my civic thread

[chromal]

The list of what isn't wrong seems to grow.

Removing the mains cap/girdle, the bottom half of the bearings all look... actually, pretty good, I think, especially for 211K:


Looking up at the crankshaft, again, seems clean:



I noticed some accumulated shrapnel sitting on the girdle below 4 and 3:



This led me down a brief flight of fancy that somehow the overtorqued crank pulley bolt caused a tug that destroyed a thrust bearing, but both of them slide readily around and looked OK.

Okay, now it's starting to really look like the classic D16Y8 spun rod bearings... I'm even guessing it's #3 or #4, but.. not all is yet revealed.

[chromal]

Took off the #3 rod bearing cap. Looked fine. Started taking off #4 and was already pretty sure I had my smoking gun, it moved side-to-side as I step-loosened the nuts.

#4 rod bearing was spun, half missing (or rather, at the bottom of the oil pan and in the oil filter), the other half galled onto the crankshaft rod journal.

NFC if I'm somehow responsible for this or not, but I guess it's academic. Looks like I'm going to need to do at least a partial bottom-end rebuild. I guess that could be as little as a crankshaft , connecting rod, and replacement bearings. Oh, and cylinder head gasket. :/ Mostly, though, I'm annoyed I'll have to part the transmission I just installed from the engine to get the crankshaft out.

EDIT: Honda stamps a tolerance number on the side of each connecting rod. The normal bore is 48mm, with rods that are marked 0, 1 (+0.006mm), 2 (+0.012mm), 3 (+0.018mm), or 4 (+0.024mm). The damaged rod is a '3.' FWIW, I actually have three clean '3' D16Y7 rods from the builder long block D16Y7 I picked up last autumn, though it's entirely possible, assuming the crankshaft is machinable, I would need to track down a '2' sized rod after they remove material from the affected crankshaft rod journal.

[chromal]

Today I picked up a lightly used 2-ton engine hoist, load leveller, and transmission jack from a craigslist seller in Arvada. Also bought a Harbor Freight 750-lb engine stand. If I'm going to have to do this crap over and over again, I might as well have the right tools for the job...

Completed most of the prep work for pulling the engine and tranny; harness wires, intake assembly, belt accessories -- all removed from engine. Trying to decide whether to drop transmission and pull engine, or try to pull the whole mess up in one go...

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Work continues...





unpictured:

Tranny separated from engine, engine mounted on engine stand.

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Stripped more externals off the engine this evening. Distributor, VTEC solenoid, water pipe and thermostat housing, alternator and brackets for same. Pulled the valve cover, and removed (and left removed) both the oil pan and main bearings cap/girdle.

What's next?
Since the timing belt itself has got 105K and must be replaced, I'm probably just going to cut the timing belt off so that I can remove the cylinder head and individual pistons/rods while waiting for the bolt extractor to arrive.. Beyond that, it's mainly a matter of removing the crank pulley bolt, the harmonic balancer / main pulley, the timing sprocket, and the oil pump assembly before I can get the crankshaft free from the engine.

Am thinking of taking the crankshaft to Western Engine Supply (http://westernenginesupply.com/) to have the no. 4 crankshaft rod bearing machined and polished, ($90). I have not yet decided what else I'll have done to it, but possibilities include having the block jetwashed, and having the cylinder head belted and jetwashed. I'm not sure if it'd be worth having the rod remachined and polished (I have three used equivalent connecting rods from another D16 engine) or not. Another big unknown is what sort of measurements I'll see on the cylinder sleeves and whether I should re-hone and re-ring.

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My Irwin bolt extractors arrived from mechanicstoolsupply.com, and so I shot out to O'Reilly and rented the Honda crank pulley tool again. I stuck the 18" breaker bar on the pulley holder and a 15" (or so) breaker bar on the 25mm socket holding the 17mm bolt extractor socket. Not even close. I went at the bolt for a while with a blow torch used for soldering copper plumbing and then went back at it.

This time, I added a 4' cheater bar to the breaker bar on the socket. No biscuit. I stuck a 2x4 and then a section of tree trunk under the breaker bar on the pulley holder. No luck, though this was beginning the lift the engine and engine stand.

Finally, I dug around and found an eight or ten foot long section of steel pipe taken, I guess, from an old well. This had been hanging around under the front deck of my house since I bought it. Anyway, I put this mega cheater bar on the pulley holder breaker bar and then stood on the 4' cheater bar. I figured I'd either free the bolt or break a tool at this point, but fortunately, the bolt extractor held and the bolt was freed.



If bar is not big enough, add moar bar.

Next: Remove cylinder head, remove pistons, remove crankshaft. Dial bore gauge in cylinders and then plan which machine shop services to hire.

[RX-7 Chris]

wow not that is a breaker bar, lol. An impact might have really helped with that.

[tsx_guy]

this is so cool!

[chromal]

I calibrated my dial bore gauge on a micrometer, then checked the X and Y cylinder bore measurements on all four cylinders:

Code: Select all

calculated metric bore sizes (all units mm)
x (parallel to crank) / y (perpendicular to crank) @ (t)op (m)iddle (b)ottom of cylinder

   cyl   x: t       m       b       y: t       m       b
   ---------------------------------------------------------
   cyl 1:  75.41  75.33  75.03        75.25   75.15   75.15      
   cyl 2:  75.00  75.03  75.15        75.51   75.25   75.18
   cyl 3:  75.03  75.28  75.15        75.46   75.20   75.15
   cyl 4:  75.31  75.37  75.15        75.36   75.20   75.33

75.00mm is stock. Field service manual states that the stock bore service limit is 75.07mm. (Honda service manual specifies +0.25mm and +0.5mm overbores are permissible). The wider off spec the cylinder sleeve becomes, the more blow by, lost compression, and piston slap can occur... These aren't the numbers I was hoping to see, though at 211K original miles on the engine, they're not that surprising.

I'm at a crossroads in this project; I can fix just the crankshaft and replace just the bearings, or I can do a full rebuild, which means rebore all the cylinders in the engine block to +0.5mm and replace all the pistons with +0.5mm oversize ones. This would add about 20cc of volume to the engine (1.61l) and between this and the belting of the cylinder head might add a tiny amount of compression overall. (+0.2:1 or raise 9.6 to about 9.8:1 total).

It's one of those things. I wouldn't have even considered it if I didn't already have the engine out of the car, and I'm still not really sure how necessary it is; the car might well make 300K without the overbore. If this were an engine/car I intended to keep and drive personally, I wouldn't hesitate to do it, but it'll add several hundred dollars to the project cost, money I may lose when I go to sell the car. That and the KISS principle-- the more I do, the more opportunities to screw something up.

I'll probably go ahead and do the full rebuild, however-- how can I walk away from an opportunity to actually get some experience doing this, especially since I'll probably need to turn around and do it on my civic hatchback (225K) before long. Fortunately, online mailorder OEM overbore P2P pistons are only $50 each... Am still trying to decide which of the many many local machine shops I want to hire services from.

EDIT: Actually, take the above paragraph with a grain of salt. I'm still very much on the fence about this. My roommate seems to think I should stick with my project goals of getting this thing in reasonable street safe shape for as little cash as is necessary, nobody's going to pay me more because I rebuilt the engine on a 211K civic. Bleh, maybe I'll just machine the crank journal, replace the bearings and seals, and put it back together...

[tsx_guy]

if you were going to keep it i'd do the full.... that is all...

[chromal]

I wish it were a hatchback with a manual. Oh well! Over the weekend, I'll probably continue to do disassembly and cleaning, and get some of the parts I know I'll need on order. I'll try to have everything ready so I can get what needs getting over to the machine shop on Monday. Gotta keep the ball rolling forward...

[chromal]

Took the crankshaft and rods/pistons down to 'Colorado Custom Cylinder Heads' in Englewood on recommendation by Drew of 'Heads by Drew' in Aurora (who is a go-to guy in the national civic engine builders/tuners forum scene). I enjoy talking to him, he seems genuinely into what he does, and had some suggestions for how I might proceed with a turbo hatch build later. (re-sleeve D16 block for FI).

They think they'll probably have to weld the damaged crankshaft journal and that the rod may be beyond repair. I'm going to return with another crankshaft I have sitting around, this one from that D16Y7 long block I bought last fall with the spun rod bearing on #1. Whichever of the two is cheapest to put back into service wins. I'll also bring some D16Y7 rods (which are identical in all ways to D16Y8 rods) as possible doners.

I'm told there's a small risk that the piston itself will be damaged when separating it from the rod by pressing out the piston/wrist pin.

After that, I ran down to Wizard Machine/Welding in Golden with the bare block, cylinder head, oil pan, and valve cover. They're going to jetwash everything and then prepare the cylinder head mating surface.

I explained the recent history of the engine to the senior mechanics at each shop, neither think the incident with the breaker bar likely had much to do with the rod bearing failures. The (formerly) clogged catalytic converter (now unclogged) aroused some suspicion, along with the high miles. I guess I'll never know for sure, though Bill @ Wizards cautioned me against completing the rebuild unless I'm pretty sure I do know, lest I recreate the failure. Perhaps we'll find the crankshaft isn't true, a clogged oil path, something... time will tell?

[chromal]

So, Wizard's finished the jetwashing, said the cylinder head looked good as-is for remount with under 0.002" warpage, no belting/decking/milling needed.

The jetwashing is very effective at removing all grease from the components cleaned in it, but it does tend to leave everything coated in a grey residue, and will leave surface rust on any machine surfaces that aren't immediately dried. Because of this, it's really just a starting point after disassembling an engine or cylinder head. From there, a hand assembly cleaning is paramount, with special attention paid to all oil journals and machined surfaces. I started this process, but it is time consuming as I alternate between WD-40, paper towels, microfiber cloth... I need to get my air compressor back to run 150 PSI cleaning blasts and probably also run out and buy some cylindrical brushes for cleaning various oil journals and returns.



To really clean things properly (and then assembly lubricate), it's necessary to disassemble the cylinder head. This requires some care as all rocker arms should be returned to their original location, so parts are labeled and organized as they come off the assembly. Having come this far, it'd be a shame to not at least clean the valve seats, especially since this particular engine had been running too rich for some time, and left a bunch of hard carbon deposits on the valves and valve seats.

I also spoke with Glen at CCCH. The crankshaft is finished, and they should have the no.4 rod swapped with a clean(er) one and the bearings by Tuesday. That should give me a couple of days to complete my efforts to clean things up in preparation for the final assembly. There remains a risk that the piston will be damaged when swapping the rod. If this happens, I'll have to probably bite the bullet and re-piston the engine to OE spec overbore of +0.5mm. Since the goal isn't an awesome engine I can drive a very very long time, but instead a passable engine the next owner can drive trouble-free for at least a few years and a car I can sell ... well, at cost is my most realistic hope... this is touch and go. There's just no more money for it.

[chromal]

After work last night, I ran out to O'Reilly Auto and picked up some valve lapping compound and a lapping tool (suction cups on a wooden handle), and then ran down to the Lakewood Harbor Freight and picked up a bunch of tools, including a OHC valve spring compressor tool, piston ring compressor tool, piston ring removal tool (which I don't expect to use on this project), some hex sockets, dremel tool metal brushes, etc. Finally, today, I picked up a set of exhaust and intake valve seals over at NAPA. I found it necessary to 'modify' the HF valve spring compressor tool (it was designed for larger springs with wider retainer caps) by compressing the retainer press in my vice. c_c



Spent an hour or three out on the front deck cleaning the cylinder head, valve cover, and oil pan. Used brake cleaner and a dremel tool wire brush on the cylinder head combustion chamber and valve bottoms, removing the built up carbon from the intake valves and a mineral scale-like buildup from the exhaust valves. With the cylinder head assembly inverted and combustion chambers facing upwards, I was happy to see that none of the solvent liquid was leaking through between the valves and valve seats. By the time I was wrapping this up, it had started to rain, so I went inside...



One at a time (so as not to need to bother with keeping them organized), removed each intake valve spring retainer and spring, removed the valve, and valve seal. oiled and installed new valve seal, re-oiled valve stem, used a fine grinding compound on the valve/valve-seat interface, and lapped each intake valve. Removed and cleaned valve and valve seats of grinding compound, and finally re-oiled and re-install installed valve, spring, and retainer. It was satisfying to pull the valves stiffly out of their guides and then have them sliding smoothly after the clean and re-lubrication, also to do the lapping and take it from rough movement to smooth spinning, and see a nice smooth grey ring on the valve back and valve seat.



After removing and reinstalling most of the valve spring and retainers, I realized that this was not a job I'd ever want to do in-situ on a car, even though it is theoretically possible. Several times while removing and installing the valve spring retainer clips, the clips fell down oil return journals, and would have been in the engine bottom end if not for the fact that this was a loose cylinder head assembly (on the floor, so bits and pieces couldn't bounce away and hide if dropped.) Naturally, on the last intake valve, I flubbed removing the retainer, and the spring sprung the retainer clips across the room. I found one, the other is... AWOL, haha. Pulled the missing part from the spare D-series engine cylinder head from that long block I bought last year. (It's really handy having a nearly identical engine sitting around for spare parts.)

Here's where the block's at today. Bare and still being cleaned:



Tomorrow, more block cleaning and hopefully will replace all the exhaust valve seals and do valve lapping.

[chromal]

I wind up doing other stuff for the next eight to ten weeks. Back to present, shortly after I get my air compressor back from loaning it to friends, I resumed work in earnest.



On Sunday, I finished cleaning all the individual pieces of the cylinder head valve train, each in turn soaked in kerosene and then hand-dried and lubricated with synthetic 5w-30. Pains were made to be sure every last piece went back in the position it originated. (It's a relief to have it all back together rather the spread around in labeled ziplock freezer bags.)

I then very carefully rejoined the cleaned and oiled camshaft to the cylinder head in TDC. Then, I secured it with the cam holder and rocker arm assembly, bolted down in torque order and spec. Applied liquid gasket at front and back corner contact points as per honda field service manual. While securing the last four 12ft-lb 8mm-head bolts, the last one on the cam pulley side sheared in two. Replacement bolt ordered, hopefully I can get the stub out with pliers. We'll see..

As much as I hate to say it, I'll probably have to partially disassemble this once more-- These springs are directional, and I have installed them backwards. Fortunately, the rocker arm assembly can separate whole... (edit: all springs are now reversed to heavy side down. Once I have the bolt stub removed, I'll reassemble and call it done.)

Next: engine block final assembly cleaning, bearings and crankshaft assembly to measure tolerances with plastigauge. Barring problems, piston reassembly to block/crank. Crankshaft seals, oil pump, oil pan follow, with more liquid gasket procedures to adhere to as per factory service manual. From there, it's all external engine work.