The Adventures of 42137: A Shipwright's Tale

The 518 is specifically designed for gasket-less flanges between aluminum parts. Pretty much exactly what we have going on here.

This is my first time with Hondabond. Actually it is my first time with 518 also. I've just used various RTV formulas before. I had to take one piece back off with the 518 and it removed pretty easily and nicely. I hope Hondabond does just as well and I hope to not find out soon!

 

All the ceramic coating processes seem to coat inside and out. I am looking forward to both the function and beauty of the coating!

 

Finally a bit more forward progress. I had the headers coated by Accessories Plus in Belmont. When I dropped them off I had a choice of three colors of ceramic coating: matte black, polished silver, and grayish/titanium. I have to admit I liked the titanium color the most, but the price was almost 50% more and I went with the silver. I wouldn't do the black, I'm definitely a shiny/polished guy, and also being a little cheap that left the polished silver. The titanium color costs more because they have to do both the black and silver colors to get that color.

Well, they sparkle! A little too much, I think. Perhaps with a little heat they will develop a little patina.
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I also go the air injection rails welded up. It took a little work to get all of the spigots all perfectly lined up as the tube warped under the heat of the welding. I ordered two Swagelok 1/2" tube to 1/2" NPT adapters to attach these to the one-way valves that mate to the air injection system and I will probably have those tomorrow.
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Here's a little funny thing. So when I removed the aluminum and fiberglass heat shielding from the headers I removed the steel heat shields that cover the 2-into-1 junctions. I wanted these back on so my welder guy put them back on. When I put the newly-coated headers on the engine the edge of the heat shield just hit a rib on the aluminum sump. I thought that probably he mis-aligned something a little bit and I would just cut a notch with the Dremel. So I took the header off and there is a work notch in the aluminum fins. So it has been rubbing for quite some time, probably from the factory. I'm still going to cut a notch to clear it, but I have to absolve my welder guy.
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OK, I'm going to post this because it turns out hardly anyone except me has ever heard of Shipwright's Disease. Every time I meet a new FChatter in person they ask what the heck it means. I copied this from the web:

and...

Yeah, that's pretty much what is going on here.

 

Well, I got all the stuff I needed and so I arranged for help to get the engine back in. But before that date came I was home alone, and, you know I have all the stuff, so I hooked it up to the hoist and gave it a little test run. I dropped the motor in the hole. I had obscured the front exhaust ports with the sling, so I pulled it, re-rigged it and dropped it in again. It is way easier to install than it is to remove! Part of it is all the lessons learned from removal.

I'll also mention that the motor mount brackets have to be in the right place. I had two of them swapped (despite contributing to the thread on which ones go where called "Help on qv motor install!!", I still put them in wrong the first time, and I knew better)

So far I got the exhaust manifolds on and the motor mounts all bolted in. But now I'll be making progress!
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Motor is all bolted in, exhaust manifolds are all in. Starter is wired up, alternator is in and wired up. AC brackets are in, but the pump isn't going back in quite yet. The AC belt tensioner got new bearings, the old ones were smooth, but a little loud when spun. EGR is cleaned up and back in with a new rubber mount.

All of the fuel and vapor lines in the car have been now been replaced except the plastic injector lines (a different project!). The charcoal cannister had overspray on it. I cleaned it as best I could and repainted the clamp when I replaced the hoses. Some of the clamps were crusty so I replaced them with some official Norma clamps from Ricambi.

After I took these pictures I found the heat shield that goes between the damper and the exhaust on the shelf. That is surprisingly hard to install. I just couldn't reach the forward stud to get the nut and washer. It is funny that sometimes the smallest things cause the biggest hang-ups.
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Here's an interestig before and after I found. These pictures were taken a year apart.
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The little plastic clips practically explode when the lines are inserted or removed. I've added some to my Ricambi wish list. One of them is $20. I'm not sure I'm ready to pay $20 for a little plastic clip yet. I've got the broken ones held on with zip ties right now to keep things relatively orderly.

The fuel lines' banjos all got new copper crush washers from McMaster. Packs of 25 are pretty cheap there.
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I found I had to remove this U bend pipe to get the exhaust back together. The '83 QV donuts are an Autozone part for $4, a nice thing. But this pipe has a heat shield like the other pipes did, and the 'glass packing is mostly gone also, so it rattles. Aargh, one more rattle! I hate rattles. I'm not going to remove the heat shield unless it gets the Jet Hot coating like the rest, and it is too late for that. And I hate rattles.

I cut two small holes in the top, threaded a hose clamp in there and tightened it up to clamp the inner pipe to the outer shield. Solid and mostly invisible.
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Two parts order snafus that I came across again as I empty my box of parts. The first one I clearly own. There is a clamp that holds the fuel injector lines. My car just had zip ties. So I ordered two of part 110381 "clamp". And what do I get?

Zip ties.

The good news is that they were a buck a piece, so while not what I had in mind, probably the cheapest possible part that could have happened to. So when the Concours judges are marking me off for all of the atrocities I've done to this car, I want two points added back on for using official Ferrari zip ties!
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OK, but the other parts issue I need to resolve. How I didn't notice when the parts arrived months ago, I don't know.

I'm no purist - I think that's obvious - but I do want things to be nice, consistent. Things should match. So I ordered the bolts that attach the engine lid to the hinges because what was on the car clearly isn't original and looks a bit too much like the Home Depot hardware aisle. Why not get the real thing? So I did. I got six bolts.

And what came in the mail is two in yellow zinc and four in clear zinc.

You know, if it was three and three I'd probably make each side match, call it a day and no one would notice, but two and four - I can't do that.
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I replaced all of the rubber isolators in the engine compartment. There's quite a few of them. One for the coolant tank, one for the EGR valve, four for the oil cooler, three for the CIS distributor, one for the rear air injection check valve...maybe more. Apparently I mis-counted when I ordered the new ones, and I'm one short. I dug through all of the old parts and all of the old ones are bad. Dry, broken, horribly distorted, etc. I dug through other old stuff and came across a box of old GT4 stuff. I'd saved one of those isolators because it was still ok. It is a slightly different style, it has a cup on each end instead of a flat plate, but same deal.

That crusty oil cooler line will have to be added to the "to-do" list. Maybe next winter.
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Although I repacked the CV joints a long time ago, I finally just got the tool to put the clamps on and secured the clamps. And this is obvious in hindsight - don't put the crimp in front of one of the bolt holes! I did one axle ok, but only by luck. I didn't even know whenI took the picture, but you can see on the left side that the crimp is right in front of the bolt hole. And of course I didn't realize it until it is in the car and I can't get a bolt in the hole and I can't figure out why. I loosened the crimp a little and managed to work the band around a little and uncover the hole. Now it seems obvious.
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So on the '83 QV the left side of the engine is a sea of spaghetti. Hoses everywhere. The heater and vacuum line going to the front of the car, the whole crankcase breather apparatus, coolant lines to the expansion tank, the air injection diverter and all of its hoses, oil cooler lines, a couple of vacuum lines, plus the CIS and ignition wire harnesses - what a mess. I wanted to do better, clean it up, make it look orderly.

For one I eliminated a little tiny bit of bulk by using that Oetinger crimp tool and using the crimp lock hose clamps on the injection system. There's actually six clamps shown in the picture. There are two more on the one-way valves feeding the heads. They are one time use, but they are nice to apply, easier than worm-drive clamps.
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So the end result of careful hose routing, some neat bundling and.....




blech.

Still a sea of spaghetti. And this is with out ignition wires going right by here when the distributor cap is back on. yuck. Luckily the coolant tank hides a bit of it, but in my mind this was going to be so much nicer. The large diameter air injection hose and limited space just makes it difficult.
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