Crank and Roll

I finally started moving in a positive direction with the engine over the holiday. Good health has finally returned and progress is being made on the Eclipse. As you can see the pistons are in the block (which the cylinders have been honed).


New rings were installed. Old ones are going to the graveyard:


Head has been lubed and assembled (and will have to be taken apart again, as you must install head bolts BEFORE the cams :-/)


Here lies the crankshaft:


Which will need to be polished as some good old H2O found it's way onto it during the recent storms. I guess I should of found better place to store it. It's going to the shop today hopefully.


Also, more good news. I did not think I would ever see this again:

Moxie Drain

The past couple of weeks have been eventful. In addition to being ill for going on two and a half weeks (a variety of illnesses including stomach flu, head cold, fever, etc) I had a small (or not so small) incident involving my Jeep on Saturday. All of these events are a major blow to productivity on this project, as well as my enthusiasm. Below are photos of the aftermath:





Scratches everywhere...


These events in addition with the late arrival of parts for the car have put assembly of the engine on a short hiatus. I was hoping to have some good progress made by Christmas, however that has not come to light. I now have all parts needed to start with the dirty work so updates should be arriving soon. With darkness encroaching as soon as I depart work, and it lingering until well after I arrive at work, it's a struggle to work up the moxie for long cold hours in the shop. Alas, eventually I shall recover from this apathy and the progress will be chronicled here.

In order to attempt to add some element of optimism to this post, there is some good news. A friend of mine recently got a new car, which I like quite well. It's an '05 Infinity G35, and very quick and responsive. I did get the chance to drive it on some nice curvaceous roads and was in automotive heaven for a few hours. Pictures follow:







I also updated the blog layout a little and added a Twitter plugin on the right side. If you don't use Twitter, check it out.

Black is Back!

Parts are now coated and have cured. The enamel was actually very easy to use, and dried to the touch very quickly which made handling easier.

Here is a photo of the same coolant tube as in last post:


Macro shot:


Here's a shot of the block. Sorry for the poor photo, I was not in the best of lighting and it was cold outside, and it's heavy. So it stayed in the shop.


And a macro shot of the block again. Very slick!


Hopefully parts will arrive soon. I have a 5k race to run tomorrow (my first!) so I might have some photos from that. I have however left my camera at the grandparents house on thanksgiving though, so it might not happen. I've bee borrowing someone else's in the meantime.

Operation Desert Storm

Here's a little preview of what's happening. I had access to a sandblaster and cleaned some of the items up. Here's a preview of how one of the coolant pipes looks before getting engine enamel (gloss black by the way).




It's a big Difference from a finish like this:


Things are finally starting to come together. I have the parts ordered (All new seals/gaskets, valves and valve seals(already installed), head bolts, oil pump, hydraulic timing tensioner, piston rings, and all bearings). Block and several other parts have been sandblasted and are painted with engine enamel. I hope parts get here soon!

Fixing That Junk in the Trunk

Things are finally starting to come together with the car. The Engine and all is in the shop, and I'm working on cleaning out the workspace in order to put things back together. I've got the heater in the shop working which will make things much more pleasant in the coming nights.

While the block is out I'm working on another issue, which is the license place bracket has rusted itself into oblivion. It holds the license plate well, however the top part of it that holds the plate lights is gone completely. It took quite a while to get to the bracket, including removing the entire taillight assembly, trunk, and rear bumper. Now I need to fab up a replacement... :)

Here is what is left of the Trunk:


Here is the rear end:


What's left of the culprit:


Close up of the damage via oxidation:


And of course there always is some extra tools you need to buy in order to do any one job:


However there is good news:


And better news:

The Pretender

Well, Halloween was a blast. It's probably my favorite holiday. This was the first year I've gotten really excited about dressing up, and I went as Billy Idol. Not so easy when you have brown hair, wear glasses, and generally don't ever act or look like him. This weekend was one of playing dress up anyways, with many costumes.

Here's the aftermath. I put it next to a photo of myself in a suit which I also sported at one point in the weekend. This photo doesn't really do the costume justice however... :( I'm going to keep the costume in case the need arises once more.


This guy had a great costume. I have no idea how he walked in those stilts so well.



I wish I had more, but I've not been much of a shutterbug recently. Anyway, here's one that I'm very happy about. :-)

My Chemical Romance

Valves are finally out after much grief.


I also reached my limits of cleaning parts via brush and elbow grease so i invested in this:


Wash hands before eating! Not happy chemicals...


It actually surprised me, no scrubbing at all, did not corrode the metal, and worked fast(15-30 min). I don't have a pic of the piston, but it is much more evident on it. Here's a preview:


I'd say the finish on the engine block has seen better days. Cool photo though.


Block is almost stripped. I cannot believe the force that it's taking to get the crankshaft gear off. I've got a proper puller now, but it did not have the right thread and diameter bolts. I'm going to try and get some tonight.


It's getting crowded over there. I hope I don't catch the sheet on my belt or something (knock on wood).


Updates will ensue as they occur.

Did the first Engineers work on engines?

Engine is now out and the rebuild is under way.

Head has been removed and block is being stripped and will be hot-tanked.


As you can see, there is a bit of carbon buildup in there(Running rich?). It's all loose because the valves broke it up when they contacted the pistons.


Head has been stripped of everything except the valves (still need a special tool to get them out). Will be cleaned and sent off to shop with new valves.


This is the valves fully seated. Only the exhaust valves appear damaged, maybe the intake were between a stroke when the timing belt failed? I might go ahead and replace all valves, but I'm not quite sure yet. I'm going to contact someone more versed in this area.


Camshafts out of the head. Don't mix up the parts!


Now comes the expensive part (at least financially, so far it has been very expensive chronologically!) of the rebuilt. Valves run around $200 for one side, and replacing all gaskets is not cheap either.

Earth, Wind, and Fire.

It has ended up being a very eventful week. As most around this area have held witness to, a severe wind storm resulting from Hurricane Ike passed through the area on Sunday. It cause major power outages throughout the area. Schools in most areas have been out since Monday. My work has been down for the past two days, and is now limping along on generators to get a few core services on power. I heard Monday morning that 90% of Duke energy's customers were down.

Here are a few pics of the damage that I've been cleaning up. I've spent a lot of time behind a chainsaw.




Luckily we suffered little property damage, but others were not so lucky. I've seen a few trees that fell into houses, but did not have my camera on me at the time. There are numerous lines down due to fallen trees, which is the cause of our power outages.

Before the storms I bore witness to a house fire. I saw smoke coming from a house on the highway and turned around. Another person ended up beating me and called 911. After the fire trucks got there I was pretty much stuck as they shut the entire highway down. Here is the resulting aftermath:






Hopefully my next post will contain less destruction(other than the deCONstruction of the Engine of course).

A hollow feeling inside.

Well, Finally am making some noticeable progress on the Eclipse. The Engine is practically out. I must say, it took some reverse engineering of the DSM origami voodoo that they used to assemble it, but I'm finally to the point where the real work can happen. I think I'll be rebuilding the entire engine and finish it as well, clean up the engine bay and make it look like it does not have almost 200,000 miles on it. Engine will remain stock on this one. The body and chassis is in good shape, so nothing will be happening there except for minor repairs.

Here is before the engine came out.


And after

It's time to start assessing damage and looking at ordering new gaskets/valves/etc.


As normal here are some off-topic random photos. Only in Indiana will you find something like this:


And this is just plain awesome.


And this is just too funny...