1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[sladey]

OK so today was a big day

The aim was to get the engine in the car and if all goes well maybe try to start it.

So first was getting it off the stand


Yes I know it’s on the wonk but good enough to get it onto me trolley


I took the chance to replace to the fuel filter which was easier with the engine out

While in there I noticed some surface corrosion around the inner ends of the torsion bars. Nothing major but I ground it back to metal, treated it with FE123 and then sprayed some dinitrol stonechip over the top


Now when I put it onto the engine stand there was a sensor on the top (back) of the engine that the stand interfered with so I couldn’t replace that until now.

The bolts didn’t seem to be going in very well so I tapped them out

One of them screwed in OK but the other one just kept turning. Sh*t. I looked at the stud


I wasn’t sure what that silver section was. Then I looked back at the threaded hole and bits of the thread didn’t look great. I had another look at the stud and then took a Stanley knife to it

Bugger. It had pulled out some of the thread from the hole.

Initially I thought I was going to have to tap it out to an M8 - which is doable if a little radical.

Then I measured the depth of the holes - one was 17mm and the other 18mm deep. The studs I was using were projecting 7mm into the hole, so plenty of depth there to play with. I tried a longer stud in the hole (without the bracket) and sure enough it gripped really well when it got down to the threads at the bottom.

I gave myself a couple of millimetres gap at the bottom so they wouldn’t bottom out and cut down a couple of longer studs to give me 15mm penetration into the hole. Nice.

These screwed in and held nice and tight



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[sladey]

Then it was time to fit the clutch. I searched and searched but couldn’t find the clutch centring tool I made about 15 years ago, so I made another one with an old socket bar and some tape



The tool worked great


I fitted the retaining bracket for the clutch spindle - the old one had split in two - no idea how that could have happened but got a nice new one in there now


And here it is, all ready to go in


While fitting the accelerator rod I noticed that the end of it (that hooks around a gizmo on the side of the gearbox had work really thin. I went to bulk it up with some weld but then I remembered I’m out of gas. bugger.

I reasoned it wasn’t likely to break soon and I put some alumslip on it to reduce any friction that might wear it some more, and then I ordered a new one. I can still fit it with the engine in the car (though it will be fiddly).

OK it’s showtime!


This is the first time I’ve done this since I got the lift. It’s a different way of thinking about things. Initially I did up the engine bolts and then tried to do the gearbox one but I found it impossible to move the gearbox sideways to make the holes line up.

I undid the engine mounts and with the car slightly clear of the gearbox I was able to manoeuvre it into the right place to get the gearbox studs in. It was them much easier to move the engine end to get the engine mounts in.

The thing I was most concerned about for the engine install was reconnecting the clutch slave cylinder. I have some bad memories of struggling with this before. You have to compress the rod in order to push it in enough to get the nuts on. I remember it being really hard to compress it. One time I remember Ian managed to do it when I couldn’t. Another time I can remember struggling for hours with it. So safe to say this was weighing on my mind…..


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[sladey]

I thought hopefully this time it would be different. I would be able to get it in the air with the lift so could hopefully get bigger muscles onto it (previously the car was on axles stands and I would have been lying on my back.

The other thing that was worrying me was that I needed to have the engine lowered slightly to give myself a bit more room. I wasn’t sure how much to lower it and still have enough threads to hold it. I had a concern that if I didn’t get this right I could have the disastrous scenario where the engine dropped from 5 feet in the air with me underneath it.

being crushed by my engine would have been a bit of a downer so I rigged up some insurance

The straps go over each wheel hub and then over the rear of the car. I reasoned that if the engine dropped this would stop a complete fall and I reasoned that I would be motivated to move pretty fast at that point.

In the end I wound the studs fully in and then wound them back 5 turns to give a bit of extra space but retain a decent safety margin.

I was able to access the slave cylinder while standing up which was a big improvement on lying on your back. However it was so cramped to get at it you still couldn’t engage your big muscles when trying to push it in - it still came down to forearms. Now although I’ve been doing pretty regular forearm training for the last 50 years there was no way I had enough strength to compress the rod enough to get a nut on.

Eventually I had a bit of a brainwave. I would loosen off the bleed nipple to relieve the pressure and then I would re-bleed the clutch afterwards.



This definitely helped and reduced the pressure. It still wasn’t exactly a walk in the park but eventually it gave enough to get one nut on. I was able to wind that in and then use that as a fulcrum to make it easier to get the other one on.

Finally!!



As more fluid came out it was looking a crappy dark colour so I was really glad I was bleeding it.

I’ve got a pressure bleeder so the actual bleeding was easy and the fluid came through nice and clear after a while. If I’ve got any air bubbles in then it won’t be the end of the world to have to bleed it again.

With that out of the way I started connecting everything up. This was good. As it was near the end of the day I decided to just focus on the connections underneath - oil pipes, half-shafts etc. I took my time over it and enjoyed the process.

And that’s where I’ve left it for today - tomorrow morning I’ve just got to connect all the pipes and wires in the engine compartment, fill it with oil, and then hopefully start it.

Anyway, today was a good day.






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[RobFrost]

Have you got an MAF on there? If so, what injection system?

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[rhd racer]

Def took the right path there - same as with the hydraulic clutch on a Boxster, if pressurised you can either bend the rod out of the slave cylinder or miss the dimple that it sits in. Take the pressure out and you have to bleed it, which is a ball ache, but better than replacing. By the way, for bleeding jack the car off the ground from one side at the rear to get the slave cylinder as high as possible to make bleeding easier. I have a pressure bleeder if you want to borrow it


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[Gary71]

Good to see it going back together Mark, these things do put up a fight sometimes!

Best of luck for the rest of the weekend

[sladey]

Have you got an MAF on there? If so, what injection system?

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Yep - it’s a Canems system. Been excellent

[sladey]

Def took the right path there - same as with the hydraulic clutch on a Boxster, if pressurised you can either bend the rod out of the slave cylinder or miss the dimple that it sits in. Take the pressure out and you have to bleed it, which is a ball ache, but better than replacing. By the way, for bleeding jack the car off the ground from one side at the rear to get the slave cylinder as high as possible to make bleeding easier. I have a pressure bleeder if you want to borrow it


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Thanks for that. I’ve got a pressure bleeder already thanks

[sladey]

Good to see it going back together Mark, these things do put up a fight sometimes!

Best of luck for the rest of the weekend

Thanks Gary.

Not going well today. I initially tried to start it with the engine earth not connected. Didn’t go well - rev counter flipping all over the place and lots of clicking.

Once I reconnected that it all behaved as normal. However it won’t start.

It’s turning over fine. I loosened off the fuel filter and there plenty of fuel in that - under a bit of pressure.

I connected a spark plug tester and I am also getting spark.

[Gary71]

Anything coming out of the injectors? Forgot plug the ECU in?

[Bruce M]

There is a chance you’ve fried a small earth wire (sensor earth or similar) as the starter motor earth would have taken any possible return path.

Haltech recommend earthing the ECU & all related components to the engine block for this reason. So there is no alternative path back to the battery, via ECU or related wiring (& no chance of false ground causing signal errors).

[sladey]

Anything coming out of the injectors? Forgot plug the ECU in?

Not this time


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[sladey]

There is a chance you’ve fried a small earth wire (sensor earth or similar) as the starter motor earth would have taken any possible return path.

Haltech recommend earthing the ECU & all related components to the engine block for this reason. So there is no alternative path back to the battery, via ECU or related wiring (& no chance of false ground causing signal errors).

Thanks Bruce. Is there a chance that could have fried the small earth lead in the new alternator - there’s a big earth in there but also a small one. But actually they earth to the engine which in turn wasn’t earthed.


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[sladey]

OK there is also a spare plug…..


It had the blue masking tape on it when I found it. I wondered if this is an unused plug as a result of the conversion to the fancy MAF and dizzy replacement. However I’ve just gone through all the instructions for both of those and can’t see any plugs that are left redundant by that process.

When dismantling I took this pic

The mystery plug is the one snaking out of the bottom of the picture - it comes out of the sheath that contains 2 of the plugs for the 3 sensor plugs higher up int he picture (what I was taking the picture of). The middle of those three comes from the back of the engine and I’ve found that and plugged it in.

I don’t know why the plug has masking tape on it. I don’t remember leaving an unplugged plug in the engine bay as when something is made redundant I tend to tape it up.

I have looked over and over and over and under and round and cannot for the life of me find something that should plug into


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[sladey]

No it’s not that plug

Here’s a picture from 5 years ago when the car was running fine



Looks like it’s just lying there then. It may have been connected to the engine bay fan which I removed years ago when I ‘backdated’ my heat

So I think that’s a dead end


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