Tehnation's Ballin on a budget rebuild!

[whitexc]

My engine still ran quite well with a very loud bearing......one of those spinning.....or is it spun ones?

 

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[Tehnation]

I don't think its a bearing. If it were a bearing the car would still start, which is why it leads me to a valve, like all the air is pushing straight through the bad valve causing it to not start. I experienced a shot bearing noise already lol, so from experience it sounds very different. I am thinking valve train like a valve stem broke or retainer came loose and the valve is getting pushed back via smacking the piston. The cam is pushing it open and the piston is smacking it back. Blown bearing car would still start! Thinking lashes were off and smacked a valve into oblivion.

 

bearing noise is deeper in tone vs a tapping valve from what I have experienced.

 

If its a bearing ..... then you probably wont hear from me until 2023 lol. If its a head/valve issue then I am looking to get it back on the road by summer.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Tehnation

[NSFW]

Oooof. I hope it'd not too bad.

[Tehnation]

Is there a video somewhere on how to adjust valve lashes? Edited March 17, 2022 by Tehnation

[whitexc]

 

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[awfulwaffle]

That video's for shimmed setups. Our cars are shimless, so you'll need to measure all the clearances with feeler gauges, then pull the cams and replace the actual buckets with different sized ones. Don't trust the stamped measurements on the buckets, as I've seen them wear up to 3 sizes smaller after a lot of miles. Measure out your buckets with a micrometer, then compare the size to the clearance you measured with the feeler gauge to determine what size bucket you need. New buckets are like 25 bucks a pop so swap as many as you can among the ones you already have, and check out my list here to see if I have any of the ones you need.

 

I got shipped to Utah for work a few months back, though, and won't be back for a couple of weeks. So don't expect me to ship any buckets before then.

 

https://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/lifter-bucket-exchange-thread-279743.html

 

I wonder how tight a valve would need to be (past zero lash) in order to get a valve to contact a piston....

 

I'd be taking a look at timing as well. I had a brand new Aisin timing belt tensioner fail the very first time I swapped a motor in my LGT. Car was running for all of 20 minutes when I heard a tap-tap-tap. It was at idle so the belt guides saved me from jumping time and I shut the car down instead of it dying on its own. I've also had a person bring me a car that they had just reinstalled the timing belt on after cleaning cam gears, and had the same tap. In his case, he and his friend had recompressed a used tensioner way too fast and it failed shortly thereafter.

Edited March 20, 2022 by awfulwaffle

[Tehnation]

I'm just worried about the sb, in both cases did the sb survive or was it #ynansb?

[awfulwaffle]

Yeah I hear ya. Fingers crossed.

[Tehnation]

That video's for shimmed setups. Our cars are shimless, so you'll need to measure all the clearances with feeler gauges, then pull the cams and replace the actual buckets with different sized ones. Don't trust the stamped measurements on the buckets, as I've seen them wear up to 3 sizes smaller after a lot of miles. Measure out your buckets with a micrometer, then compare the size to the clearance you measured with the feeler gauge to determine what size bucket you need. New buckets are like 25 bucks a pop so swap as many as you can among the ones you already have, and check out my list here to see if I have any of the ones you need.

 

I got shipped to Utah for work a few months back, though, and won't be back for a couple of weeks. So don't expect me to ship any buckets before then.

 

https://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/lifter-bucket-exchange-thread-279743.html

 

I wonder how tight a valve would need to be (past zero lash) in order to get a valve to contact a piston....

 

I'd be taking a look at timing as well. I had a brand new Aisin timing belt tensioner fail the very first time I swapped a motor in my LGT. Car was running for all of 20 minutes when I heard a tap-tap-tap. It was at idle so the belt guides saved me from jumping time and I shut the car down instead of it dying on its own. I've also had a person bring me a car that they had just reinstalled the timing belt on after cleaning cam gears, and had the same tap. In his case, he and his friend had recompressed a used tensioner way too fast and it failed shortly thereafter.

 

For those 2 cases you mentioned did both need a new sb or ??

[awfulwaffle]

No. Neither had jumped time, so both just needed new tensioners and retime. I have had one come in after the belt jumped and valves hit though, and even that didn't have to be a new short block (though the customer chose to go that route anyways). If that is what happened, and you actually did have valves contact a piston, I'd expect to have to replace a few valves and possibly a piston and rod bearing depending on how hard the hit was. Definitely wouldn't expect YNANSB right off the bat. Does the motor still turn freely?

[whitexc]

Pull the plugs and put a wrench on the crank pully. Listen and feel.

 

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[Tehnation]

The timing is still there. Cam marks all line up. So its definitely a head/valve issue. I'm assuming that since the timing didn't jump, the sb should still be good and there wasn't something catastrophic that happened. I think a valve broke or head cracked. Timing is there and car wont start, so some valve isn't sealing at all.

[Tehnation]

Been prepping to remove the motor, disconnecting stuff etc. Next its time to inspect the turbo to see if anything smacked the turbine wheel, so dropping the downpipe..... why is it so cold outside.... its spring...

 

If the turbo is in good shape then things aren't to bad, and worst case is a new/used head rebuilt with my springs and cams.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Tehnation

[whitexc]

It is miserable outside. You are far from me but in the same boat. We had about 3" of white crap this morning.

 

Good luck with the tear down.

 

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[Tehnation]

So I pulled a bunch of stuff for engine removal but saw some interesting things. I wanted to pull the intake manifold asap to see if it was an intake valve but they all are intact, so it made me shit a brick because that means exhaust valve, ie turbo... the turbines do indeed look like something took a shit on them, maybe, can't really tell atm, but hopefully most of the shrapnel if any, went out the other hole. Tap tap tap, not the intake valves, or timing, so last thing is exhaust. I couldn't get my eye on the exhaust blade so I am basing damage on the pictures. There looks to be some jagged edges!? no? I will pull the turbo next but the shaft play isn't horrible, seems to be within tolerance but at the same time it isn't like it was 1k miles ago, actually hard to say.... the jagged parts might be from me touching it with my oily fingers, the more I look at the picture, it seems fine. So gotta pull the exhaust next to see what's up, stay tuned lol!

 

Cylinder 3 is the one that was giving me the issues with the intake and injector leaks, so its a little dirty considering all that, so its more just dirt, valves are fine.

 

Cylinder 3 intake

 

Cylinder 1 intake

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Tehnation

[Tehnation]

My exhaust valves might be getting to hot or to much extra fuel, 11 mpg at best seems like a lot of wasted fuel( but its for break in, better to be rich than lean). How would that effect the exhaust valves. When do exhaust valves fail or what type of environment leads to them failing??

 

So far so good, a bad valve would be ideal at this point! If it's not the exhaust valves either, then I'm gonna put my money on a cracked head, and I would still be happy lol! My other head, the original oem, ended up being cracked last time as well, not sure if it was shop or not, but assuming the same reliability I wouldn't be surprised if the other head cracked as well.

 

And rain.... parties over!

Edited March 31, 2022 by Tehnation

[Tehnation]

been wet cold and rainy.... gotta inspect the exhaust manifold, and uppipe, so thats gonna get pulled next. I might just have a cracked header or something I realized after thinking about it for some time.

[Tehnation]

pulled the motor myself this time, couldn't wait any longer for my buddy to help out. Weather finally started to turn around as well. For the 1st time doing it completely myself, wasn't so bad! Only thing I broke was the temp sensor going to the oil pan, forgot to unplug it and it was destroyed when pulling the motor. Luckily its only a 20 dollar part, so ordered a new one and called this one a win! lol

 

 

My intake valves look good, so I am assuming its the exhaust valves on the passenger side, not sure which cylinder, I am gonna assume 3 cause that seems to be the 1st guy to go when timing goes fubar. I am more interested in figuring out what caused the problem instead of just fixing cause no point in fixing just for it to happen another 1k miles later..... not sure if its a valve train issue or random fluke.... from my experience its a flaw somewhere, so thats how i'm approaching this problem. What would cause exhaust valves to shit the bed so quickly? No bebris went through turbo so I am assuming they are bent as well. I was hoping it was a busted exhaust manifold but the exhaust wasn't louder, just the sound of the valve. I will see this weekend when I take a good look at it. I am looking to do minimal work, so pulling this thing entirely apart isn't on the agenda. If the head is putting out to much heat and the exhaust valves cant handle it, then I am just going to replace the valves on the passenger side rather than both. If it ain't broke don't fix it, is how i'm dealing with things at this point.

 

Trying to figure out what the hell is going on with my belt, only thing I can think of at this time is the passenger exhaust cam gear jumped timing somehow, or floating valve? I wasn't really giving it rpm so not sure why valve would float but who knows!?

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Tehnation

[Max Capacity]

Who did the porting...

 

Here's mine from my trusted machine shop.

 

 

 

 

Most of my porting is done down around the valve pocket, you need to keep the ports small to maintain air flow speed on these engines.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Max Capacity

[Tehnation]

I brought it to a machine shop near me, they don't do much subaru work so they probably didn't know all these little nuances but didn't seem like they ported it much.

 

Porting doesn't seem to be the issue. Looks like something jumped timing and the exhaust valve hit the piston and the force caused the cam gear pin on the camshaft to shear.

 

 

Hopefully thats all the damage! If thats all the damage then I got off lucky.

 

Trying to get the camshafts out to get the heads off but one of the damn camshaft cap bolts is seized and wont come out and Ive pretty much stripped the head at this point trying to get it out. Ordered some sockets for stripped heads, so hopefully I can get it out with the bolt extractor set.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Tehnation

[Infosecdad]

...

Trying to get the camshafts out to get the heads off but one of the damn camshaft cap bolts is seized and wont come out and Ive pretty much stripped the head at this point trying to get it out. Ordered some sockets for stripped heads, so hopefully I can get it out with the bolt extractor set.

 

I had that on my last rebuild, had to carefully cut off the bolt cap to remove the the camshaft cap. Then I got it out once the bolt shaft was exposed. Ordered new bolts to try and prevent it from happening again. (Because obviously I plan to run that engine another 100k+ and will do this again in the hopefully distant future).

[Tehnation]

I had that on my last rebuild, had to carefully cut off the bolt cap to remove the the camshaft cap. Then I got it out once the bolt shaft was exposed. Ordered new bolts to try and prevent it from happening again. (Because obviously I plan to run that engine another 100k+ and will do this again in the hopefully distant future).

 

What did you use to cut it off? A cutoff wheel? I'm worried about damaging the caps, you can't buy those, they only come with the heads cause they are honed/bored together. So if you fubar the cap, things can get expensive really quick.

[Infosecdad]

What did you use to cut it off? A cutoff wheel? I'm worried about damaging the caps, you can't buy those, they only come with the heads cause they are honed/bored together. So if you fubar the cap, things can get expensive really quick.

 

Yeah, it was stressful

 

Mine was a few threads out before it locked up.

But I used a small cutoff wheel on a dremel for most of it, just was really careful and took my time. I nicked the cap in a couple of small places, but didn't hit the mating surface for the bolt, so all was well.

[Tehnation]

Not looking forwards to this, last thing I want to do is grind metal shavings around precision parts, gotta bust out the plastic and tape and get surgical... on a positive note it looks like BrianCrower is going to send me a new ex cam.... free!? They just asked for my address to ship it too, no bills attached, works for me. Probably means that pin just straight up failed, but they did say the pin can't take the force of the motor so maybe I didn't torque down that cam gear bolt enough (what is torque spec?).... whatever at this point, I'm just trying to minimize damage ie $$.

 

Cam gear look good for the most part.

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Tehnation

[rhino6303]

Not looking forwards to this, last thing I want to do is grind metal shavings around precision parts, gotta bust out the plastic and tape and get surgical... on a positive note it looks like BrianCrower is going to send me a new ex cam.... free!? They just asked for my address to ship it too, no bills attached, works for me. Probably means that pin just straight up failed, but they did say the pin can't take the force of the motor so maybe I didn't torque down that cam gear bolt enough (what is torque spec?).... whatever at this point, I'm just trying to minimize damage ie $$.

 

Cam gear look good for the most part.

[ATTACH]296169[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]296170[/ATTACH]

Post a picture of the stuck bolt. I would use the extractor first. If that doesn't work, drill through the head and then take the bolt out. I would cut the head off last.