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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/08/21 in Posts

  1. 1 point
    Samwise

    Bringing an 86 back from the dead

    Been slowly moving ahead on tearing down and cleaning up the Internals of the LS ready to go back together with the shiny new parts. I'm having to be particularly thorough with it moreso than I was perhaps hoping for. As the engine was a core it's clearly sat for sometime and is just mega sludgy and crusty throughout. Definitely the kind of thing that should've been hot tanked but in my ignorance i assumed the cost would be fairly high and wanted to clean it out myself. I might still get the block hot tanked but for now.. on with the show! Following the removal of the valves and getting the rocker arms apart the next setp was to clean up the rocker arms, they were perfectly useable as is but i didn't fancy putting the oil-black (rocker arms in with the shiny new valves, valve springs etc and as well as that I had to get the new trunnion bearing upgrade install. The Bearing upgrade I went for was from the more expensive range of trunnion bearing upgrades as it features brass bearings rather than needle bearings once again but the reason i went for this particular one was it's ease of installation as it doesn't require the bearings to be pressed in and simply needs a pair of circlip pliers! Here's a before and after of the old grimey rocker arm compared to a lovely cleaned and polished up one. After cleaned up everything get chucked back in to a container of fresh oil to keep it from rusting and also to prepare it for the trunnion bearing upgrade install. Every component of the bearing has to be covered in oil or assembly lube when being put together so it's easier just to keep them chilling in the oil as they'll likely sit there for some time after until finally being installed in to the heads. Moving on to the bearing upgrade it was very easy for all 16 rocker arms, the hardest part is simply installing the circlips and making sure they don't launch themselves in to the stratosphere. Once done they look pretty smart! With all of that covered off in the above video I moved on to the next task. Wanting to get the heads all finished before moving on to the block, pistons and crank they were in a severe need of cleaning, muck like the block itself the insides of the heads are filled with gunky sludgy old oil and carbon, buildup from the coolant system, etc. At this stage i'm thinking it might be better to just bite the bullet and get a machine shop to clean it all but i've already bought the parts washer, degreaser and brake cleaner, etc so feel I may as well persevere for now! Armed with copious amounts of brake cleaner and elbow grease I was able to get one of the heads pretty darn clean if i say so myself. It took around 3 hours and only the most stubborn of oil stains and carbon buildup is left over, largely on the exhaust ports but i'm not overly fussed about that as it will soon build up again or come off after the engine's first "Italian tune up" All of this will be covered in my next video but I couldn't help showing it off as I have to say im rather proud of how they turned out, i wasn't so sure they were particularly salvagable by hand, i still might take the block itself to a machine shop to make sure all the oil passage ways and cylinder bores are cleaned thoroughly but the heads came out pretty well by hand! Check out the comparison of the old crusty state the heads were in and the new shiny cleaned up head!
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