Murph's 2.2s engine rebuild

[murph2309]

Hi, I've been on DDK for some time now, but this is my first serious posting, I'm having my engine re-built and want to capture the work that is going into it - thre's some real craftsmanship required to keep these old cars on the road, and there really aren't that many people who know how to do it properly anymore. I don't have any mechanical expertise - I'm learning how to ask for what I want, but have such respect for those on this forum who do this themselves. I'd have a guess at where to start, but would quickly end up with a usless box of bits. Know your limits! (I keep telling myself whenever I'm tempted to 'have a bit of a potter around')

My admiration for the work that has gone into this and the help that has been offered by the DDK community is something that I wanted to capture and share.

So I've had my 2.2s targa for about 10 years now. Originally a sorry looking import from California that had been in someone's barn for about 15 years. One top-end re-build, a respray and some carpets later, I got to drive it home. In those days, DDK was just a twinkle in someone's server and there really wasn't much information and support around for someone like me, & frankly I didn't have a clue. Nor it seems did the dealer I bought it from. On my journey home and driving into London on the A12, the throttle decided to stick. And not just a little bit, but at full open. And I was rapidly approaching the rear end of a traffic jam. Put my foot on the clutch and of course the engine revved & bumped off the limiter. Horrible. Thought I'd broken it. Turns out that whoever had put the engine back together again had put the throttle body connecting rods on incorrectly, and this had caused the accelerator 'moment'.

Anyway, I start with this to highlight how bad it can be when you know nothing and you have unscrupulous or incompetent people working on your car.

So 9 years later and a whole bunch of other issues that I won't bore you with, but with thousands of great fun miles (particularly an exuberant drive vs. a 996 in Cornwall on a flowing, twisty, never-below-5500-RPM-drive) the engine was definitely feeling its age. And it was time for a rebuild.

It started in summer '09 when DDKers recommended a number of engine-builders who were neither unscrupulous, nor incompetent. I decided to go with Mike B in The Lakes and haven't been disappointed with the choice - he's the man.

We're nearing completion and with a little time over Easter, I thought I'd document all the hard work (very little by me to be honest) that has gone into the re-building of the engine.

I'm hoping it will be ready in the next few weeks, but you know how these things are, it'll be ready when it's ready. Still, can't wait to get it back over 6k revs...!

So here's where it started:



Looks fine from a distance.

[johnM]

I was up at Mikes on wednesday, must say your engine and gearbox is looking very I bet you cant wait to get it back.

Kind Regards

[murph2309]

Thanks John - it's starting to take shape isn't it. I'm having to be very self disciplined about not rushing Mike in the end part of the build I really do want to get out on the road. But til then, this is how it started.

The closer you got, the more yucky it became.




Good spaghetti wires.




Check out the chipping on the fan and that lovely golden hue on the housing

Faded shroud and some stacks that have seen better days too



As you can see, she'd done her miles. And proudly so.

The thing I used to dread the most was stopping at traffic lights / roundabouts.....you know, anywhere where you stay standing for more than 20 seconds or so.

In the rear view mirror you'd see a cloud of smoke coming from under the rear wing that said - "its quite old....isn't it". Even worse, when I stopped to get petrol & turned the engine off, there was always a whisp of smoke that rapidly built into a billow. It came out of the grill, from under one wing, then the other. Kids would stop and stare (and not in an admiring way) and helpful technically-minded blokes would point to it to tell me that there was a good chance that my engine was on fire (thanks for pointing that out, fellas, I'd completely missed that). I knew it was just a little spot of oil out of the valve covers landing on the heat exchangers, nothing to worry about.

Then Mike asked me to take a couple of photos to give him an inkling of what lay beneath, and I realised why there was smoke....









I'm also guessing that heat + oil might lead to a little white smoke...

[johnM]

Yep it dosnt look like that any more

[murph2309]

So I trailered the car upto The Lakes and Mike dropped the engine out of the car in about 10 mins! and we had a closer look at what we had.


If you look closely in the background, there is a rare sighting of the Bainbridge - a camera-shy species caught here in his natural habitat






And then we started the tear-down. I say we, but I just undid a few nuts and was very proud of my contribution....Mike was clear that this was also the limit of the contribution...spanner monkey would be a generous description of my prowess.

Upshot was lots of dirt and oil, but starting to look like we were making progress







At this stage, no major problems detected. We did find that it had the wrong MFI pump (an 005 instead of an 009 - don't know why, it seems to have happened in its previous life) and it had one 2.4e throttle body that had been fitted...not impressed, that cost me £300 a couple of years ago.

Also found that the plastic air cleaner had melted at the bottom where it meets the stacks (result of little fires from the cold-start spray-bars).
Lots of perished oil lines, rust on tinwork, scabby HT leads and the fan shroud looked a fetching salmon pink - where it didn't have oil in the weave. But all in all, not too bad.

[murph2309]

Once we'd removed the heads and the cam towers, we wanted to get a view of what the Ps & Cs were like - and whilst they looked like they'd been well used, they were infact in spec, just needed a set of new rings.

But I wanted the engine to be as near bullet-proof as possible and don't want to go through another re-build, so we felt that we should give the cylinders a new lease of life.

Options were to bore out the cylinders & make a 2.5 with oversize J&E Pistons or to go for new Mahles & keep the 2.2. More horses are always welcome, but I wanted to keep the engine as near original as possible. I love the delivery the 2.2s gives and didn't want to change the character of the engine at all.

So it was decided to go for new Mahles. Gulp.





Bit of cleaning later (done by me....) and the old set are ready for their new owner - they're going to go into a 914/6 that's getting the MB treatment so nice to know they're getting a new home.



Looking at the heads, I knew that I had iffy valve guides that would need replacing, & probably a good idea to get a new set of springs all round, but was hoping that I wouldn't need too much in the way of valves as they can be quite pricey.

The inlets were OK, but all the exhaust valves were out of spec, so that was another thing for the shopping list



We'd also taken the gearbox apart to see what was going on with that.

Turns out that wasn't in great shape and needed 1st & 2nd dogteeth, synchro bands, input shaft bearing, re-surface the clamp plate and generally tidy-up and make good all the sloppiness that was in there.



The cams & rockers were all in good shape (very pleased about that). So very little else to be done on this trip other than to load up the shelves with my bits



And store the car - love this photo, that's a real RS2.7 underneath (nice car Nick), so keeping good company whilst the work continues & I return back down south with a list of bits to find on the internet and my MFI pump to go to Fred's for a full inspection & re-calibration to make it run properly for a 2.2s

[johnM]

If you look closely in the background, there is a rare sighting of the Bainbridge - a camera-shy species caught here in his natural habitat

Underneath a semi clad female

[hot66]

Underneath a semi clad female

his natural working environment

[murph2309]

Following the teardown, there was a list of parts to source; some new exhaust valves, springs all round and turbo valve covers that needed to be powder-coated to bring them back to an original black.



The pump was taken to Fred Pentecost, stripped, inspected, re-calibrated for a 2.2s and given a good clean.



S/H throttle bodies (with extra stacks not needed, but good TBs). These were 2.2e sportomatics, so they were destined to go to Alan at Canford Classics for the full re-build and bore out to s spec - more later on this, it really is quality work as ever from Alan



As we were doing the oil by-pass mod, I needed a 4 rib SC oil pump and luckily found one with a venturi screen, so feeling confident this will keep things flowing well. Mike took this apart and inspected everything to ensure no nasties being introduced to the heart of the engine



I've also invested in some new valve guides and new injectors as the old ones were just 'dribbly' as Mike put it after a quick check. They were just old and tired.

And finally, my most indulgent part of the re-build, some brand new Mahle Ps & Cs

[murph2309]

So the main reason I wanted a re-build was that I was worried that the engine was getting tighter and there were possible traces of main bearing in the oil. So was really keen to understand the state of the interior - new cranks are not easy to come by and certainly not cheap.

Ironically the fact that the engine dripped so much oil meant that there was a regular re-supply that as it turned out had kept the crank in good shape. It just needed a polish and a balance, although Mike's also done the oil squirt mod to the crank too, so this will keep it in good condition in the future.



No issues with the bearings (although they'd all need replacing of course) and the case didn't need align boring or anything like that. I'd thought of boat-tailing, but its never likely to be on a track, so this seemed a little excessive.

Now Mike could start to weave his dark arts starting with the oil bypass mod and a case time cert





The whole case was then given a thorough clean inside and out



No broken headstuds, so we decided to stick with the originals.

Then as I thought Mike could do with a little guidance (;-)) I helped by showing him where my new oil pump went. I think he was grateful that I had pointed this out to him (not....!)



So now it was all ready to start going back together again. We decided that new continuous chains would be wise (I'm not a fan of those split pins - just one of those nagging things at the back of your head as you nudge relentlessly towards the red-line).

Tinware & other random metal went out for zinc plating



Getting exciting.

[murph2309]

So once cleaned, inspected & case mods done, it was time to start putting it back together.

New Ps & Cs went on with newly plated cooling tinware



I also had the flywheel lightened and balanced to RS spec which should make it a bit more peppy



And the heads were cleaned & the new valves seated and insterted, guides and springs put in place, looking cool.



The fan-shroud was refurbished using shoe dye and wheel laquer (my contribution to the re-build & I have the red-streaked sink at home to prove it....my wife's really pleased with the new colour scheme on the sink...) I'm pleased with how that turned out, it still lets the weave show through and doesn't look like its been resprayed.

The cams were slotted in, towers put on and timing completed.

Hydraulic tensioners were put back in place and all the pipework yellow plated too. New oil pipes too as the others were old & perishing.

All looking like an engine again






Whilst we were yellow plating, Mike suggested that we did the oil pipes in the engine bay. This is a really good example of the detailing that Mike puts into his work. I hadn't even considered this, but it went from this




To this:



Only trouble is it highlights the scabby old sound insulation material, so we're going to have to get rid of that too and put some new insulation in place so that the engine bay is fit for the engine!

[murph2309]

I wanted to show how well the throttle bodies have turned out. We sent 3 down to Alan; the 2 s/h ones I'd bought and the one good 2.2s from my car. Alan decided when he saw them that he'd refurbish the original 2.2s t/b and that he's take one of the other e spec ones and open it up to an s spec.

They were disassembled, machined, faced, painted and came back looking like this:



Then new butterflies put in place with new bushings and we have a pair of to all intents and purposes brand spanking new t/bs.






How cool do they look! So a big thank-you to Alan on this for doing such a great job. I also think that I have to thank John M too who set these up on his test bench at home. Thanks John, much appreciated.

[murph2309]

So we're into the final stages - Tinware and engine mount back on with the new throttle bodies and some astonishingly bling yellow plated heat exchangers (my originals) - I'm told these will dull over time, but until then, we'll need to use sunglasses when looking under the car!






And with the newly painted muffler making it look almost complete





And that's me up to date on the build.....

Next up, powder-coated rocker covers, the fan and housing that are being chromated by Alan, new metal airbox (no more melting) and all the other bits and pieces like hard fuel lines & HT leads etc.

[hot66]

I was up at Mike's yesterday having a nosey about .... I bet the targa will fly when done

A 2.2S targa is a pretty rare car isn't it ? Can't be that many in the UK ( lhd or rhd)

[Mick Cliff]

I was up at Mike's yesterday having a nosey about....

There were quite a few of us up there yesterday