Diy engine rebuild: how'd you go through the process?

StillBlue22

StillBlue22

Drummer Extraordinaire
Hello expo members!

so, concerning my 96 montero ls. I am going on tour in the summer time with my band in the montero. Plans include driving down the coast of Cali and stopping at various beach towns to busk on the street and have a good time. This trip is going to entail a lot of miles and stop and go traffic as well as driving through the grapevine a couple times and other mountain passes.

I'm already burning off quite a bit of oil and as far as i can tell, both valve covers are leaking. might as well do timing belt, water pump & put good spark plugs and wires in the thing. can't forget about those pesky valve stem seals and gaskets. flush the cooling system real good too. i'm almost at 190k miles and i was wondering what else would be a good idea.

i also have an egr tube that is broken that will need to be replaced, engine dies at idle about 90% of the time.

since the engines top end will be apart should i get the heads cleaned out and maybe resurfaced?

ALSO, a question that i'm very curious of for those of you that have done a job like this, any special tools you have used in this process? i was thinking of buying the valve stem seal installer: can find them for fairly cheap here and there http://www.ebay.com/itm/Miller-Tools-MD998774-Valve-Stem-Seal-Installer-/181191631441

tips and tricks would be nice, any help is welcome and much appreciated!
 
Jay Ayala

Jay Ayala

Explorer
Major problems? At the point where I performed the job you saw documented, I had just finished overhauling my 3.0L engine but it would not pass DEQ. I was getting an automatic visual failure as I was waiting in line to get tested. It was smoking so badly out of the tail pipe, they just had me turn around and head home. No major problems but just wrapping up a fresh overhaul with blue smoke out of the tail pipe. It turned out that the seals were broken and performing the seal job fixed the issue.


1989 Dodge Raider 3.0L
1997 Mitsubishi Montero 3.5L
 
StillBlue22

StillBlue22

Drummer Extraordinaire
well i am glad you fixed that and got out of that mess and btw you have yourself a very beautiful looking rig sir. did you document your overhaul on your 3.0? I'd like to see that. and thanks for the help, I'm already feeling more confident. i have always been pretty mechanically inclined & good with instruction. I've never had to take an engine apart so I'm a little nervous, just wanna make sure i do everything right the first time.
 
Jay Ayala

Jay Ayala

Explorer
The single most valuable tip I've ever learned. Ziplock baggies and a sharpie pen. Organizing that properly can save you a ton of time and frustration during reassembly. I'm a proponent for zip lock baggies for the hardware and taping the Baggie to the part. A sharpie to write down the disassembly sequence so you can reassemble in reverse order. There are roughly 50 parts, brackets, and accessories to remove to do a timing belt job.


1989 Dodge Raider 3.0L
1997 Mitsubishi Montero 3.5L
 
M

MascotRejct

Adventurer
Jay Ayala said:
The single most valuable tip I've ever learned. Ziplock baggies and a sharpie pen. Organizing that properly can save you a ton of time and frustration during reassembly. I'm a proponent for zip lock baggies for the hardware and taping the Baggie to the part. A sharpie to write down the disassembly sequence so you can reassemble in reverse order. There are roughly 50 parts, brackets, and accessories to remove to do a timing belt job.


1989 Dodge Raider 3.0L
1997 Mitsubishi Montero 3.5L
Click to expand...

+1 to this!

Also, not sure if you want to go this far, but removing the heads made the rear cam seals and valve guide seals much easier to do, but I haven't tried the rope trick either.
 
BOPOH

BOPOH

Explorer
Jay Ayala said:
The single most valuable tip I've ever learned. Ziplock baggies and a sharpie pen.
Click to expand...

:iagree: it's unbelivable how many different type of bolts go into the same part, like transmission has 4 different types of bolts with 4 diffeent torques. Or oil pump filter adapter 4 bolts and all different, same goes to water pump (different bolts). my templates

I found easy to draw diagram on cardboard and stick different type of bolts in it for one part and ofcourse ziplock baggies, i have few pounds of bolts already :Mechanic:
 
Last edited:
Jay Ayala

Jay Ayala

Explorer
BOPOH said:
+1 it's unbelivable how many different type of bolts go into the same part, like transmission has 4 different types of bolts with 4 diffeent torques. Or oil pump filter adapter 4 bolts and all different, same goes to water pump (different bolts).

I found easy to draw diagram on cardboard and stick different type of bolts in it for one part and ofcourse ziplock baggies, i have few pounds of bolts already :Mechanic:
Click to expand...
Hey BOPOH,
That is good advice. You are absolutely right. Some of those parts deeper in the engine have different length bolts and some are even different sizes.

Hey how does one pronounce your user name anyway? I keep thinking it sounds like that slang word ********. LOL.
 
StillBlue22

StillBlue22

Drummer Extraordinaire
MascotRejct said:
Also, not sure if you want to go this far, but removing the heads made the rear cam seals and valve guide seals much easier to do, but I haven't tried the rope trick either.
Click to expand...
yes yes, i have a lot of time on my hands so i am making a list of all the things i will need and writing prices down. heads will definitely be removed cause i don't want to make it harder on myself installing them stem seals.
 
StillBlue22

StillBlue22

Drummer Extraordinaire
so i'll do a template on some cardboard as well as baggies for misc parts. sounds good! so far i've got a lot of stuff i'm planning on replacing, most of this stuff is coming from rockauto.com looks like. right now i've got:

lash adjusters-clean and replace if needed
new valve cover gaskets & spark plug tube seals $21.89
timing seal kit (w camshaft seals, crankshaft seal and lubricant) $9.96
valve keeper remover & installer tool from lisle #36200 $29.79
valve stem seals (fel-pro) $18.21
head gaskets (fel-pro) $32.79
cylinder head bolts (fel-pro) $26.89
cylinder head expansion plug (why not?) $11.00 for a set
intake manifold gasket set $10.81
oil filter (denso) $3.11
timing belt kit w/water pump (dnj) $112.89
pcv valve $1.76

probably gonna get the usual oil i always get valvoline high mileage 5w-30
gonna check out how flat the heads are and get that corrected if needed.
maybe i'll just get a gasket set from fel-pro that has pretty much all the gaskets i need and some other ones to save some money.
will get the heads real squeeky clean.
not sure what else i should do yet. but i'm getting excited! love doin this kinda stuff.
 
BOPOH

BOPOH

Explorer
i just got in mail master gasket kit $130 from rockauto it has all gaskets and some that are hard to find. I got DNJ kit, i've searched a lot online and it seems that people don't like ITM and at least one shop stopped using all together.

One more tip - caps from brake cleaner spray or similar products are a perfect fit for to cover up spark plug tubes
P1040891_zps9d1e8cc6.jpg
 
BOPOH

BOPOH

Explorer
if I understand correctly, you got this part DNJ ENGINE COMPONENTS Part # TBK133AWP ? If not make sure you check if it's water pump ITSELF or with housing. The reason is that behind housing there is a gasket as well that's near impossible to get out with out removing water pump housing, at least in my experience. If you end up removing housing you will need to replace one more gasket somewhere higher - either tree bolt gasket, four bolt gasket, o-ring or something else depends on you. I'm not saying it will be the case for you, but keep it in mind.
 
StillBlue22

StillBlue22

Drummer Extraordinaire
is that gasket behind the housing one someone would typically replace? if so, i'll make sure i can get my hands on that.and yes its that one, although if not many people like dnj i wonder why that would be? hmmmm.. great tip there with the caps btw! i will need to copy you! lol
 
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