Pitchblack Rally Recce Raider Build

[irish44j]

Today's first task was to rebuild the driveshaft u-joints. These look to be the originals, as the rubber cap/seals are totall disintegrated and they look pretty gnarly (though honestly, the action still feels pretty smooth). In any case, figured no better time than now to get them refreshed. So out came the big vise and the press (for the bigger rears).

The front driveshaft has inside-lip c-clips on the outside of the bearing caps.

The rear driveshafft has outside c-clips on the inside of the flange. No idea why they did them differently, though I like the latter better

So yeah, lots of old junk out and the new ones feel good (though one is a bit tigher than I'd like it, but fiture it'll loosen up with use)

Once that was done I wire-wheeled both driveshafts to clean everything up

And yeah, more red paint. So some background - a few years back a buddy gave me about 20 cans of various shades of red rattle-can paint that he hadn't ended up using for some project of his. So I have a lot of red paint. I actually don't really like red (except on the Porsche, where it just fits), but it's all free stuff and I might as well use it. So that's why I paint so much crap red - not because I want it to be bling or whatever...

I also do like it as a color that will show me oil/grease leaks and such, and under the car, who cares what color stuff is.

So that done, time to dig into this engine. When the truck was in the shed, I noticed that it constantly dripped water/coolant, but couldn't see where from, and it kept doing it even after the engine was on the stand. I figured it had to be water pump, so let's check...after taking apart a bunch of nasty gunky crap.....

Um, yeah....definitely water pump.

God knows how long that's been like that. The bearing in the pump nose was totally shot (not seized, but really, really loose). So pulled the pump and yeah, most of the gasket has pretty much dissolved too (I expect this could be the original water pump, since the timing belt had NO brand markings on it or anything and looked pretty old).

The passage into the left (passenger) side of the block was mostly clogged with some gooey blue gel stuff, to boot. I got the hose out and blasted it through every water opening on the engine and flushed it until I stopped getting rusty water and other junk. Then cleaned up the timing case a bit.

Then spent a few hours organizing stuff and cleaning parts to put on the shelf I dragged up from the shed. Man, everything on this engine has a good 1/4" of oily grime on it. I'm gonna run out of nitrile gloves from all this scrubbing (and hard to find them these days, even at HF, due to everyone buying them....)

Oh, and installed the brake M/C, just to get it off the workbench.

 

[irish44j]

Just grinding along.....man, there's a lot of grimy stuff in this engine. And here I am running low on nitrile gloves since everyone is buying them up . I actually went ahead and ordered a whole case (10 boxes/1000 gloves) not because I want to, but because apparently nobody thought to check restaurant supply places that aren't doing much business right now

Anyhow. Pulled more stuff off the engine today. First the IM, which was really greasy on one side, pretty clear one of the valve cover gaskets was leaking pretty badly or something. Not sure why its so gunky on the top though...

But below that down in the lower intake manifold by the injectors, there are two "valleys." One side was full of oily water (water probably from me washing the engine), the other side full of a mouse's nest remnants. Yum.

Went ahead and pulled the fuel rails, injectors, and lower manifold and spent an hour scrubbing. Much better now

Then cracked the water pump off the rear housing....yup, this thing is junk (its Aisin, so could be the original). Bearing and seals totally shot (but it still spun ok).

Then I pulled the valve covers, and not surprisingly, plenty of chocolate milk residue in there.

These were so nasy didn't even really want to clean them, since I have the other two out back. So I grabbed those (and put the oil ones in a box in the shed), cleaned them up, and gave them a coat of paint. Today's random color: Half a can of decade-old "Chrysler Red" which is more like an orange really. Thought it would be a bit ironic with this being a faux Dodge.

Now on to the passenger side head. Went ahead and pulled it.

So the head gasket itself doesn't seem to have any blown out sections, but it was almost certainly leaking on the back corner, based on how wet it all was. More notably, the heavily carbon'd #5 piston was wet, as were the #5 valves above it.

5 is on the left.

and on the right here

Haven't pulled the other one yet, but we'll have to see what's up here - whether the HG did have a blowout, or if the head is warped. As noted, I do have to (likely good) heads in the shed as well. Once I get this all taken apart and look at the other one, we'll see what the way forward is. Not really looking to go to a machine shop right now with all this social distancing, but I'm in no terrible rush and have plenty of other stuff to do. \

And since I am cleaning and painting everything, the upper IM got some love this evening. After a scrub, then some black paint....not that exciting, but I like working with clean stuff as much as I can.

 

[PacS14]

Man you are making good progress! Thanks for sharing the pictures and yes definitely plenty of elbow grease going on.

 

[irish44j]

Man, my hands are taking a beating with all this grease. Even with nitrile gloves on usually, I feel like I've washed them like 50 times with Dawn in the last few days.

So where was I? Had to telework most of the day today, but had some time later this afternoon to get some stuff done. First up, finishing up my intake manifold. With the extruded V6 3000 on top, figured I'd sand that to shiny aluminum and then clear coat it all. Put a few things back together on it as well. I think it looks pretty good for fairly minimal effort!

So interesting point. This is the IM off of the parts raider (and this engine). Note that it has a set of three of those vacuum pipes in it. they all come from the TB. One goes to the EGR valve. 2nd one goes to the charcoal canister solenoid, and the 3rd one goes to the EGR solenoid. This setup indicates this engine is "Cali" emissions. My other one in the shed (out of the Black Raider) only has two pipes there - it doesn't have an EGR solenoid at all, so I guess the EGR just operates on its own or something (Federal emissions).

Here's the other (Federal) one

Now.....just a theoretical that someone wanted to do an EGR delete, this is the way "I would" do it

First, I'd pretty much delete all the vac stuff in those pics except the one going to the charcoal canister (because gasoline smells, smell...)

Second, I'd remove the EGR pipe from the left-side exhaust manifold that goes to the IM, and seal it up by sticking an appropriate-sized bolt into the opening and welding it there to seal it. Kind of like this:

Ten I'd make up some block-off plates for where the pipe and the EGR valve attach to the IM. Those would go here:

So yeah, that's how I would do it....I mean, if I did it.............................................

So what else did I do today besides the IM and not the EGR delete.....

So the crankshaft timing belt sprocket needed to come off. It was seized on there pretty good and figured it would be impossible to get off thanks to all that coolant in the timing case probably seeping in there. In any case, I couldn't get it to come off with heat, PB Plaster, taps with mallet, etc. But these aren't too expensive new (like $35), so decided to take it off the workshop manual way. Drilled two holes into the face, tapped them for a bolt size i had around, and then made up a quick steel bracket to put the bolts through to act as a puller.

In any case, it pulled it off with some effort. And then it cracked in half from the loss of structural integrity lol (hey, the FSM says not to re-use it after doing this!) I had to drill pretty deep to get the bolts to stop stripping....

yum...

Oh, and I pulled the other head. And once again, the HG doesn't show any obvious signs of blowing, but once again, one cylinder is "wet".....this time #4. So IDK what's going on here, I guess the both blew. So will definitely have both heads checked for flatness and for cracks. Of course, we in Virginia just got on "stay at home" order until June because of this stupid virus (my federal job will require me to work a sometimes-at-the-office, sometimes-home setup due to me apparently being "essential" but whatever). More importantly, this probably will make it hard to get to a machine shop (if any are even open) in the next month or (two?), so we'll see what's up. Basically I may have everything rebuilt just waiting for heads. Or I may just refresh the other set (which I'm pretty sure did not have blown HG) and go with them. We'll see.

 

[irish44j]

Spent some time this afternoon cleaning more parts, which I won't bother to show. Also dropped the oil pan so I could remove the oil pump housing. Pan was full of chocolate milkshake, not surprisingly. I didn't even bother cleaning it, back to the shed it went and I'll use the pan off the other engine, which I already cleaned. There's only so much tolerance i have for this ******** lol...

Then cleaned up the oil pump and filter assembly, including disassembling the oil pump to check wear on the vanes, etc. Other than the milkshake inside once cleaned up it looks to be in good shape with smooth action, so oiled up everything and put it back together (strange that the pump case doesn't have a gasket or sealant, but whatever). While I was at it I replaced the front crank oil seal.

Spent a few hours after that just cleaning up, organizing, etc. Was getting pretty messy in there.

Tonight I tinkered around with the shifter assembly. The inner boot is cracked off and I have a new one coming, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get this all apart, unless you're just supposed to somehow pull the boot down over the much larger shifter main shaft. So, will have to look into that further. Doesn't seem to be any way to disassemble the shifter ball/cup setup. Worst case, I just say screw it and leave it.

 

[Salonika]

Your project is keeping me sane during this insane time. Keep it coming! Also I’m impressed with the work you are cranking out of what looks like a relatively tight space. Also, need a photo of the “shed”.

 

[PacS14]

Your project is keeping me sane during this insane time. Keep it coming! Also I’m impressed with the work you are cranking out of what looks like a relatively tight space. Also, need a photo of the “shed”.

Yes, definitely enjoying this thread during this stay at home time. And he makes pretty good progress even with the limited time he does. Thanks man for keeping us sane hahaha

 

[irish44j]

Doing the stuff is the only thing keeping ME sane with all this time at home (though I'm working remotely as well for 2 weeks, then 2 weeks in the office, then 2 weeks back at home). Federal life.....but happy to see people are following along even though I'm just doing normal stuff and nothing particularly cool...

--

Got a few things done today ,mostly spent some time clearing up the water passages in the block and degreasing ...

The cleaned out the "valley" and used some decade-old gold engine paint I had sitting around, because who cares what color it is in there, nobody sees it. Also cleaned up the head surfaces a bit.

Here's the #3 piston - one of the two that had evidence of coolant getting into them. Unlike the others, which look good and still have a visible cross-hatch, this one doesn't look great. So not sure what's going on there. It feels perfect to the touch, just doesn't look very good. They'll all get honed anyhow.

I ordered up new rings and rod/crank bearings so next week will probably refresh the block while I decide what route to take on the heads.

Also flushed the coolant passages in the block. The right-side one was pretty clogged and fully of goo and debris. The left-side one wasn't that bad. But pipe-cleaned it and sprayed high-pressure air and water in there until I think it's all clean and clear.

What else....

installed a new thermostat and water pipes on the lower IM, very exiciting

And a new rear main. Need to check to see if the face is supposed to be flush, or back on the "stop" (inset face). I forgot to look at the old one before I pushed it out....

 

[PacS14]

You think this is not that big of a deal, but is more work done to your project than I have done in a while (thank you wife), on my end I have to replace a leaking water pump and valve guide seals, I called a shop as I don't have time to do it, and maybe I will take it in next week as they are closed for now due to the virus, depending on how much he will charge me.

 

[irish44j]

Aside from work-related stuff, been trying to keep myself extra-busy in the garage to avoid thinking about what's going on in the world, because this ******** is getting even more scary. I have 10 more days before I have to go back to the office (I'm "essential" federal personnel, working on a 2-shift / 2 weeks on-2 weeks off with a total of 10 of us covering for our 60-person department for the foreseeable future) - though I have been doing some work from home (in my field, it's not easy). Anyhow I hope you are all staying home and staying the f--k away from people, because really......if any of you die, there will be almost nobody reading this thread

ok, so that's one of my rare commentaries on things. Back to the Raider because that's what you're here for.

So, looking at things more I think I'm going to use the heads from this (the black) Raider since overall they're in good shape apart from some surface rust on valves from sitting out in the elements. Also they are known as NOT having blown the HG recently (they had a relatively fresh one installed when I took off the heads, so may have in the past) since that engine had a spun bearing. So, in theory the heads should be good. I'm going to check the deck once I have them torn apart.

So let's do that. First off with the front sections (alternator mounts, distributor assembly). Put new oil seal and big o-ring on the distributor base (the old o-ring was brittle plastic and cracked right off!

Then pulled the rockers and cams. Everything looks surprisingly good up top, we'll see what the valves look like when I pull them this weekend.

Since I'm waiting for a valve compressor to arrive, figured I'd move on to the block (rings and bearings are on order).

So took that all apart.

All the bearings look to be in excellent shape, as do the rings and oil seals....had I known how good it all looked I may have just left things as-is - but I did want to make sure I got new bearings in there in case the coolant in the oil messed anything up. In any case, once that stuff gets in I'll put it all back together totally fresh. I did verify that the bearings are standard size, so the crank has not been reground at any prior time.

The piston bores - as noted, five of them look pretty good, the other one very discolored. I'm not really sure why this is, as the surface seems good. Anyhow, got out my hone and honed all of them (though I'm a bit out of practice so did not get as much good cross-hatching as I'd like due to too much speed, grr).

This is actually "before" (oops)

Didn't get a pic of the "after" but the pattern doesn't look as nice as I'd like, but they feel good to the fingernail test and are de-glazed, so should be fine. Guess we'll find out eventually...The top center one still has discoloration but decent surface. IDK...there are NO vertical wear marks, just some discoloration. Maybe that's just original from the casting, tough to say. I won't lose any sleep over it on an engine like this.

 

[PacS14]

I feel you man, at work we've been teleworking for two weeks now, at least one person might have shown to the office earlier this week that has been in contact with someone that tested positive, so no one is going back to the office anytime soon... this is getting scary here in Houston, too many people disregarding the stay at home order.

 

[irish44j]

Yeah, hopefully everyone just sits their asses down and chills.... I'm actually amazed how many house/car projects I'm getting done that I had been putting off forever (or were never going to do in the first place), now that I have all this time around the house.

--

Continued on with some stuff today. My OTC valve spring compressor arrived and I'm pretty impressed with it - it's a lot beefier and I expected for the price and frankly worked perfectly, no complaints here.

So pulled all the valves, springs, and seats to take a look. Kept everything in order.

I expected the valve stems to be pretty gnarly from the water access that had gotten in there while the head was sitting, but was surprised to see only a couple of them rusty, and it cleaned off pretty easily with some scotchbrite. I'm going to clean all of them up with a brass wheel this weekend.

Looks way worse than it actually is.

Then cleaned out all the valve seats. One of the valve seats isn't really cleaning up as well as the other five, and I don't have any valve grinding compound here, so (don't laugh) I used a bit of GoJo to do a very light grind to clean things up. Otherwise, the seats look fine. I also took apart the rockers and cleaned everything up, set it all up with some fresh assembly lube/oil and put them back together. Just wanted to make sure any grime or contaminents were out of there.

Then cleaned up the head gasket faces. Unlike the other pair of heads that have TERRIBLE faces (like, they must have the original head gaskets), these clearly had been done in the not-too-distant past (as mentioned before, it had a non-OEM HG installed when I took these off the block) and they cleaned up easily

With that done, I got out my straightedge and feeler gauge to check the head for warpage. The "new head" spec on these is 0.05" and the max allowable is 0.2." My thinnest feeler gauge is 0.08" so pretty close to new spec, and after doing the 7-angle check I'm happy to report that even the 0.08" gauge didn't slip through at all, indicating these heads are very straight/flat. I may do the other set of heads just out of curiosity, since I know they were blown HGs and overheated. But I'm not going to use those.

Oh, also pulled the valve stem seals since I have a new set to install.

So, that's where I'm at. I should have the new bearings here this weekend and hopefully by the end of**oh the weekend I'll have the block and heads re-assembled if all goes well.

** oh also, coated the cylinder bores with some ATF, a trick that can sometimes get rid of some of the staining. Looks like it worked to some extent, as the cylinders look much better now.

 

[irish44j]

Nice day to get some stuff done (after doing the requisite yard work and stuff).

Felt like addressing something I forgot earlier - the two flexible fuel lines that come down under the back of the engine bay. I replaced the hoses at the back of the truck, and the ones up in the bay that attach to the engine, but kind of forgot about the last set. So went ahead and pulled them off. they seem ok, but there's no easier time to do this than with no transmission in the way, so let's do it.

The return line was as easy as just putting a new hose on. For the pressure hose, doing what I did on the rest: Cut off the crimped collars

Then re-use the threaded fittings double-clamped on each end.

And all done..

Next up, I got out some scrap aluminum and cut out a pair of blockoff plates for the EGR ports on the IM. Not fancy CNC stuff, but they'll work fine and don't look awful.

Now let's get back to the engine. Got a new brass wire wheel for my grinder so time to clean up the valves. I saw this little trick someplace, where you put some tape around the end of the valve (to protect it from scratches) and the put it in a drill (just tight enough, but not too tight) so you can rotate it evenly while running it along the wire wheel and get an even coverage.

So, most of the valves look fine, just a bit dirty. A few had some surface rust on them. So before and after.

The full set cleaned up nicely

Then spent some time with compressed air doing a final clean of the heads, and then reinstalled the valves. Took a couple to get the hang of getting the retaining clips back in, but once I got the method they went quickly

And back together (and no, I didn't forget the sealant at the corners of the rocker cage), but I did have to pull one of the rocker sets off because somehow I dropped out one of the lash adjusters and didn't notice initially.

So here's something interested I noticed when fitting the valve covers (to keep out debris while they sit). On the non-used heads, the #1 bearing cap has a "tall" middle section (where the valve cover bolt attaches), while the heads I'm using have a "short" nub there. They both have identical valve covers, so not sure what the point of this difference is - and it's odd anyhow since these engines should be from the same year. In any case, it just means you have to use a longer bolt on one end of the valve covers. No big deal.

vs.

Whatever. Put some of the head appendages back on (alternator bracket, distributor bracket, etc). And popped the valve covers on. And with that, I'm pretty much done with the heads!

No, not shiny and polished. I'm not wasting time on cosmetic things that are going to be unseen/get dirty anyhow.

Just another night in the quiet 'burbs where everyone is staying home doing projects.....

 

[Salonika]

I need to replace my high pressure flex hose as well......

 

[irish44j]

A little break from the Raider today as I took off the (very heavy) roof rack from the Sequoia to make some modifications to it - better tie-downs, a grab rail on the side opposite the roll-out shelter, better access to the mounts for the cargo box (not currently on it), rewired all my lighting much cleaner than previously, and a few other little things. It hasn't been off the truck for a few years and it shows...

You may recall (if you follow my other builds) that this rack was made from an ebay-sourced tri-fold ATV ramp (basically, cost about half of what raw materials would have, and took half the work....) and some composite chicken-coop flooring (which has really held up great to the elements). So anyhow, a few pics of the improved rack...

And just so you don't think I'm ignoring the Raider totally.....I did paint the oil pan.