Grahams81-Leon 4wd, Big Turbo - Back in the saddle :-)

[Applemobile]

I wonder how many more times this engine will be apart Amazing work.

I've seen some of the VW guys re-drilling Mercedes (i think) disks to fit with the Porsche 6 pots. Not sure the exact disks, but were around 360mm. Pound for pound seems the best money to performance option.

 

[grahams81]

I wonder how many more times this engine will be apart Amazing work.

I've seen some of the VW guys re-drilling Mercedes (i think) disks to fit with the Porsche 6 pots. Not sure the exact disks, but were around 360mm. Pound for pound seems the best money to performance option.

Thanks for the info mate, i'll look into it
And hopefully this'll be the last time i see the inside of the engine

Engine Re-Assembly Time

Well i've managed to spend a good couple of hours in the garage today, started off by clearing the benches and cleaning up. Then i put some thick plastic sheet down to work off so i didn't get any dust / metal filings onto the engine components.

I started off by removing all the paint from the mating surfaces...then I decided to use a little wet & dry on the main bearing surfaces to take any highspots / marks off them then I did another final clean of the oil passages and the inside of the engine.

Ready for Re-assembly -

Once it was all spick and spam i then started cleaning the parts and laying them out for the reassembly.

I did however notice a few burrs / chips on the main bearing holes, i just touched them with a file and they fell off so worth checking things very carefully... if the rock hard burrs / chips came off they would have destroyed the bearings / journals.

I took a picture of it but it's not that clear. The chips were on the radius edge where the hole has been punched out -

Main Bearing caps / Calico main bearings laid out ready to refit -

I then refitted the upper main shells -

Shortly followed by the new long ARP Main Studs -

Then i dug the TDI 95.5mm crankshaft out of its hiding place..... all wrapped up in oil soaked paper towel, and looking like a mummy -

Undressed -

I then cleaned the crank very thoroughly, the first time i built it i just blew out the oil ways in the crank with compressed air....at the time i though that ways good enough but apparently it wasn't as there was grinding dust in there. I used the pipe brushes i bought from Frost Restorations and it was surprising how much cr4p came out the oil ways -

I was just about to drop the crank in when i realised i hadn't put the oil squirters in, so cleaned them up and double checked the err check valves. Then got some of my Threadlock loctite style stuff out to put a little dab on the bolt as they only take a pinch to tighten.

Installed them & torqued to the spec in the Manual -

Next up was Lubing up the bearing journals in preparation for lifting in the crankshaft. I used Redline assembly lube.

The stuff in question -

Put the thrust bearings in and Lubed her up ready to take it

Smeared a bit on the crank -

Crank lifted in -

Main Bearing caps dropped on -

Next up was the Girdle. I placed the spacers onto the studs and then dropped the plate on and torqued it up to 60lb/ft -

I then measured up the clearance between the block & Girdle. When i had the spacers machined i gave him a tolerance of -0 and +0.02 so the guy machined them slightly on the long side so i could fine tune them if required.

Here is the measured clearances on the right with my sums on the left -

Next up i removed the Girdle and spacers and started to file / lapp them down to size.

I used a bit of 320 wet and dry on the back of the vice -

After an hour i had them all nicely to size and parallel... refitted, torqued down and rechecked. I could just about get 1 thou feeler gauge in in the middle (down to the bend in the girdle) i then tried pulling the sump bolts down to check and it closed right up.
So with that being complete i decided to start checking the oil pump.

It does state in the instructions for the girdle that some pumps require the webbing to be ground to obtain some clearance. My pump was of course the type that needed grinding -

I then used a marker pen and a dremmel to grind some webbing away -

Pump fits nice, even dropped the chain on to check length / tensioner etc.... then i realised you can't get the chain tensioner back on with the girdle fitted

Anyhow had to call it a night so covered the block up to keep any dust off the engine -

That's it till next weekend, my plan for next weekend is to change the wrist pins to the tool steel versions i bought a while ago and get the rest of the block built up.

Thanks for reading,

Graham.

 

[ibizacupra]

good read

 

[Lodgey180]

Blown away by this thread.. outstanding !!

 

[Murdered LCR]

Looks great dude , bet you can't wait to finally drive the thing

 

[Damoegan]

Great job, Graham..

Yes, Merc discs re drilled work great on the Porker calipers..

 

[boabym]

The bearings should have been deburred and inspected before plate/ coating. Pretty shoddy imho. Groove chatter as well. Great thread by the way!

 

[daspeedfreek]

Just awesome.... enough said.

 

[grahams81]

Thanks for all the comments guys


Update

Well i managed to spend a good 12 hours in the garage yesterday finally got finished at 1:00 this morning. Really happy with the progress yesterday.

Anyhow I'll start from the beginning......

Started off by unpacking my Shallow baffled INA sump and dropping it on to check for ARP to sump clearance, It appears i need to grind some clearances into the edge of the transmission side of the engine :

So i decided to put the sump to one side and look at it again later.
I then removed the crank Girdle ready to put the crank seal housings / oil pump chain tensioner on.
I cleaned the crank seal housing up and wiped the mating surfaces clean with panel wipe, i also had to remove a bit of paint from the end before using the VW Sump sealant to seal it all up.

Oil Pump chain cable tied up out the way, housing on -

To get the larger Rear crank seal on i had to remove the upper bolts / arms from the engine stand. I dropped them off then oiled the crank in preparations for fitting the seal. I tried to fit it and it wasn't wanting to side on so i pulled it all back off and inspected the white fitting aid.... there was a sharp burr round the edge of the plastic so i busted out the knife and put a nice chamfer on it -

RMS with plastic fitting aid -

Crankshaft cleaned up and engine stand upper bolts / brackets removed -

Oiled up the crank end and the seal, fitted without any issues the second time round. For anybody doing this make sure you don't force the seal as it can be damaged very easily... all on and bolts torqued -

Both ends fitted and ready for the girdle to be fitted. As i was sealing the girdle to the block before fitting the sump i used the original (shorter) M7 bolts, i checked they would clamp the girdle before the bottomed out in the holes but a few bottomed out... so i thought about cutting the OEM bolts down and using the ones supplied with the girdle for final sump installation.
Then i found some nice heavy duty M8 washers i got from work for the exhaust to cylinder head flange.

Once i was all set-up and ready to go i cleaned the mating faces of the block & girdle with panel wipe then once dry i put a small 1.0mm bead of sealant around the block. I then placed the girdle on, lined it up and put all the ARP nuts & sump bolts in.... Torqued the Mains up to 60lb/ft and the M7 bolts to 15lb/ft.

Everything went ok so i wiped off the excess on the outside and inside.
Next up was fitting the oil pump (which turned out to be silly as i took it back off again to gain access to Cylinder 1 conrod bolts)

I then fitted the crankshaft timing belt drive pulley, with its ARP bolt lubricated with oil. In the absence of having anything to stop the crank rotating i wedged a fibreglass hammer shaft in the block and torqued the bolt up.
I couldn't find the spec sheet that came with the bolt so after searching online i found several different suggestions so i torqued it to 74lb/ft then using a breaker bar with some roll cage pipe on the end i managed to get just short of 1/4 of a turn. Put my large torque wrench on its max setting of 200lb/ft and it clicked before it tightened anymore... so it's in excess of 200lb/ft.

Next up i decided to start getting some bits on the outside of the engine.... just to clear up some of the clutter.
Water pump, manual tensioner idle roller, trigger sensor & thermostat. -

Next up i dropped the Gates cam belt on, put the OEM covers on and wanted to check the fitment for the Fluidamper, which was perfect by the way -

After all that i unpacked all the pistons & rods from there freezer bags -

Stripped the rings off piston 1 and remembered i only needed to take off the lower oil control rings to get the wrist pins out. So removed all the rings from them all and separated the rods -

Here are the tapered tool steel wrist pins i bought from IE -

Standard JE ones (parallel) -

Next i got out my accurate scales i bought from ebay and started weighing all the components -

There was half a gram difference between new wrist pins, so i weighed the pistons and matched the heaviest wrist pins with the lightest pistons and visa versa -

Then i measured the pistons with the matching wrist pins and the total weights of them were within 0.1 of a gram so i'm very happy with that
I also weighed the con rods (which were previously balance end to end by Quasar engineering in stockport)
Again with-in half a gram so good enough in my eyes.

I then cleaned up the con rods installed the bearings and torqued them up in a vice to 50lb/ft (holding the big end in the vice and not the neck of the rod) I then checked the big end clearances and they all came in at 0.04mm so well within the factory limits of new bearings... happy days

All measured -

Next up i checked the little end sizes and checked they all fitted in the pistons nicely, then using some Redline assembly lube on the pins i assembled the pistons to the rods... and then refitted the piston rings.

I already gapped the rings during the first assembly. I then went about setting the position of all the ring gaps, i used the JE instructions -

The piston & rings were then lubed up with mineral oil and using a ring compressor slotted into the oiled up bores :laugh:

I lubed up the con rod journals with redline lube and torqued the ARP rod cap bolts to 50lb/ft (cracked off 3 times each and re-torqued) all done -

Oil pump back on -

Top shots -

Really happy with yesterdays progress, next job on the list is checking over the head before refitting.

Cheers,

Graham.

 

[Applemobile]

Forgive me if i'm wrong graham..but those crank seals are teflon and need to be fitted dry. The initial friction of the start up is what creates the seal.

Hopefully someone else can interject and say how i'm wrong......

 

[grahams81]

Forgive me if i'm wrong graham..but those crank seals are teflon and need to be fitted dry. The initial friction of the start up is what creates the seal.

Hopefully someone else can interject and say how i'm wrong......

Hhhmm i hope you are wrong LOL - i'll have a search online and see if i can find any info... Thanks mate.

 

[Applemobile]

Hhhmm i hope you are wrong LOL - i'll have a search online and see if i can find any info... Thanks mate.

I might be, just though it would be worth mentioning now. If you got to final start up and your rear main started leaking its the worst feeling ever

i think, the VW manual suggests that you oil them up, but that was from the old seal that has been superseded with a teflon seal.

 

[grahams81]

I might be, just though it would be worth mentioning now. If you got to final start up and your rear main started leaking its the worst feeling ever

i think, the VW manual suggests that you oil them up, but that was from the old seal that has been superseded with a teflon seal.

Unfortunately your right !!!
Just done a search and ended up of Elring's website which says they must be installed dry So thanks for the information, you may have saved me a lot of time

I'll pull it back off later and dry it all off.

Thanks Again mate.

 

[Applemobile]

Its not often i'm right, but every now and again it happens

 

[grahams81]

Thanks Mate :blush:

After yesterdays long day in the garage i had to spend a little bit of time with the family today.

I did however manage to sneak back in there for an hour, so i tidied up and started on the cylinder head.

Previously for those that can't remember i built the head up using full Supertech valve train etc...

This time the spec will be -

Supertech Inconel Exhaust Valves (Standard Size & Tripple Groove Retainers)
Supertech Black Nitrided Intake Valve (Standard Size & Tripple Groove Retainers)
Supertech Valve Spring Kit
Supertech Titanium Spring Retainers
Supertech Valve Guides
Supertech Valve Stem Seals
New OEM Valve Retainers
Integrated Engineering IECVA1's Strip & Street Camshafts
IE Adjustable Cam Pulley
ARP Cam Pulley Bolt
EKA Friction Disc for Cam Pulley
New OEM Hydraulic Lifters
New OEM Cam Chain
Ported & Polished Exhaust Ports
Face Skimmed

Got the head set out to work on -

Got the valve cover of and started the partial strip down -

Half an hour later and i had the camshafts out -

The old bits that won't be getting used in the head rebuild -

I read some interesting threads on VWVortex about how on some engines that have suffered from sludge the oil galleries can be blocked... so my plan is to check very thoroughly all the oil ways.
When i got this head it was very dirty with thick sludgy oil so i must admit i was a bit worried....although all the journals are ok and no signs of oil supply issues.
There is a grubs screw at the end of one of the drilled oil ways so i removed it and had a poke around with welding wire. It seemed very clear to me. I blew compressed air through the oil supply hole but due to the shear amount of oil holes it was impossible to check they were ok.
I'm going to plug the outlets with plasticine and blow air though the main supply line from the cylinder head face and check each point they're clear.... once i've down that i can be happy to run the head.

I was going to strip the head completely and have the inlets ported etc but i can't really justify spending the money on it at the moment....too many other things to spend money on at the moment.

I'm off to Barcelona next weekend for my mates stag so i won't get anything done for a fortnight.... i will update in a couple of weeks.

Thanks As always,

Graham.

 

[Applemobile]

This second rebuild seems to be pretty hardcore, what sort of power are you looking for now?

Get that head in the dishwasher whilst your mrs ain't looking

 

[luke101]

Nice car mate good read

 

[ongoing]

Fantastic attention to detail buddy, I'm like a kid in a candy store waiting for the next update

 

[Gagwithgaffer]

Epic build matey, look forward to seeing how things develop

 

[MrJoosh]

Took me 2 days to read this thread end to end and it's safe to say that my flabber is well and truly gasted at the immense amount of skill, dedication and attention to detail...

Keep up the good work buddy!

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