Practical Engine Building: Step 6: Engine Component Cleaning
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Step 6: Engine Component Cleaning
17.13
| 00:00 | - At this point we're ready to start cleaning down all of our engine components, ready for our final assembly and we're going to start here with our engine block. |
| 00:07 | Now at this point with our engine block it has just gone through our deburring process so understandably there is a lot of debris in the block as a result of that deburring process that we're going to need to remove. |
| 00:18 | And we've also gone ahead and removed the gallery plugs from the engine block as well, giving us access to those galleries with our engine cleaning brushes. |
| 00:26 | And the equipment that we're going to use for this cleaning, we're going to be using a set of engine cleaning brushes and these are available in different diameters allowing us to choose a particular brush that's going to suit the diameter of our oil galleries, as well as any of our fastener holes that we will need to clean down. |
| 00:44 | On top of this, we're also going to be using a stiff bristled nylon brush and we're going to be using that for cleaning down the exterior and the interior of the engine block. |
| 00:53 | We're going to be using these brushes alongside our aerosol of brake clean and finally we're going to be using compressed air. |
| 01:00 | Before we get too far into the cleaning process, we're going to begin by just giving the engine a basic blow out with our compressed air, both inside and outside. |
| 01:09 | And this is going to remove the majority of that debris before we start digging in with our engine cleaning brushes. |
| 01:16 | So let's go ahead and do that now. |
| 01:42 | Now that we've blown out the majority of our loose debris, we're going to go through with our nylon bristled brush and we're going to clean the block both internally and externally. |
| 01:52 | We're going to use our stiff bristled brush along with our brake clean and then we're going to be blowing that out with our compressed air. |
| 01:58 | So let's go ahead and do that now. |
| 02:29 | Now that we've flushed the majority of the debris out of the engine block, we can start getting a little bit fussier and we're going to begin using our engine cleaning brushes. |
| 02:37 | I'm going to start here on the head surface of the engine block and we're going to use those engine cleaning brushes along with our brake clean and compressed air to clean out the bolt holes, making sure there's no remaining debris inside of those. |
| 02:49 | And when we're doing this, we're going to use an engine cleaning brush that's a snug fit for the bolt hole we're trying to clean out, along with our brake clean. |
| 02:56 | When we blow this out with our compressed air, it's always a good idea to hold a rag just above the hole that we're blowing out, this is going to make sure that we don't end up blowing debris and brake clean into our face. |
| 03:08 | So let's go ahead and do that now. |
| 03:36 | Now that we've flushed out any remaining debris in our head bolt holes, we're going to flip the engine block over and simply repeat exactly that same process on our main bolt holes. |
| 04:10 | With all of the bolt holes in the engine block now cleaned out, the next task is to go through with our engine cleaning brushes and clean out the oil galleries. |
| 04:18 | And we're going to run our engine brushes through each of the oil galleries and again using our brake clean and our compressed air, we'll flush those out. |
| 04:25 | We're just going to be choosing an engine brush here that again is a snug fit for the particular oil galleries that we're cleaning. |
| 04:32 | While we're doing this, it's also a good idea to use our engine cleaning brushes, our brake clean and our compressed air to clean out our lifter bores as well. |
| 04:40 | So let's go ahead and we'll do that now. |
| 05:13 | The last step of cleaning down our engine block is to make sure that the fresh hone pattern on all of our bores is thoroughly cleaned down. |
| 05:20 | And the easiest way to do this is to use brake clean on a light coloured rag. |
| 05:25 | And we're just going to follow that hone pattern up and down the bore and we're going to know when that hone pattern is thoroughly cleaned because our rag is going to come out clean. |
| 05:34 | Of course it is important to mention here that as soon as we have removed any lubricating oil from those bore walls, they will start to form corrosion so it's really important that once you've cleaned down the bores, that you do apply a light coat of clean engine oil just to protect them and to stop that corrosion from forming. |
| 05:53 | So let's clean down those bores now. |
| 06:22 | So at this point we've got our engine block cleaned down however it's important to mention that this cleaning process is an iterative process. |
| 06:29 | So it's not enough just to go through everything that we've just looked at there the one time. |
| 06:34 | Instead we're going to go through multiple processes of cleaning the engine block down until we're absolutely 100% confident there's no dirt or debris remaining. |
| 06:43 | There's no such thing as an engine block that is too clean. |
| 06:48 | However once we've got our engine block cleaned down and we're happy with that, we can move on and we'll have a look at the rest of our engine components. |
| 06:55 | When it comes to cleaning down our pistons, we shouldn't have a lot of work to do, after all we are dealing with a brand new set of pistons. |
| 07:02 | However due to the process of balancing these pistons, this does leave some debris in the pistons and we need to make sure that that's removed before we start assembling the engine. |
| 07:13 | The process we're going to go through here is pretty straightforward, we're simply going to be using brake clean and compressed air to blow down the pistons. |
| 07:19 | Before we actually do that though, we do want to take note of a few key areas on the piston. |
| 07:24 | In particular, what we want to do is have a look at the piston where the wrist pin boss has been cut into the piston. |
| 07:33 | We're looking for any sign here that there may be some slight burring on the piston. |
| 07:36 | if so, that's going to need to be removed. |
| 07:39 | Likewise it's also a good idea to have a look at our oil drain holes back through the oil control ring and what we're looking for again here is any burring. |
| 07:48 | I find that some piston manufacturers are better in this respect than others. |
| 07:52 | In this case, our Wiseco pistons are actually relatively clean straight out of the box. |
| 07:56 | However if you have got any burring there, it's a good idea to just use a fresh sharp razor blade and you can just gently scrape away any burrs of material there, making sure that they're not going to break free and end up going through the rest of our engine. |
| 08:11 | So with that out of the way, let's get started. |
| 08:13 | We're simply going to be spraying down our piston, all of the surfaces there with our brake clean and then cleaning it off with our compressed air, so let's go ahead and do that. |
| 08:56 | Now that we've got our pistons cleaned down, we can deal with our wrist pins. |
| 08:59 | And again these should be relatively clean anyway. |
| 09:02 | However the wrist pins will come from the manufacturer with a coating of protective oil and if these wrist pins have been left around the workshop, they can end up gathering some debris so it's always a good idea to go through and thoroughly check and clean them. |
| 09:16 | What we're going to do here is just use some brake clean on a rag to clean down the outside of the wrist pin. |
| 09:21 | Also want to check the internal bore of the wrist pin, make sure that there's no dirt or debris in there and an engine cleaning brush or bottle brush is a good way of cleaning down that internal bore. |
| 09:31 | It is worth noting here that of course as soon as we've removed that protective coating of oil, our wrist pins are in danger of forming some surface rust. |
| 09:39 | So once we have cleaned them down we either want to set on and immediately begin assembling the engine, or alternatively, apply a further coating of protective oil and then keep them in a clean, dry place. |
| 09:51 | Let's move on and we'll deal with those now. |
| 10:02 | So at this point we've thoroughly inspected and cleaned the pistons, we can move on and we'll now deal with our connecting rods. |
| 10:08 | Before we can actually clean down the connecting rods, it's a good idea to separate the cap of the conrod from the conrod body. |
| 10:13 | This is because we want to be quite thorough in the way we clean the connecting rods. |
| 10:18 | And particularly with the assembly lube that's used in the threads for the conrod bolts, this can be an area that can gather debris so we want to be able to clean out the threads using one of our engine cleaning brushes. |
| 10:30 | So I've gone ahead and I've done that, I've laid all of our connecting rods out on the workbench in front of me. |
| 10:35 | We're going to go through the process here of using a clean rag, some brake clean, our engine cleaning brush and compressed air to clean down all of the connecting rod surfaces. |
| 10:46 | It is important to mention here that if you haven't already marked your connecting rods between the body and the cap, we want to do this before we break down those connecting rods because we want to be very certain that we don't mix up a connecting rod body with a cap because they must stay as a matched pair. |
| 11:03 | So we've already gone ahead and done that, it's also worth mentioning here that if we are dealing with an H beam design connecting rod, then the flutes down the beam of the connecting rod can end up gathering dirt and debris, this is particularly common if we have done any grinding on the connecting rods as part of our balancing process, so we want to be very thorough and make sure that these parts in particular are cleaned out. |
| 11:27 | So let's get started with our connecting rods now. |
| 11:38 | Once we've got our connecting rod predominantly cleaned, we can also then move on and focus our efforts on the wrist pin bush as well as the hone pattern on the big end of the connecting rod. |
| 11:47 | What we want to do here is use a fresh clean rag, some brake clean and just run that rag across the hone pattern of the big end of the rod as well as through the wrist pin bush, making sure that there's no dirt or debris trapped in that hone pattern. |
| 12:00 | So let's go ahead and do that now. |
| 12:09 | So at this point we've got the body of our connecting rod clean, we're now going to go through and repeat that process on the cap. |
| 12:21 | So that's one of our connecting rods now cleaned down properly and thoroughly, we can now go through and repeat that process on our remaining seven rods. |
| 12:47 | Alright so at this point we've got all of our connecting rods cleaned down and it should go without saying that like any steel components that we're fitting to our engine, once we've cleaned these down and we've removed any protective oil from the surface, they are prone to surface rust forming so it's always a good idea to give them a light coat of clean mineral based engine oil while we're storing them before final assembly of our engine. |
| 13:10 | Let's move on and we'll now have a look at cleaning down our crankshaft. |
| 13:15 | There's a few separate considerations and techniques that we need to go through here when it comes to cleaning down the crankshaft. |
| 13:20 | The main areas we want to concentrate our efforts on of course are cleaning down the journal surfaces themselves, as well as making sure that all of the oil galleries inside of the crankshaft are thoroughly cleaned. |
| 13:32 | Again given that we are using a brand new component here, this shouldn't be a lot of work for us to do but still we need to go through and be just as thorough as if we were using a second hand component. |
| 13:43 | On top of those aspects of the crankshaft, we also want to make sure that all of the counter weights are free of dirt and debris. |
| 13:50 | So we're going to start here just by giving the entire crankshaft a light spray with our brake clean and then blowing that down with compressed air. |
| 13:59 | So let's do that now. |
| 14:10 | With our initial cleaning complete in the crankshaft and the worst of the debris and dirt removed, we're going to get a little bit more thorough now and we're going to use an engine cleaning brush to go through each of our oil galleries. |
| 14:20 | We're going to use that engine cleaning brush along with our brake clean and our compressed air. |
| 14:25 | Now it helps with the design of this particular crankshaft that none of the oil galleries are blind so this means we can run our engine cleaning brush all the way through, ensuring there's no chance of any trapped debris. |
| 14:37 | So let's go through and do that now. |
| 14:48 | When we are cleaning out those oil galleries, it's a good idea to repeat that process two or three times just to be completely sure that there is no dirt remaining. |
| 14:56 | Now we can move on and we can clean down the journal surfaces of the crankshaft and here what we're going to do is simply use a clean rag and our brake clean, moving from one end of the crankshaft to the other. |
| 15:08 | So let's go ahead and do that now. |
| 15:21 | While we are cleaning down those journal surfaces, this is an ideal opportunity to have another careful examination of the surface condition. |
| 15:28 | We're just looking here for any potential damage that's resulted from the engine machining processes applied or alternatively maybe damage that may have been incurred in transport. |
| 15:40 | In this case though, our crankshaft is looking perfect. |
| 15:42 | Now there's a couple more tasks that we're just going to cover off here. |
| 15:45 | First of all on the rear flange of our crankshaft we have our flywheel bolt holes. |
| 15:50 | We want to make sure that there's no debris trapped in the threads of those bolt holes, so again we're going to use our brake clean, compressed air and an engine cleaning brush to flush those out. |
| 16:01 | This particular crankshaft design also has several hollow sections through the crankshaft so we just want to make sure that there's no debris trapped inside those spaces as well. |
| 16:11 | So let's go ahead and clean those areas out. |
| 16:24 | At this point we've gone through the cleaning processes required for the key components that are going to go into our fresh engine build. |
| 16:31 | However of course there are a variety of other components that may also need to be cleaned, such as the sump, the rocker covers, valley trays, et cetera. |
| 16:40 | Understandably exactly the same principles are going to apply to all of the components going inside of our engine. |
| 16:47 | We want to be very certain that every component we're assembling into our fresh engine has no chance of introducing dirt or debris that could cause premature wear or engine failure. |
| 16:58 | Exactly the same processes and techniques that you've seen me use here can be applied to all of the other components. |
| 17:04 | At this point we're done with our cleaning and we can move on with the next step of our process. |
