Practical Engine Building: Step 2: Stripping & Inspecting
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Step 2: Stripping & Inspecting
17.19
| 00:00 | - The second step in our 10 step process is to strip and inspect our engine components. |
| 00:06 | Now in the case of this 2JZ we are starting with a brand new short block so this should mean that both the engine block and the crankshaft that we'll be using should be in perfect condition. |
| 00:17 | Even with this in mind, we still want to inspect and make sure that they are in fact up to the task. |
| 00:23 | This also goes for the other componentry we are going to be fitting to the engine. |
| 00:28 | Just because we have a brand new set of pistons straight from a box, doesn't necessarily mean that they haven't been damaged or marked during either the manufacturing process or during shipping. |
| 00:39 | So we want to make sure with every component we are going to fit to the engine, that it is up to our standard, there's no damage visible, and that we're happy to use it. |
| 00:49 | Let's have a look now at the engine block. |
| 00:52 | There's not a huge amount of disassembly work required when it comes to the actual engine block. |
| 00:57 | We've previously removed the crankshaft from the block and at the moment we're left with the stock main bearing caps in the block. |
| 01:04 | The 2JZ turbo charged engine also runs an under piston oil squirter and these are located in the underside of the bores and they're tapped into the main oil gallery and these spray a mist of oil to the underside of the piston. |
| 01:20 | So these need to be removed during this disassembly process to facilitate the boring and honing of the cylinders. |
| 01:28 | So let's start by removing the main bearing caps. |
| 01:31 | There's two ways we can do this. |
| 01:33 | While obviously at no time do we ever want to be using a rattle gun or impact driver to actually do up any sensitive fasteners on the engine block, we can however use a rattle gun or impact driver to remove parts. |
| 01:51 | So I'm going to use our SP electric impact driver, and I've got a 14 millimetre multipoint socket and I'm simply going to remove each of the bearing caps. |
| 02:10 | Now of course if you don't have an impact driver, you can also simply use a strong arm in order to undo the fasteners. |
| 02:18 | You're going to find that particularly when you first have to crack off each of these bolts they're going to be quite tight so it's easiest to do this by using a strong arm. |
| 02:27 | Now that we've got each of the bolts undone that hold that main caps in place, we can then go about removing the bolts from the caps. |
| 02:38 | In this case because we aren't going to be reusing any of these fasteners, we don't have to keep them in any particular order or in any condition. |
| 02:47 | These are simply going to be thrown out when we start building the new engine. |
| 02:59 | OK so we've removed all of the bolts from the main caps, now we actually need to remove the main caps from the block and you'll find that they are actually quite firmly located in the register in the block. |
| 03:11 | This means that they're quite difficult to remove by hand. |
| 03:15 | With the 2JZ there's actually some convenient little tabs on each of the caps that allows us to remove them with either a flat bladed screw driver or alternatively a pri bar. |
| 03:26 | In this case I'm just going to use a short pri bar, and all we want to do is lift up on each of the caps and you'll feel those just come out of the register in the block and as soon as they're out of that register in the block, they'll be very easy to then remove by hand. |
| 03:44 | Now if we were to be reusing the main bearing caps, you're going to want to keep them in order. |
| 03:50 | These need to go back in the same location that they've come from. |
| 03:54 | And it's very easy because they are all marked so you know which journal the particular cap's come from. |
| 04:02 | Again in our case we're going to be replacing these with an aftermarket billet cap, so it's not essential to hold onto these, we don't actually need them so let's remove them from the block now. |
| 04:20 | Now we need to remove the bearings. |
| 04:22 | So again this is a brand new short block, so it also has brand new stock Toyota bearings for each of the main journals. |
| 04:29 | And we're going to simply remove those. |
| 04:31 | Removing the bearings from the journals is relatively easy, what we want to do is use our two thumbs and we want to start on the opposite side of the bearing shell to the one that has the locating tang. |
| 04:43 | All we need to do is press gently down on the bearing shell and this will move it out of the journal. |
| 04:52 | Once the bearing moves slightly down the journal, we can pick up on the section of the bearing that's now protruding and simply remove it. |
| 05:02 | Again we don't need to hold onto these bearings, we're not reusing them. |
| 05:10 | Alright so our bearing shells are now removed, our last task is to remove the under piston oil squirters. |
| 05:16 | And here we need to use a small allen key, or a hex drive socket. |
| 05:22 | So I've got that here on a quarter inch drive ratchet, and we're just simply going to loosen each one and remove them. |
| 05:39 | Now it's easiest when you're removing multiple fasteners like this, I personally find, if you initially loosen them off, each one, one after the other. |
| 05:49 | Once they're all loosened off you can then go back and simply remove your ratchet, and by hand loosen them out and remove them completely. |
| 05:56 | So we're going to do that now. |
| 06:01 | Now with each of these under piston oil squirters, they are dowelled into the block so it can be a little bit tricky to get them out of the block, and what I find is easiest is if we just grab the piston squirter, the under piston squirter, and just manually move it backwards and forwards, and this will just work it out of the register in the block. |
| 06:32 | With all of the under piston oil squirters we will be reusing those when it comes time to reassemble the engine so it's a really good idea at this point to put these all in a snaplock bag and label them so they're all going to be kept together and you're not going to risk losing any parts. |
| 06:49 | So that's our engine block now stripped and obviously there wasn't a lot of work to do for this particular example. |
| 06:56 | Before we move on though, we also want to inspect the block visually and just make sure that there's no signs of any damage. |
| 07:03 | Even though this is a brand new block straight from Toyota, there's still a potential that it could've been dropped or something's been dropped on it in transit and we want to make sure that we visually inspect and see if we can pick up any signs of this right now. |
| 07:19 | This will save us a lot of trouble later on if it comes to having the block machined only to find there's a problem with it. |
| 07:25 | So what we're looking for is witness marks on any of the machined surfaces, or any of the painted surfaces that would be in line with something damaging it. |
| 07:35 | Once we're comfortable that the block is in good condition, we can move on. |
| 07:40 | Next we have the stock crankshaft, and in this case the factory crankshaft is a forged item. |
| 07:46 | We can tell if a crankshaft is cast or forged by the shape of the marks on the crankshaft. |
| 07:53 | In the case of a forged crankshaft, the parting mark that we can see here is quite wide whereas in the case of a cast crankshaft, this would be a thin parting line. |
| 08:04 | This just comes down to the way the crankshaft is manufactured. |
| 08:08 | And in the case of our 2JZ project, the factory crankshaft has proven more than capable of handling 1000 wheel horsepower, so we're quite comfortable using the stock item. |
| 08:19 | When it comes to inspecting the crankshaft, there's a couple of areas that we're going to be looking at. |
| 08:24 | First of all we want to inspect all of the crankshaft journals so where the bearings run, and here we'd be looking for any scoring on those journals. |
| 08:35 | Now obviously in the case of a brand new crankshaft, there should be no scoring, so that shouldn't be a consideration. |
| 08:41 | We also want to inspect the journals and make sure there's no dents or marking from either the disassembly process if perhaps we've been rough, or from other foreign materials or objects being knocked against the crankshaft. |
| 08:57 | Some of this is going to come down to how the crankshaft is delivered to us. |
| 09:01 | If it's delivered assembled in the short block, then it obviously would be quite difficult for anything to damage the journals, other than ourselves during the disassembly process. |
| 09:12 | If however the crankshaft's delivered to us in a box, then obviously it's possible for components to knock or mark the crankshaft. |
| 09:21 | The other aspect that we're going to be looking for, particularly if the crankshaft has been sitting around for a long period of time, is if there's any corrosion showing on the journals. |
| 09:32 | Again the corrosion is something we're going to need to deal with during the machining process so it pays to look for that. |
| 09:39 | Another aspect to consider when we're looking at a used crankshaft is the thrust surfaces of the crankshaft. |
| 09:46 | And these run against the thrust bearings in the engine block and these locate to the crankshaft fore and aft. |
| 09:52 | Now again our crankshaft here is brand new so there's very little potential for any damage to those surfaces. |
| 09:59 | The last aspect with the crankshaft is to consider the oil galleries. |
| 10:04 | Now in some aftermarket crankshafts we may have the luxury of removable gallery plugs and these can be removed at this point to allow complete access to all of the oil galleries, and this allows us to do a more thorough job of cleaning the crankshaft. |
| 10:20 | In the case of our stock Toyota 2JZ crankshaft, these galleries are blocked with small bore bearings which are pressed into the crankshaft and then pinged over. |
| 10:30 | This is a common technique with a lot of OE crankshafts. |
| 10:34 | So there's no easy way for us to remove these for cleaning however again being that the crankshaft is brand new, we're unlikely to run into too much trouble with dirt and debris becoming trapped behind those gallery plugs. |
| 10:49 | Let's move on now and we'll look at our pistons. |
| 10:53 | When it comes to our pistons there's a few areas that we need to consider. |
| 10:58 | The very first is to actually grab our specification sheet and make sure that this matches the parts that we're expecting to be delivered. |
| 11:07 | It's always a good idea to make sure that the piston diameter is correct as well as the compression ratio and compression distance if those are listed. |
| 11:17 | This ensures that we have actually got the parts that we were expecting. |
| 11:21 | Now we'll look at the pistons themselves. |
| 11:23 | Here we want to inspect the skirt of the piston, as well as the ring lands, and the crown of the piston for any obvious signs of damage. |
| 11:32 | Because the aluminium material is very soft, it's very easy to damage it if something is dropped against the piston, or the piston itself is dropped. |
| 11:41 | So we want to inspect each piston carefully for any signs of this damage, this may be a result of our own handling, or perhaps some damage that's occurred during shipping. |
| 11:52 | It's always easiest to find this now so that we can rectify it or order new components if we're going to need them. |
| 11:59 | The other aspect is to make sure that our piston kit contains all of the parts that we require in the right quantities. |
| 12:08 | What I'm talking about here is to make sure that we have all of the required rings, we've got all of the correct wrist pins, and we've also got enough wire locks to assemble the wrist pins into the piston. |
| 12:21 | Again this is just to avoid frustration later on when it comes time to assemble our short block. |
| 12:27 | We want to ensure that we have everything we need, we're not missing any components, as this can result in a delay with the job, as we may be required to order new parts from an overseas supplier. |
| 12:40 | OK that covers our pistons, let's move on and we'll have a look at our connecting rods. |
| 12:45 | The connecting rods are a little bit more difficult for us to visually inspect as because of the material, they are a lot more difficult to mark. |
| 12:55 | That being said though, we still want to inspect the conrod, make sure that there's no sign of any obvious damage. |
| 13:02 | In particular we want to look for any sign that the conrod may have been dropped. |
| 13:07 | So any bruising of any of the machined or sharp surfaces on the conrod, that could indicate that the conrod has been dropped or something's been knocked against it and it could be damaged. |
| 13:18 | This will require further inspection when it comes time to machine our block. |
| 13:24 | And in this case this would be a task that I would put off to the machinist to inspect the connecting rods. |
| 13:31 | In this case with our Carrillo conrods, they are all brand new, everything looks OK, so we can move on, and we're going to have a look now at our fasteners. |
| 13:41 | Even with the brand new fasteners we have here from both APR and A1 Technologies, we still want to inspect the fasteners, and in particular what we're looking for is any imperfections in the threads. |
| 13:54 | What we want to look for is any damage where something has been knocked against the threads. |
| 13:58 | Why that's important is that if the threads are damaged, that's going to affect the fastener when we're tightening it and it's going to give us a false torque reading. |
| 14:08 | It's also going to potentially damage the fastener further when it comes time to actually torque these fasteners into place. |
| 14:17 | The other aspect to consider when we're looking at our fasteners is to make sure that we have the correct number of washers and the correct number of nuts. |
| 14:26 | And again this is something that's very easy to overlook and can become quite frustrating when it comes time to assemble the engine, and we realise that we're short some components. |
| 14:36 | Some of these specialist components again, we may be delayed while we wait for parts to come in from overseas. |
| 14:43 | The next part we're going to have a look at is our tightened billet caps for our engine block. |
| 14:49 | With the billet main caps the material that they're produced out of is actually incredibly strong so it's quite difficult to damage them. |
| 14:56 | However we still want to inspect them and make sure there's not obvious signs of damage. |
| 15:01 | In particular we're interested in looking at the surface where the main cap will locate against the engine block, as well as the surface where the main bearings will locate against the cap. |
| 15:12 | If there's any damage to either of these two surfaces, it can affect our bearing clearances and this could end up affecting our engine reliability. |
| 15:22 | Now we'll move on and have a look at the bearings themselves. |
| 15:26 | The engine bearings are one of the more fragile components we'll be dealing with and we want to be very careful that we inspect the bearings and make sure that there's no sign of damage to their surface. |
| 15:37 | In particular what we want to look at is the surface where the crank journal will run. |
| 15:42 | And we want to make sure that this is smooth, there's no nicks, debris, or damage showing on the surface. |
| 15:50 | At the same time we also want to inspect the back of the bearing surface and we want to make sure that again there's no nicks or marks or scratches on that surface. |
| 16:01 | At the same time we also want to inspect the part number for the bearing shells and ensure that again they are what we ordered, that they are the correct item that we were expecting. |
| 16:12 | We'll also find that when it comes to some of the bearings we'll have a upper and a lower shell, and that these are different so it makes sense to make sure that we've got the correct number of each bearing. |
| 16:25 | Let's move on and we'll have a look at our head gasket now. |
| 16:29 | Due to the size and shape of the head gasket, it can be quite easy for these to be damaged in transit so it's a good idea once we have our head gasket to visually inspect both surfaces. |
| 16:41 | In particular we're looking for any sign of scratching on the surface of the head gasket or in particular any dents or bends in the head gasket. |
| 16:51 | If anything like this is visible then we want to discard the head gasket and purchase a new item. |
| 16:57 | So at this point we should be comfortable that all of the components, both the factory parts that we're going to be reusing, as well as all of our aftermarket components are in good condition, they are exactly what we ordered, they're fit for task. |
| 17:11 | We can move on now to the engine machining step of our process. |
