timing chain and cover, but that can’t be done till the head is torqued, and the cam shafts are reinstalled. Truly, it’s probably only two hours worth of work I just haven’t felt like facing it. Knowing my daughter doesn’t have anything else to drive as of Friday put some pressure on me but apparently not enough on her to come over and help. She ended up down at the beach this weekend.
