Cheers sloth. The small pipe at the pump was too hot to touch, and the return wasn't cold at all. I didn't test bridging the contacts on the single pressure switch, as I ran out of time. Will give that a shot at some point, ta.
mace wrote:
Torque wise, hard to say really, as I barely drove it before doing the engine. Hoping Gordon or someone else local can drive it and see what they think.
Gordon had a play, and didn't seem to think it was too shabby.
He noted some tapping from the top end of the right hand head.
Hevac seems to be relatively happy now, no cheque book icon since the rebuild. So I've begun the process of reinstalling the dash. Got three out of the four bolts back in, will fight with the fourth again another day when it's dry and I have a helper.
Got all four in now, bit of a mission with the side air vent ducts in situ, but getting at their screws after install is nigh on impossible.
Rear wiper has a mind of it's own. Mostly it doesn't park properly, and I'm guessing a side effect of that is that it doesn't know when to stop the wiper for intermittent operation. It briefly worked today for about 5 minutes, but soon went back to wiping continuously. Is the park switch serviceable on the motor?
Bump. Had a quick look at the motor on the vehicle, but the switch appears to be embedded inside, with just the terminals sticking out. Thoughts?
Diagnostics can't talk to GEMS ECU again, so I'm guessing my bodge has corroded away and/or fallen out. I bought a replacement connector off eBay which I was planning to swap in to replace the old one, but instead I might just use one of the new pins and fix the old plug/connector. Was going to make up a metal shield to sit over the connectors too, but didn't get around to it. Might do it one day.
Swapped a pin/socket from the eBay connector, and can talk to the GEMS ECU again. No faults, bonus.
Air con seems to work, sometimes/usually, but the fans aren't spinning up. I need to dig into this further.
Dug further, fuses are fine, relays are fine, manually bridging the contacts on the "trinary" switch gets the one fan spinning and sometimes the compressor. I suspect the issue here is further upstream, as I'm only seeing ~ 0.7 volts on the incoming wire to that switch on its way to the compressor, most of the time. I've not measured what it reads when the compressor actually kicks in, since it's enough to drive the clutch solenoid successfully.
When it does kick in, the small pipe coming out of the compressor gets really hot. No noticable temperature differential at the connection on the condenser, and no real change in temperature at the vents, perhaps very slightly cooler. Typing all this out, I'm wondering whether the system is low on refrigerant.
Cruise control still isn't working. I've gone back through the diagnostics and they check out all the way to the final 'must be the ECU then' test. Gordon reckoned the relay should click when attempting to engage the cruise, and I'm not hearing that either.
Where do folks stash their gas ECU on a GEMS motor? I was thinking about putting it next to the GEMS ECU, for convenience of cabling etc?
Couple of days in, and it seems to be mostly OK.
A slight oil leak from around the pump area - suspect I need to tighten up the bottom oil cooler pipe a bit more.
I'm still getting the occasional whiff of coolant after coming to a stop, and a couple of cold starts have been accompanied by the noise of water flowing through the heater matrix pipes (ie. air). Doesn't seem to be excessively pressurising though, so I guess I live with it for now and see if it clears up.
Torque wise, hard to say really, as I barely drove it before doing the engine. Hoping Gordon or someone else local can drive it and see what they think.
Hevac seems to be relatively happy now, no cheque book icon since the rebuild. So I've begun the process of reinstalling the dash. Got three out of the four bolts back in, will fight with the fourth again another day when it's dry and I have a helper.
Found the manual key for the sunroof, and confirmed that the mechanism is jammed solid. Will come back to this once the dash is sorted and the driveway cleared a bit.
Rear wiper has a mind of it's own. Mostly it doesn't park properly, and I'm guessing a side effect of that is that it doesn't know when to stop the wiper for intermittent operation. It briefly worked today for about 5 minutes, but soon went back to wiping continuously. Is the park switch serviceable on the motor?
Diagnostics can't talk to GEMS ECU again, so I'm guessing my bodge has corroded away and/or fallen out. I bought a replacement connector off eBay which I was planning to swap in to replace the old one, but instead I might just use one of the new pins and fix the old plug/connector. Was going to make up a metal shield to sit over the connectors too, but didn't get around to it. Might do it one day.
Air con seems to work, sometimes/usually, but the fans aren't spinning up. I need to dig into this further.
Well after a good portion of yesterday and an hour or so today picking up some coolant, it lives!
I'd forgotten how quickly the fuel needle moves.. Dropped from one line to the next one down in a short test drive after breaking in the engine.
Exactly that. Locking the crank alone is a non starter.
So didn't make a lot of progress tonight. Those torque converter bolts are a total swine to torque up. Gave up in the end.
Ferryman: I get where you're coming from; and generally agree :)
Oil arrived this morning, so I now have all the bits to make it chooch again. Might put a few hours in this evening, weather permitting.
Ferryman: I lifted it out of the range rover using your method, as you note much stronger etc. Getting it out of the car, and putting it back in to the range rover I went the two hole route - I'd say those bolts are more than strong enough as once I bolted it up to the gearbox and lifted it up for the front engine mounts, it was still quite happy. I wouldn't lift the whole assembly that way, but for what I was doing here it worked well, and minimised risk of damaging the freshly skimmed block surface.
Well that's how Ray lifted it, so I figured he probably knows better than I do. Lifted fine anyway.
Hoist wasn't bought for this job, but it is fairly new.
That's it back in the car and loosely bolted to the gearbox. Gets it out of the rain and off the hoist.
Couple of pics..
Yeah I know, it's a bit pricey.. Bought enough to do 3 oil changes with it, see how we get on.
Yeah new cam etc. Not much left of the bottom end now.
Ray got back to me with the right name, this stuff: Millers classic sport 20w 50 semi synthetic engine oil
Ordered for delivery tomorrow.
That should be pretty much everything I need to get it making noise again.
Right that means that I need to sort out what oil I'm putting in this thing rather more urgently then.
Doorbell just went, and.. Island delivery. Impressive given they only posted it a couple of hours ago ;-)
I see the order status has changed to dispatched as of this morning. We'll see I guess.
I'll get some once I figure out how to get it back out of the car. Meanwhile, Island 4x4 are ignoring my calls and emails about an order made a week ago, and I need to try and work out what oil to buy. Ray at V8 recommended Millers 20w50 Classic Oil, but looking at their website and others, there are a number of variations on that theme, some of which are eye wateringly expensive.
Does this stuff look like the business: Millers Oils Classic Pistoneeze 20w 50 Mineral Engine Oil
Woo, picked up the short block from V8 developments today, very shiny. :)