Day 36 - 5th April 2011, Engine rebuild begins

Well again it's been a while since the last post, the car is still getting the roll cage installed, but I'm in no rush. So what have I been doing the past few months? Mostly cleaning and sorting out where things are and what I need to fix and purchase. Also I thought I would give engine building a go, thought it would give me a better idea on where everything is on the engine and have a better understanding how it all goes together.


This is the engine as it looks straight out of the car, one worrying thing is a large build up of oil on the left side of the engine on the block, and I'm not really sure where the oil has come from. The guy I got the car from said it needed a head gasket replaced, so I will need to investigate further.







The inlet manifold was the first item to be removed, its covered in oil around the left side, the first job will be to pull it down and give it a good clean.







Next was the timing belt cover to revile the double over head cam the timing belt snaking its way aroundes around. The pulley with the offset bolt is the timing belt adjuster, the pulley under that to the right is the water pump. The centre pulley is the crank shaft and the others are idlers.







Looking under the motor with the sump removed, the brown stain is from 18 years of oil.







Not everything has gone to plan. I had issues removing one of the cam pulleys, just couldn't get it to move, even the torque wench didn't move it. In the manual it showed a tool that locked onto the pulley then you can use a breaker bar to take the nut off. So last Sunday I got the welder out and started to build my own version of the tool and this is it. The first version the centre pin bent, so a few modifications, mainly filling the gap between the middle pins with weld the pulley was off.








Next was the cams and then the heads, everything bagged and a full video of me taking it apart, just in case I forget something.











After everything was taken off this is all that is left










Spend most of today cleaning the heads and engine block. Was a bit of a task, had to remove all the leftover gasket material from each opening with a Stanley knife blade, then clean the face with Metho.

The body was washed with a mix of diesel and Kero with lots of scrubbing.








Started work on cleaning up the radiator, the frame had rusted and there where missing screws. A quick trip to thc wreakers and $3 late had about 30 screws of all kinds for the car from a series 2 Liberty.







The radiator has been painted with Knight antirust primer and paint so it shouldn't rust again.







Another job that I've been working on most night for the past few weeks is identifying the wiring loom. After about 10 nights in the shed I finished cleaning and labelling the whole loom. The benefit of this was that I understood the loom, understand the manual and work out what connections would no longer be need.





As I'm rebuilding the car, I needed to get some bits a pieces.
This is the OEM kit, it is for the whole engine and worked out to be cheaper then getting individual parts.



















As I'm not sure of the history of the engine and reading what should be replaced when doing an engine rebuild, I got a lot of new bits.

These are all the pulleys for the timing belt, including a new water pump.








Most of these pieces are for the turbo. With the current CAMS rules you have to run the original turbo, in this case it's a VF12, something Subaru no longer make. The turbo is in good condition, just need some new water and oil connections and new gaskets.






The next job is to start putting the engine back together and use up some new gaskets. I've also taken purchase of a STI DCCD 6 speed gearbox and R180 diff, so the car build is starting to get out of hand, but in a good way I guess.