Track Days 2023 & 2022 - Lets keep this going
03-14-2024, 05:30 AM
#311
Reporting in! I've really been scattered - lots of projects, nothing completed.
Fender job - hope to paint today. I have been bogged down in preparation.
1622 engine - tearing it down.
1. Head still at the machine shop trying to find the right spring and valve retainer combination for the high lift camshaft. I brought in some old 1500 / 1600 valve retainers that I scrounged from the "junk parts" bin. They had a much narrower thickness that the ones I originally brought in, so perhaps a fix.
2. I pulled the camshaft and it is not equipped with the mechanical tach drive. If all the lobes measure to spec, I'll need to bring into the shop for modification for the mechanical drive.
3. The oil pan work has been set to the side, but my plan is to cut out and replace the oil pan baffle. I feel that it sits too low in the pan and that it hole for the dipstick is misaligned and will result in a false reading for the uninformed.
Yesterday, I was helping my mentor, Glenn R., assemble his Renault CV-4 "race engine". It should come in at about have about 800 cc, up from the stock 760 cc engine. I'm thinking he will be a major threat in the pedal car class! (
Fender job - hope to paint today. I have been bogged down in preparation.
1622 engine - tearing it down.
1. Head still at the machine shop trying to find the right spring and valve retainer combination for the high lift camshaft. I brought in some old 1500 / 1600 valve retainers that I scrounged from the "junk parts" bin. They had a much narrower thickness that the ones I originally brought in, so perhaps a fix.
2. I pulled the camshaft and it is not equipped with the mechanical tach drive. If all the lobes measure to spec, I'll need to bring into the shop for modification for the mechanical drive.
3. The oil pan work has been set to the side, but my plan is to cut out and replace the oil pan baffle. I feel that it sits too low in the pan and that it hole for the dipstick is misaligned and will result in a false reading for the uninformed.
Yesterday, I was helping my mentor, Glenn R., assemble his Renault CV-4 "race engine". It should come in at about have about 800 cc, up from the stock 760 cc engine. I'm thinking he will be a major threat in the pedal car class! (
03-14-2024, 05:52 AM
#312
Former Moderator
Thread Starter
I had no idea Glen has one of those. You should share pics.
when’s the first event of the season? Based on past performance you should be able to get it done.
signed up to instruct in April at Lime Rock with BMWCCA. The 27th.
Then will be at Pocono in June for the SCCA Time Trials National Tour to help the Millers with cooking.
then later in June at Palmer volunteering for a joint MoHud Time Trial and Track Day with BMWCCA.
might also volunteer at a CART event later this year in September.
when’s the first event of the season? Based on past performance you should be able to get it done.
signed up to instruct in April at Lime Rock with BMWCCA. The 27th.
Then will be at Pocono in June for the SCCA Time Trials National Tour to help the Millers with cooking.
then later in June at Palmer volunteering for a joint MoHud Time Trial and Track Day with BMWCCA.
might also volunteer at a CART event later this year in September.
03-23-2024, 12:56 PM
#315
I was forced indoors today and finished up my fender. For a guy who never pounded out a dent and who can't spray a rattle can without multiple drips, the fender turned out better than expected. I'm particularly happy about the color match. I painted the fender, the taillight is untouched.
03-30-2024, 03:56 PM
#318
Serviced the battery, changed the engine oil, swapped out the anti-freeze for No-Rosion, dropped the car off the jack stands and torqued the wheel nuts. Needs a wash, but for the most part it seems ready to go.
04-16-2024, 07:11 PM
#320
Maintaining the tow vehicle may be part of racing. A short saga of my timing belt replacement - a job not for the faint hearted!
I think I purchased the car in 2020 with about 136,000 miles. But with no known service history and now 160,070 miles, I decided that I needed to replace the timing belt. For the most part, I tried to follow the procedure described in the Toyota service manual.
The car had come with the AISIN Water Pump – Timing Belt Replacement Kit, Kit TKT-014 which included the following components: a new AISIN water pump with gasket and a gasket for the thermostat; the new timing belt by Mitsubishi; a new hydraulic tensioner; a new tensioner bearing; and a new idler bearing. Not included in the kit, but also installed were a new crankshaft bolt and three new belts for alternator, air conditioner and power steering. Also installed was new antifreeze coolant.
I consider myself a reasonably competent shade tree mechanic with a reasonable compliment of hand tools and an impact gun, but the job was pretty tough and I needed to buy a few tools along the way at Harbor Freight. I needed one of those bent screwdriver prybars to remove the fan. I was going to make one from an old screwdriver, but for $7.00 I bought one at Harbor Freight instead. Once the fan was off, the removal of the belts and peripheral components was tedious, but fairly straight forward. But a very healthy variety of wrenches and sockets and the 3/4", 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" ratchets with 3" and 6" extensions and a breaker bar was more or less mandatory. Some 16 inch reach wrenches would have come in very handy!
I was never able to pull a single spark plug wire, so I worked against engine compression when rotating the engine.
I suppose I didn't have a feasible plan for removing the crankshaft bolt. The crankshaft bolt is torqued to 180 foot pounds and unbeknownst to me, comes with green thread locker. My 350 ft lb impact gun was no match for the crank bolt! My breaker bar was no match for the crank bolt! A gorilla might be strong enough and available in some cases, but no circus was coming to my town for the foreseeable future!
One popular option is to use the starter to break the crankshaft bolt. By the time I was forced to consider using the starter to break that bolt loose, I had already removed the timing belt and feared the consequences.
To remove the nuts holding the camshafts, I was able to fashion a tool to hold the camshaft sprockets steady while using the impact gun to loosen the nuts. Not too difficult, as those nuts are torqued to 70 ft lbs.
But I was never able to fashion a tool sufficiently strong to hold the crankshaft steady while I tried to muscle it off. Ultimately, I came up with the following approach to be used by other overly optimistic, hapless, wannabe mechanics finding themselves stymied mid job.
The crankshaft pulley is held in the center by the crankshaft bolt. But attached to the crankshaft pulley by four small bolts is the power steering pulley. I had removed the power steering pulley. After a lot of failure by trial and error by other means, I had a short piece of chain that I wrapped around the frame as tightly as I could and bolted it together to be held there. I then took the loose end and bolted that to the crankshaft pulley using a bolt hole for the power steering pulley with one longer bolt and some washers. When trying to loosen the crankshaft bolt, I attached on top. When tightening at the "end of the job" I attached on the bottom.
All very well and good, but with about 20 degrees of play when force applied. But even with the crankshaft pulley chained to the frame, I was unable to remove the crank bolt. I feared that my 32" breaker bar was going to snap. I tried the big ratchet with a 3/4" drive, but that didn't work. Ultimately, I got a three foot piece of 1.5" pipe onto the big ratchet. I padded the car pretty heavily in case (a) the chain broke; (b) the bolt holding it to the crank pulley broke; or (c) the ratchet broke; but ultimately with an ungodly amount of strain on the chain - and my back! - the crank bolt broke loose.
During reassembly, I had a bit of a problem in that my torque wrench only goes to 150 ft lbs. I torqued the bolt to the 150 ft lbs. Then, I swapped back to the 3/4" ratchet and turned the bolt another 15 or 20 degrees. In both cases, I used the pipe.
Another time consuming conundrum involved setting up the timing belt on the crankshaft timing gear that sits within/under the crankshaft pulley. The service manual says "align the installation mark on the timing belt with the dot mark on the crankshaft timing pulley." That dot is so small that it is virtually impossible to see unless you know what it looks like and where to look. When the timing gear is installed on the shaft, the dot is at the very bottom (the 6:00 o'clock position) of the gear. The crankshaft mark on the belt is supposed to be aligned with this tiny dot. But once I figured that out and found that elusive dot, the rest of the timing belt installation was little trouble.
The final puzzle had to do with the engine coolant. I had drained at least two gallons of coolant from the radiator and engine and it was pretty decrepit stuff. I flushed the radiator and I also removed and flushed the radiator overflow canister. When refilling the radiator, however, it only took about two quarts. I was very nervous about starting the car and running it without sufficient coolant in the block. I puzzled over this for quite some time, but could not come up with a solution for backfeeding coolant into the block or "burping" or bleeding the air out of the system. Ultimately, I started the car and monitored the radiator and hose temperatures with an infrared sensor as well as the gauge. Several times, when it seemed to get too hot, I shut it off. Eventually I discovered that air was bleeding off into the overflow canister, and then as the radiator cooled, fluid in the canister was drawn back into the radiator. So I filled the overflow canister maybe 4 times until I had refilled the system with the two gallons originally drained.
Otherwise the job is done. The car runs. I think the job should take a Toyota mechanic 5 hours. It took me six days!
I think I purchased the car in 2020 with about 136,000 miles. But with no known service history and now 160,070 miles, I decided that I needed to replace the timing belt. For the most part, I tried to follow the procedure described in the Toyota service manual.
The car had come with the AISIN Water Pump – Timing Belt Replacement Kit, Kit TKT-014 which included the following components: a new AISIN water pump with gasket and a gasket for the thermostat; the new timing belt by Mitsubishi; a new hydraulic tensioner; a new tensioner bearing; and a new idler bearing. Not included in the kit, but also installed were a new crankshaft bolt and three new belts for alternator, air conditioner and power steering. Also installed was new antifreeze coolant.
I consider myself a reasonably competent shade tree mechanic with a reasonable compliment of hand tools and an impact gun, but the job was pretty tough and I needed to buy a few tools along the way at Harbor Freight. I needed one of those bent screwdriver prybars to remove the fan. I was going to make one from an old screwdriver, but for $7.00 I bought one at Harbor Freight instead. Once the fan was off, the removal of the belts and peripheral components was tedious, but fairly straight forward. But a very healthy variety of wrenches and sockets and the 3/4", 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" ratchets with 3" and 6" extensions and a breaker bar was more or less mandatory. Some 16 inch reach wrenches would have come in very handy!
I was never able to pull a single spark plug wire, so I worked against engine compression when rotating the engine.
I suppose I didn't have a feasible plan for removing the crankshaft bolt. The crankshaft bolt is torqued to 180 foot pounds and unbeknownst to me, comes with green thread locker. My 350 ft lb impact gun was no match for the crank bolt! My breaker bar was no match for the crank bolt! A gorilla might be strong enough and available in some cases, but no circus was coming to my town for the foreseeable future!
One popular option is to use the starter to break the crankshaft bolt. By the time I was forced to consider using the starter to break that bolt loose, I had already removed the timing belt and feared the consequences.
To remove the nuts holding the camshafts, I was able to fashion a tool to hold the camshaft sprockets steady while using the impact gun to loosen the nuts. Not too difficult, as those nuts are torqued to 70 ft lbs.
But I was never able to fashion a tool sufficiently strong to hold the crankshaft steady while I tried to muscle it off. Ultimately, I came up with the following approach to be used by other overly optimistic, hapless, wannabe mechanics finding themselves stymied mid job.
The crankshaft pulley is held in the center by the crankshaft bolt. But attached to the crankshaft pulley by four small bolts is the power steering pulley. I had removed the power steering pulley. After a lot of failure by trial and error by other means, I had a short piece of chain that I wrapped around the frame as tightly as I could and bolted it together to be held there. I then took the loose end and bolted that to the crankshaft pulley using a bolt hole for the power steering pulley with one longer bolt and some washers. When trying to loosen the crankshaft bolt, I attached on top. When tightening at the "end of the job" I attached on the bottom.
All very well and good, but with about 20 degrees of play when force applied. But even with the crankshaft pulley chained to the frame, I was unable to remove the crank bolt. I feared that my 32" breaker bar was going to snap. I tried the big ratchet with a 3/4" drive, but that didn't work. Ultimately, I got a three foot piece of 1.5" pipe onto the big ratchet. I padded the car pretty heavily in case (a) the chain broke; (b) the bolt holding it to the crank pulley broke; or (c) the ratchet broke; but ultimately with an ungodly amount of strain on the chain - and my back! - the crank bolt broke loose.
During reassembly, I had a bit of a problem in that my torque wrench only goes to 150 ft lbs. I torqued the bolt to the 150 ft lbs. Then, I swapped back to the 3/4" ratchet and turned the bolt another 15 or 20 degrees. In both cases, I used the pipe.
Another time consuming conundrum involved setting up the timing belt on the crankshaft timing gear that sits within/under the crankshaft pulley. The service manual says "align the installation mark on the timing belt with the dot mark on the crankshaft timing pulley." That dot is so small that it is virtually impossible to see unless you know what it looks like and where to look. When the timing gear is installed on the shaft, the dot is at the very bottom (the 6:00 o'clock position) of the gear. The crankshaft mark on the belt is supposed to be aligned with this tiny dot. But once I figured that out and found that elusive dot, the rest of the timing belt installation was little trouble.
The final puzzle had to do with the engine coolant. I had drained at least two gallons of coolant from the radiator and engine and it was pretty decrepit stuff. I flushed the radiator and I also removed and flushed the radiator overflow canister. When refilling the radiator, however, it only took about two quarts. I was very nervous about starting the car and running it without sufficient coolant in the block. I puzzled over this for quite some time, but could not come up with a solution for backfeeding coolant into the block or "burping" or bleeding the air out of the system. Ultimately, I started the car and monitored the radiator and hose temperatures with an infrared sensor as well as the gauge. Several times, when it seemed to get too hot, I shut it off. Eventually I discovered that air was bleeding off into the overflow canister, and then as the radiator cooled, fluid in the canister was drawn back into the radiator. So I filled the overflow canister maybe 4 times until I had refilled the system with the two gallons originally drained.
Otherwise the job is done. The car runs. I think the job should take a Toyota mechanic 5 hours. It took me six days!
The following users liked this post:
A 2 (04-17-2024)