Kaboom!

Right, so now the original engine is out of the car and hanging from an engine crane. I hadn't drained the oil before we pulled it out of the car, and now my tired brain decides that we have to do that before we tuck it over in the corner. Even though we're desperately curious to see what has gone wrong in this engine, it's late, and we've had a long day.
So we pull the oil drain plug and the fun begins. As we're watching the very black oil pour into the pan, Brent, who has the plug in his hand, glances down and notices this-


The previous owner had the foresight to install one of those magnetic drain plugs, and that is one alarmingly large piece of metal stuck to it. Well, that's certainly not suppposed to be there, is it?.
It looks like it was once part of a spring, but those are all supposed to be up in the cylinder head - roughly 16" away and separated (ideally) by pistons, rings and all sorts of other barriers. Very intriguing...

Well, now we just HAD to at least drop the pan...this was too good. Unfortunately, the engine is hanging by a chain while the new motor is on my only engine stand. No matter - we're resourceful young lads! In a remarkably hillbilly-esque procedure, Brent literally hugged the engine while I broke loose the oil pan screws. As I pulled the oil pan off, the tale of this engine's final moments started to unfurl before our very eyes. The debris in the bottom of the pan was both startling and glorious. What distinctly looked to be the remains of a piston skirt lay shattered across the bottom of the oil pan. We giggled like schoolkids for several minutes.

After we regained our composure, we snapped these:
Click for a larger version - it's worth it.

Did you click yet?? C'mon!!


The liquid at the bottom may look like oil, but it's more of a metallic "pudding" I grabbed a magnet, and passed it along the outside bottom of the pan, and you could literally watch the slurry deform as the metal particles aligned with the magnet. I wish I could have captured it with a camera - it was really cool.
At this point, we grabbed a flashlight and looked up into the engine from below.
More laughter - several minutes worth.

The #1 piston top was jammed up at the top of it's stroke. The connecting rod and wrist pin ripped the whole bottom half of the piston into the shards of aluminum that we saw in the pan. Ok - so now we're desperately curious to see what's going on in the cylinder head. A piston can't just stop at the top of it's stroke while the engine is running - bad things happen (as if chunks of said piston in the oil pan aren't bad enough).

Mind you, it's probably 10 or 11 o'clock by now, but we decide that we MUST see the rest of the destruction. It's time to pull the head off. So it's back to the hillbilly engine hugging.
The process of removing a cylinder head is a fiddly procedure even when you do it the right way. Much less, our way....
We stubbornly forged ahead, and a mere hour or so later (don't ask), our curiosity was satisfied. We were greeted with one of the best piston "grenades" we had ever seen:

clickee for biggie™




The destruction was very, very impressive. Notice in the 2nd picture you can see the clean area where the piston top was beaten into the top of the combustion chamber. That's not just clean, the metal is actually depressed there, resulting in the crack. Also notice the four distinct gouges where the valves were repeatedly smashed into the piston.

Well that was quite a discovery. As near as I can tell, this engine is nothing more than scrap. After the piston let go, the connecting rod and wrist pin slapped around in the cylinder, gouging out the walls in four places. I'm pretty sure even a .030 or .040 overbore wouldn't take care of it. Even if it did, the expense of the engine work, oversized pistons, and all the labor involved would seem stupid when you can get a fully functional engine for $300.

At least this engine provided some chuckles on it's way out....

'Old' Motor Extraction

So I managed to con Brent into yet another LONG workday out in a cold garage. The mission was to pull the engine out of the white car to make room for the soon-to-be freshened up 'new' engine.

Usually removing an engine involves pulling lots and lots of electrical connections, hoses of every size shape and description, battery trays, and various engine bay parts. Not so in my case. Thanks to the previous owners random disassembly methods, most of the work was already done for me. Mind you, it wasn't done right, and many of the parts that were removed are nowhere to be found. Many of the bolts and fasteners that formerly held all the missing parts on were found in several piles scattered around the engine bay. I pretty much had no choice but to gather them all up, organize them by size and style, and put 'em in a box - maybe as I put things back together, I'll figure out where most of them go.

I had been chipping away at the car throughout the previous week, removing the drive shafts, engine wiring harness, intake manifold and various other small parts. As with all things that the previous owner worked on, there were a few amusing discoveries along the way. This time it was the shifter cables. On both ends of the shifter assembly, Neons use little rubber grommets that snap onto shift linkages. Inside the car, the bushings are fairly protected and live long happy lives. On the transmission end however, conditions are tougher - heat, cold, vibration, and the elements all conspire to bring about a swift end to these poor little bushings. It's a common problem that's normally fixed with a trip to the local Dodge dealer. But that clearly wasn't an option for Whitey's resourceful previous owner. Nope, why fix something properly if you can do it completely, and utterly ass-backwards? Apparently an enormous gob of epoxy will do just fine in place of the proper parts....


In the above shot, the bushing on the right is completely gutted - missing it's entire center portion, but was left to perform it's duties as best it could. The one on the left however, was apparently so bad that it had to be addressed. A big old glob of epoxy was smooshed into the bushing and slathered, and smoothed all over the entire repair - much like an ugly little cake.
I had to chip the stuff off just to get down to the main bushing and end link. I can't figure this guy out - the proper fix for this, even using upgraded parts is maybe $25. Go figure...


With the shady shift linkages out and most of the other fiddly work done, all that was left was to disconnect the exhaust and unbolt the motor mounts, and yank the damn thing out. I borrowed a 2 ton capacity shop crane or "cherry picker" from one of the other Spec Neon racers and it made quick work of lifting the relatively light (maybe 400 lbs?) Neon engine/transmission combo out.






And with that, we were done.

So, the engine was out, but the 'new' engine wasn't ready to go back in yet. Ever curious, we decided to take a peek inside this engine and see what really went wrong with it. Blown head gasket was my guess. That'll be coming up in the next post.

'New' Motor Teardown

Ok - time for some honesty. I've only helped with one engine transplant my entire life....

I was 17 and the slant-six 225 in my 1965 Plymouth Valiant had popped. My dad and I found a donor car, pulled the engine out, painted it a nice chrysler blue, and dropped it in.
That was a long time ago and the details are very fuzzy. Looking back, my Dad probably did all the hard work. I was 17, and probably extremely useless. Since then, I've only done light shade-tree mechanic stuff. Hell, I've only ever seen the intake valves (from the outside mind you) of one car since then.
I've never even held a piston or connecting rod in my hand. I know what all the parts do, but have very little hands-on experience with them. So I guess it's only fitting that I'm tearing apart a perfectly good 2.0 liter SOHC Neon engine in my "spare time". It started out innocently enough - the engine clearly had an oil leak. Everything from the valve cover on down was coated in so much oil that it had taken on a texture that I mistook for the factory finish.

When I smeared my finger through at least 1/8" of oil buildup, I knew it was time to strip some parts off and see what was leaking.
I pulled off the intake manifold and found about 1/4 cup of filthy oil pooled in the bottom, which promptly spilled all over the floor when I wasn't paying attention.



Hmmm...that's a lot of oil.

The intake ports of the head were also carbon/oil stained.


I'm not 100% sure what this is a symptom of, but I knew it wasn't "normal" since the intake air is supposed to be nice and clean. No reason to have lots of oil in the intake charge. Looking further into the cylinder head revealed oily residue and lots of carbon on the intake valves.

Most likely valve guide seals. This was unexpected, but not devastating - I was planning to take the head off to put a fresh head gasket anyway. I know nothing about valve-train work though, so it was a bit daunting. I started this whole undertaking because I wanted a new project where I could learn a few new tricks right? Well, here was a new trick.

The neat-o discoveries kept coming. When the exhaust manifold came off I was greeted with more carbon than I thought was possible under normal conditions. There were literally sheets of the stuff.

I'm sure others will tell me this is nothing out of the ordinary, but I'm still amazed. This engine was clearly run on cheap gas and ran lots of short trips. Nothing shows any signs of neglect, but definitely no pampering either.

Time to pull the head - this is officially the deepest I've ever been into an engine.

Oh good grief! The intake valves have freaking mineral deposits on them - the contour of the valve is completely obscured.


Damn cheap gas.....

Top of the pistons show similar evidence




Top of the head shows signs of equally cheap dino-oil. Lots of varnish on the cam and all the followers.

At this point, the engine that's already in the car is starting to look more attractive. Despite it's unknown mechanical status, it's clear that it was run on better gas and oil. Varnish is virtually nonexistent, and the intake ports are spotless.

Unfortunately, I've just finished pulling it out of the car....details on that in the next post.