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!