Picked up a couple of grey engines from a neighbour a year ago maybe, just because I’m a magpie and got a soft spot for anything Holden. Rob (Ardiesse) Shaw didn’t have to be asked twice when I suggested he take one off my hands.
Rob had reason to visit down my way recently and took the opportunity to collect the thing. I’m happy that it is in good hands and pretty likely to continue to be of service in propelling some form of early Holden, rather than the previous one I let go to a farmer from Yorke Peninsula to go in a forklift.
Anyway Rob surprised me a little when he turned up in the trusty FX from Sydney town 1000 miles left of my home, sans trailer. “What’s the plan Rob? Chuck it in the boot?” I naively asked. In a manner of speaking that is what we did.
Rob undertook to start a thread on the topic of pulling apart one of these old donks................
but he is too busy for my short patience and so I made a start on it. Here is s photo to get the ball rolling Rob.
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getting my FB ute on the road
EK van on rotisserie
It's a lot easier to transport a spare motor in a sedan when it's been disassembled. But seized-up grey motors have to be un-seized before you can pull them apart. It's the camshaft - front engine plate - crankshaft problem that Harv alluded to in his meth-monster thread. So yep . . . this is the second stage in freeing a motor up. Keen observers will notice that the cylinder head's off, and the bores appear to be bleeding rusty crud. Notice also between the flywheel and pressure-plate a length of angle-iron. This and a tyre iron, with two people, are what's needed to un-seize the motor. Insert levers between ring gear teeth and transmission locating dowels, and go in hard. Just when you think that nothing's going to budge, except maybe the ring gear teeth, the motor turns one tooth. That's all you need. From then on it's just more kero, encouragement, occasional labio-dental fricatives and patience until the motor will turn over a complete revolution.
Drain oil. Stand engine on flywheel. Remove sump. Remove oil pump. Remove pistons and conrods (hammer and brass drift, being careful not to ding crankpins with big-end bolts). Front engine plate off. Lay engine on block deck. Remove flywheel and main bearing caps. Lift out crankshaft.
Fortunately the Willunga Private Wreckers also has a thing for drawing and quartering old overalls. The sleeves and legs are very useful for putting long items like crankshafts, cylinder heads and piston/rod assemblies into for transport.
The cylinder block, pistons and conrods went into the boot; the crank on the passenger's rear floor, the head on the driver's rear floor, the flywheel, pressure plate, clutch, main bearing caps and rocker gear on the passenger's front floor, and the (cleaned) sump with bagged oil pump, pushrod cover and a tin of bolts also in the boot.
With the weight well distributed, the car didn't drag its tail; and I got strong to gale-force tailwinds all the way home.
Postscript: The Zucker-verse really is an insidious instrument of surveillance. I popped in at the Echuca Holden Museum on the way home. Tony G took a photo of my car out the front. Within ten minutes, he had a comment saying, 'I took a photo of that car at the Willunga swap yesterday.'
Freeing stuck piston rings: you need a *lot* of patience. It's easiest if the rings are worn, because then you have a bigger gap to work with. Once you can get a pair of external circlip pliers into the gap, the job becomes possible. But first, I drove a small nail into the gap (gently) to start freeing the ring. With the circlip pliers, much WD-40 and patience, you slowly free the ring up (including tapping the ring back into the groove with a brass drift at times). Finally you get to the point where you can rock the ring in the groove. It only takes another ten minutes or so to free it.
I could free up one ring in an hour. But I still think it's preferable to breaking the rings out in half-inch segments.
I now have six pistons with the rings removed. One of them has a little corrosion damage on the crown, but should be usable. The bores are not badly worn. The Greystanes Surplus Company has supplied a camshaft and rocker gear. And I've pulled eleven valves out of the head. The twelfth is putting up a fight. The guides are in very good condition. So under it all, this was a fairly good, low-mileage reconditioned motor. About the only thing that's not good is head gasket leaks between cylinders 2,3,4 and 5. But that seems to be par for the course for grey motors.
This is the second patient in the grey motor hospital at the moment; but it will have to wait until I've fixed the motor in "Found Object".
. . . and the keen eye will discern black marks on the head gasket which indicate leaks between cylinders 2,3,4 and 5.
The good thing about the early double-shim head gaskets is that if you're careful and the gasket isn't damaged, you can clean it up and re-use it. On the whole, I prefer the earlier type, but in these enlightened days, one must be mindful that they may contain asbestos.
Geez, reading that Rob ......... it seemed to take as long for you to dismantle that grey as it did for Clay to put the kettle on and knock out a batch of scones for your morning tea! Good stuff
Now when you come over for the Gawler swap meet (Sun 22 Sept) you need to run a Master Class on the finer points of grey motors. Any takers?
I'm glad your shed floor looks like mine... bare concrete, blobs of oil, and no worries about belting apart a grey motor on it. I see some of the pristine garage floors with chequed tiles or smooth epoxy and wonder how long it would take me to damage it
I learnt another grey motor tear down lesson yesterday. If you try to press off a damaged aluminium timing gear, it has a pretty fair chance of cracking into three pieces. The pieces then shoot across the garage at the speed of light. The remaining steel timing gear hub is no easier to get off... I see a grinder being used sometime soon.
Cheers,
Harv
327 Chev EK wagon, original EK ute for Number 1 Daughter, an FB sedan meth monster project and a BB/MD grey motored FED.
I think it was about three hours all up, of which making the motor turn over freely took one. Exhausting work, though.
The Gawler swap's on very soon, then? It's a nice thought, but it's a total of four days' driving there and back.
Maybe I could move to SA. Then I could see if I can buy my grandmother's house in Angaston. The back shed's quite large, as I remember . . .
On the other hand, I'm more than happy to give the master-classes in Sydney.
(The Mallee Highway is quite a good drive. If you don't mind endless wheat fields . . . but it puts one out on the wrong side of Adelaide for Gawler.)
It was slip down to mortgage vale and pick up my gumtree rear sway bar and pick up a couple of steak and kidney pies from the local bakery on the way home Stephen. By which time the job was complete bar a final degrease of the bare block and load in the FX.
Harv that garage floor has seen a few messy oil changes and glass jobs on a dozen surfboards, as well as quite a bit of work on various vehicles. That is the first grey motor tear down it has seen but I don’t think the last. Thanks for the lesson Rob.
FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie
getting my FB ute on the road
EK van on rotisserie
