998 Automatic #2 Rebuild

[MiniDave]

OK, so I'm back on my feet - somewhat - and have started going down to the shop now that it's 40* outside and not -10!

I am walking without assistance and although not smooth I'm getting there and I decided it was time to get up and get moving again. Today I'm just cleaning and putting away tools, then organizing parts and getting set up to do some work.

We're supposed to have 60* on Tues, then fall back into the mid-40's for the rest of the month and early March, but I can deal with those temps!

I have the 998 head soaking in Evaporust (well halfway - that's all that would fit in the bucket) and in a few days I'll pull it out turn it over and drop it in for another few days. Judging by the color of the liquid, it seems to be doing it's job!

I have most of the parts I need, tho I haven't heard from the machine shop about the crank so I can order bearings. I'll call them Monday, but chances are good they haven't gotten to it yet - it's only been 2 weeks!

I have a bunch of parts at the powdercoaters ready and waiting to be picked up too.

The owner isn't in a huge hurry to get this 998 and since I sent the trans off to California I haven't heard whether he got all the parts he needed yet either. I'll call him on Monday too

Lastly, the car that this motor is going into is still being painted, so I have a little breathing room. But, I can see a lot of jobs that are going to become time sensitive in a hurry now that the weather has changed.

I have two Sprite race gearboxes to build ( all the parts are here for those) two Mini gearboxes to build and three Mini engines to build. A LOT of work to keep me, the machine shop and DHL busy delivering parts!

Once the car is done, it will be brought up to me to drop this motor in, but that's as far as I'm going with it - the rest is up to the owner as it's a bare shell - no wiring, instruments or anything.

Of course, I want to get going on my electronic fuel injection project too! As my wife says, I'm a complete failure at retirement!

[cstudep]

Retirement is for doing what you enjoy, so I'd say if you enjoy it, you are doing pretty good. No way I could just sit around doing nothing, I'd have to have some sort of "job" to do or I'd go crazy.

[MiniDave]

Machine shop called me back Tuesday and said the crank checks out really well, so std bearings it is.....I had a little trouble finding some - the MiniSpares online site said they were out but I sent an email off to my buddy at the north MiniSpares depot and he said they had them, so he'll send them south and they'll add them to my order. I got the last few bits coming that I think I'll need - of course there's always something else but I'm hopeful that I have it in stock, whatever it is.

This morning I drove the 30 miles up to the powdercoaters and picked up a bunch of parts.

The head is ready to come out of the Evaporust bath, we'll see how it looks, I had already scraped most of the rust out so it shouldn't have taken much to get the last bits out. When the block comes back I'm going to make a block off plate for the water pump, put in the freeze plugs and fill the block with Evaporust and let it soak for a week or so, that's the best I can do. The machine shop will have already washed it out twice, but I don't think the jet washer will do much about the rust, hence my final bath.

Turns out Nick did get the rest of the parts for the auto trans and he though he might get started on it this week.

Walked the boys all the way to the end of the block and back last night - it's not that far - only 4 houses - but it's the most I've done up till now. I'm going to start trying to do that every day, each day going a little further.

Second pic is John Styer's new 1800 sq ft 2 level shop!

[BruceK]

Glad to hear your leg is bending in the middle as designed!      Hope the pain is going down as quickly as possible.

John’s shop looks incredible. 

[Willie_B]

I bet the boys are enjoying the extra walks. Dad time is always good. Sounds like you are feeling less worse every day. Well, except for PT days.

[MiniDave]

"Sounds like you are feeling less worse every day. Well, except for PT days."

Exactly.....

[MiniDave]

Yesterday I drove out to the machine shop and had them load the block, crank and pistons into the blue Mini and brought them home.

Today I re-arranged the shop enough that I could roll my hydraulic table over to the door, lined it up with the load floor on the Mini and slid the block right out onto the table - easy peasy!

I decided that even tho the block was really clean (see pics) the water jacket was still fairly coated with rust, so I divined a way to put Evaporust into just the water jacket. I had all the freeze plugs in, and found the plug for the block drain, then I put an old water pump on and covered the hose end, then put a short piece of tubing on the bypass so I could use a funnel to pour the Evaporust into the block. It worked a treat.....I'll leave it for at least a few days while it's somewhat warmish and just let it work, then I can remove the block drain plug and let it out....flushing will be interesting, but If I can get some help to carry it out to the driveway I can just use the hose and rinse it out.

Crank and rods checked out perfectly, so I have std mains and rod bearings on the way, they micro polished the crank and it looks fantastic.

Then it should be ready to build.

First, a good coat of etch prime, then paint. He wants this one the same color as the last one - Resida green..... and he wants me to paint everything, transmission, torque converter housing, drop gear housing etc. so I'll run out to the paint store and see if I can score another batch.

In the meantime I'm going to do a little port work on the head.....

[MiniDave]

Did a little port matching, now it's ready to go to the machine shop tomorrow morning. I could have it back by the weekend, and the rest of the bearings and small parts should be here by then too. I'll see about getting the paint and getting a coat of etch primer on so I can get the main color on too. The rest of this week should be warm enough to do some painting. When the transmission gets here mid-March I should be ready to join them up and make some noise.

That reminds me, I need to get the header off and get it ceramic coated too!

[94touring]

This engine is for the pickup I need to finish?

[Willie_B]

Looks nice and smooth.

[Jimini II]

Did a little port matching, now it's ready to go to the machine shop tomorrow morning. I could have it back by the weekend, and the rest of the bearings and small parts should be here by then too. I'll see about getting the paint and getting a coat of etch primer on so I can get the main color on too. The rest of this week should be warm enough to do some painting. When the transmission gets here mid-March I should be ready to joint them up and make some noise.

That reminds me, I need to get the header off and get it ceramic coated too!

Nice work Dave.
When Mike Guido built his engine for his GTM Mini based kit car he matched the intake up to the ports then with it bolted in place drilled two holes through the manifold into the head and installed roll pins as locaters.
As there is wiggle room on the intake especially aftermarket ones I thought this was a good idea, similar to the rings they use on twin HS2's to align them to the ports.

[MiniDave]

This engine is for the pickup I need to finish?

Yes, but there's no rush, even if I get my end done....I have a LOT of other work to finish and I only get a few hours a day of work in.

[MiniDave]

Did a little port matching, now it's ready to go to the machine shop tomorrow morning. I could have it back by the weekend, and the rest of the bearings and small parts should be here by then too. I'll see about getting the paint and getting a coat of etch primer on so I can get the main color on too. The rest of this week should be warm enough to do some painting. When the transmission gets here mid-March I should be ready to joint them up and make some noise.

That reminds me, I need to get the header off and get it ceramic coated too!

Nice work Dave.
When Mike Guido built his engine for his GTM Mini based kit car he matched the intake up to the ports then with it bolted in place drilled two holes through the manifold into the head and installed roll pins as locaters.
As there is wiggle room on the intake especially aftermarket ones I thought this was a good idea, similar to the rings they use on twin HS2's to align them to the ports.

Yes, I did the same for the intake on the Innocenti......

[MiniDave]

Looks nice and smooth.

You have to be very careful on these 998 heads, so you don't go into the push rod holes.

[MiniDave]

Didn't want anyone to think I was ignoring this build, but I had to wait for the weather to warm up so I could paint it.....and today it did!

Tomorrow or the next day I'll probably have the bottom end all built up and ready to go onto the transmission....in time to get started on the race motor build Tues or Wed. while I wait for the head to come back from the machine shop and the transmission to get shipped in from California

[MiniDave]

I spent today getting the block ready to put together - cleaning everything thoroughly, running a tap into every threaded hole and cleaning them out, installing the oil gallery plugs, cleaning the bores, scotchbrite the cam bores and bearing bores to make sure there was no debris or scum on them.

Next up  - install the cam bearings......oops, seems I forgot to order cam bearings. Damn, how did I miss those?

Ok, well - still a lot to do. Install the pistons on the rods, clean the big end bores with scotchbrite pads and install the rod bearings - yes I have those! Then it was time to check the ring gaps before installing the rings on the pistons - hmmm, they're supposed to be 7-12 thou and I'm getting some in the 4, 5 and 6 range. Guess I'll have to give them a little filing adjustment. Once done they can go on the pistons.

I suppose I could go ahead and put the crank and pistons in, but it's a little easier to see the holes that have to line up between the cam bearing and the block with everything out of the way. Parts are on order from Moss, should be here by Wed I guess. Plenty more parts to clean up yet.....

[MiniDave]

Today I went ahead and installed the pistons and rods and the crankshaft, I did the cam bearings yesterday....those were a bit of a PITA.

Turns out there was a nick on the block that damaged the front bearing as I drew it in, once in place I knew something was wrong because the cam wouldn't go in. So I pulled the bearing shell out - saw that it was damaged beyond use (fortunately the front shell is the same as a 1275 and I always have a set of those on hand) and inspected the hole - found the nick - so I took a file and cleaned it up, then a light bit of 1200 to make sure there were no file marks and tried again with the bearing.

This time it rotated on me so I had to pull it back out again - but it wasn't damaged, so I carefully lined it up and drew it in again. This time it was perfect - there are bore holes in the shells that have to line up with the holes in the block. You can fudge a little bit, but not a lot.

Once that was done I cleaned all the bearing surfaces in the rods and mains with scotch brite pads and solvent, then dried it all out and cleaned the shells too. A nice coating of assembly lube and it all went together normally.

I'm stopped on this one now till the transmission gets back from California....loyal readers will remember that I had to send the cam out to have it reground because of the unique drive used on the oil pump, which runs off the back of the camshaft.

I heard from the guy who rebuilt the trans a week ago and he said it was done and ready to come to me, but I haven't heard a peep since or seen anything of a truck. I messaged him today so we'll see if he just forgot to send it or if he's waiting on the cam to be reground.

Oh and my friend Clancy called today and wanted to know if I could build him a race engine by this time next month! I explained waiting for parts and machine shop time etc, so we'll see what he decides to do - if we're gonna go he needs to get me the block asap and we need to get parts ordered like yesterday!

I also have a guy bringing his car down from Cuba, Mo sometime next week for I have no idea what.

When it rains......and boy howdy is it raining! Literally and figuratively both!

[MiniDave]

Now that the Sprite race engine is finished, I got started on this 998 rebuild. The transmission arrived a day or two ago from California, so today I uncrated it and got it up on the hydraulic assembly table - I just can't say enough how much I like and appreciate this new toy/tool. Not only is it far easier to work off of, but it really saves my back, and being able to adjust the working height is just makes it that much better over working on my fixed height workbench!

First thing I had to do was disassemble the crate, once I had it open I found I could just slide the gearbox off the pallet and right onto the work table - easy peasy, no engine hoist required. I'll use the engine crane to lift the block onto the transmichigan later of course.

The tranny looks brandy new, and because Nick did such a great job on it I talked the owner into leaving it silver instead of painting it green to match the block like he originally wanted. Which now means I need to clean up and paint the  drop gear housing and clutch cover to match!

I've got probably at least a full days worth of clean up yet on all the other parts and fastners, brackets and such.

I'll drop the block on it tomorrow and get started on the assembly - I still need to paint the cylinder head green to match the block tho. Maybe I can get that knocked out today - it's warm and sunny and there's a very slight breeze - perfect for paintwork!

[94touring]

That's very clean!

[MiniDave]

Yes, it looks like he did a super job, I'm sure it will work exactly as it should.

This afternoon I shot some etch primer, color and clear on the head. The weather is so warm that it cured out really quickly - by tonight I couldn't even make a finger nail imprint in it.

Since the paint cured out so quickly I went ahead and assembled the head, installed all the new studs, new valves, springs, collets and keepers, as the later model lead free valves use the three ring keepers and the earlier small blocks valves use one.

With the head done the last thing I did was paint the cast iron end cover black, and popped in the new pot joints, the old ones were pretty done. I also found a better set of block to transmission gaskets as the ones that came in the kit Nick supplied didn't fit very well.

Tomorrow I'll mate the block to the transmission and carry on with the assembly.....

Dave is coming by to pay his bill and pick up his Sprite race engine tomorrow too.

[MiniDave]

Got a little more done today.....

[Jimini II]

That looks nice Dave, great work.