Well, just picked up about their Miata. Lol.
It blew a head gasket, and has been sitting for months with the head off while it got rebuilt. What should I look for on the bottom end before I bolt the head back on?
Well, just picked up about their Miata. Lol.
It blew a head gasket, and has been sitting for months with the head off while it got rebuilt. What should I look for on the bottom end before I bolt the head back on?
Came with a resurfaced and pressure tested head with new valve stems, head gasket kit, water pump and timing belt kit, and the FM coolant hose kit.
Wondering because I have half a mind to try and put it together tonight.
Use some well oiled Scotch-Brite (penetrating oil, or even WD-40 works here) and elbow grease to clean the surface rust from the cylinder walls, rotate the engine so the pistons are all the way down and clean out the rust lip at the rings that is no doubt there, clean the gick out of the head bolt holes (not with a tap, use a thread chaser, even a homemade one will do), and put it together.
I've put heads on engines that had standing water in the bores when they came to me, they ran fine and didn't use appreciable amounts of oil.
I wouldn't rotate the engine until after you clean the visible parts of the bores. No sense putting any more rust into the rings than is absolutely necessary.
Incidentally, this is why you shouldn't clean the decks/pistons until you're ready to drop the head on. Dirty oily parts generally don't rust.
Knurled. said:Incidentally, this is why you shouldn't clean the decks/pistons until you're ready to drop the head on. Dirty oily parts generally don't rust.
Or if you do, spray them down with WD-40 afterwards.
I would go to some lengths to try to prevent getting rust/scotch-brite residue into the oil pan. Put rags/grease in the bores while cleaning, for example.
In reply to codrus :
That's why you oil it... the Scotch-Brite doesn't really wear if it's soaked, and the rust mostly stays in suspension, so you just wipe the cruddy oil out, blow it out further with compressed air, and run it.
Haven't had any issues with the several engines I've had to "help" this way. The rings seem to do a good enogh job of keeping things up top, I guess.
A few hours later and it’s together and started up! Needs a few small items cleaned up, but so far so good! Thanks for the tips!
Started a build thread for this. Thanks again for the sugeestions!
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