It has been an interesting last few days.
It started smoking on the last test drive. It was getting progressively worse to the point I decided to investigate.
Compression was on the low side.
1-100
2-110
3-70
4-115
I only put oil in 3 and it jumped to 100.
Leakdown was
1-35%
2- 40%
3 -75%
4 - 33%
Clearly there were issues.
If you look at the treeline you can see the cloud this was making at idle
Talked it over with my wife. As we want to do the Lemons Rally next month I said we could-
1. Do nothing and bring extra plugs and lots of oil
B. Put various snake oil in, thicker oil, and hope for the best
III. Open it up and see what it looks like
She was not a fan of the Subaru Vape Boi exhaust so she voted for the last option. Originally I planned on spending yesterday tearing out the Chumpcar transmission and opening it up (why is it that a "professional" rebuild from THE Honda transmission guys almost instantly started popping out of third gear under load, but junk yard ones last years? All because we wanted an LSD... but thats a topic for another thread). Instead we yanked 140 cubic inches of Raw.American.Horsepower out of the Disco'Stang and took a look.
What we found was valve stem seals that were hard as a rock and cracked/broken, some light pitting on the cylinder walls but crosshatching still present, some light pitting on the valve seats/faces, and most interestingly all the ring gaps for cylinder 3 were lined up perfectly with each other. Never seen that but it certainly can explain some of the test results. The bearings all look great. Carbon build up was minimal.
Whats the plan? The plan is to hit it with a ball hone and hand lap the valves. I will install new rings and seals and stick it back together. Now is not a good time to attempt any dramatic swaps or mods. Parts have been ordered and might be here late this week.
Pretty sure that #3 hole is not round anymore which is why the rings shuffled into the same orientation over time. I would probably do the same thing; ball hone, rings and seals, and run 15w40 or something similar.
I didn't bother with pictures much over the last 2 weeks. I stuck with the plan and did lots of scrubbing, new rings, ball hone, hand lap valve job, new gaskets, a little paint.
We dropped it in yesterday.
Today we put a little over 100 miles on it to break in the new rings. I will change the oil tomorrow and do it again after 1000 miles or so. No more smoking!
You said hand valve job. Heh.
Lol 
Glad it seems to have worked, carry on!
You know how on Roadkill you see the rental minivan support vehicle in the background periodically? I was getting followed by a Ram in case it decided to blow up!
I love that car, please keep it bone stock. Guy three houses down has the anthesis of yours sitting in the driveway. Rustiest piece of E36 M3 Mustang II still on 4 wheels. It’s been sitting there for a couple of years, not sure what’s supposed to be happening, I’ll see if I can grab a pic to reinforce how nice yours is.
Very nicely done. The engine looks great! But mostly it's fantastic that it's back together and you fixed the issue.
Good work. Its amazing what you can do to engine internals with a little bit of time and elbow grease.
11GTCS said:
It’s been sitting there for a couple of years, not sure what’s supposed to be happening,
The old story of "I will fix it one day".
I was talking to a friend the other day trying to decide what the tipping point is when a car will no longer be worked on. How long does it has to sit until it will never be touched again? Life happens and boom...the car becomes a barn find or soda cans after you die.
ClemSparks said:
Very nicely done. The engine looks great! But mostly it's fantastic that it's back together and you fixed the issue.
The AC removal really opens it up on the right side. All the pieces are in the shed now, probably pulled 100 pounds off the front. I didn't cut anything in case I ever want to do anything with the stuff in the future.
Fun story about painting the engine, I rolled the stand outside, handed my wife the can, and told her to have fun. I went inside to get a drink and I could see her through the window moving really really fast. Turns out when she removed the lid the nozzle broke and it just started spraying out the hole in the top! I would have tossed the can in the yard and said "never buying Duplicolor engine paint again" but she managed to get it mostly on the engine.
FatMongo said:
Good work. Its amazing what you can do to engine internals with a little bit of time and elbow grease.
Thanks! This was such an unplanned project that we wanted to knock it out as quick as possible. Im pretty happy we went from running and billowing smoke, to running and no smoke in 14 days and $150 in parts.
Were the rings lined up like that when you pulled the piston?
In reply to 914Driver :
Yep. That was the only think out of the ordinary I found. The curious side of me wanted to realign them and do another leak down just to see how much it would change.
Our Appaloosa is unimpressed with the Mustang. She knows she could take it in a drag race. She has the traction advantage.
I was in Wallyworld tonight and the clear floor mats caught my eye. Grandma style mats just seem appropriate. Still gotta trim to fit but I think they fit the vibe!
While doing the engine work I accidentally threw away the custom brake cleaner can I was using for a radiator puke tank. I figured it was time to embrace living in PA with the new one!
Anything with sealed beams eventually gets a H4 conversion and relay harness if it hangs around long enough. I have always been happy with the quality of the Hella kit so thats what the Disco'Stang got!
In reply to logdog (Forum Supporter) :
I definately need a set of those for my Mustang II Ghia!
I was inspired by how quickly you turned the rebuild around.
I need to get my spare 2.3 head dropped off at a machinist and have it checked for cracks and shaved a bit.
I already have a cam and a 4bbl carb, intake, and header to install. I always wanted to see if a 2.3 could actually make some horsepower. One hp per cubic inch would be fine!
78CobraII said:
In reply to logdog (Forum Supporter) :
I definately need a set of those for my Mustang II Ghia!
Im not sure if the relays or the H4s make a bigger difference since I always do both at once, but it is a worthwhile upgrade for sure.
Changed the break in oil out and kept putting miles on it this weekend. Just a lot of random routes around NEPA to see if anything else needs attention before we do the Lemons Rally.
Went to the drive-in on Saturday night and it was pretty popular. I had several people come up and ask about it. The questions were basically either "What is that thing?" or "Where did you get that? I haven't seen one in forever".
logdog (Forum Supporter) said:
ClemSparks said:
Very nicely done. The engine looks great! But mostly it's fantastic that it's back together and you fixed the issue.
The AC removal really opens it up on the right side. All the pieces are in the shed now, probably pulled 100 pounds off the front. I didn't cut anything in case I ever want to do anything with the stuff in the future.
Fun story about painting the engine, I rolled the stand outside, handed my wife the can, and told her to have fun. I went inside to get a drink and I could see her through the window moving really really fast. Turns out when she removed the lid the nozzle broke and it just started spraying out the hole in the top! I would have tossed the can in the yard and said "never buying Duplicolor engine paint again" but she managed to get it mostly on the engine.
Lol. Tell her I would have never guessed it was painted under such duress. I'm with you...an uncontrolled release would not have resulted in such a happy story.
BTW, My horse-having wife says "That's a nice-looking horse!" (She's talking about the fast one, not the baby blue one).
I'm pretty excited that I have A/C on my baby blue Fairmont. However, if it hadn't blown cold with nothing more than adding refrigerant, I'd probably have taken it all off also.
Logdog,
These MII basket weave aluminum wheels would look good on your car. They originally were optional on the white 1978 King Cobra, but were available on both the CobraII and Ghia in multiple colors. Most are 13x5.5, but I've heard that some are 13x5, so be careful.
If you want something larger, the Enkei92 looks very similar, but is 15x7 in early Fox 4x108 offsets and backspacing. It is being manufactured again, but I haven't seen any lug pattern but 4x100 so far. I found some 4x108 on eBay years ago, but they are pretty beat up.
