Get Greasy....348 Major Service

Roll up those sleeves, put your "i'll do it next month" excuses away and lets get this major done. 348 Brotherhood here we go!!

Before I started this project I did about two moths of reading, studying, note taking, and preparing. I made a list of everything that I could think of based on parts, tools, and little techniques glistened from reading the many 348 Major Service threads. This project has not been very complicated, but it does require you to be disciplined so before you jump into the project do your homework and it will go a lot smoother.

The first thing that I decided to do was to get a lift. I know you can do it with jacks but I didn't feel safe doing that so I said what the heck--excuse to buy a lift. I settled on the MaxJack lift and couldn't be happier. It was a pain in the a$$ getting it installed because I went with epoxy anchors and the damn Red Head C6 mixing nozzle is as hard to get as a dollar from a hooker. Finally, after getting it all installed I was ready to get after it.

A special thanks to T-Rutlands and Ricambi for supplying me excellent parts. I know Ricambi seems to be the vendor of choice on here, but T-Rutlands should really be considered more as their prices are extremely competitive.

Anyway....with the lift installed it was time to get after it. I more or less followed the script from Ernie.
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First take off the lid. I marked it's original spot before I removed it so that it helps me re-install it faster and more accurately.

I then disconnected the battery

Then removed the air box and the heat shields. The air box is held by four nuts and two screws near the MAF sensors. The inside screws can be a pain to get to so use a ladder, be naturally tall and flexible, or do what I did...climb inside the engine bay.
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Then unscrew the connector to the left of the charcoal canister.

While you are there remove both the blue and the black connectors on the opposite side of the charcoal canister. Remember--the blue one goes on top for re-instillation.

Then remove the vapor purge lines (one on each side of the plenum). You know you have the right hoses when you can trace them back to the charcoal canister area.
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Now get under the car and remove all the plastic fender liners on both sides. Of course you will need to remove the wheels to do this.

Then disconnect the brake sensor cables (one on each side located in the wheel well).

Now its time to drain all the fluids: oil, transmission (you don't have to by why would you do a major and not replace the gear oil??!!), coolant
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I used plastic baggies with rubber bands to keep the hoses from leaking all over. It's simple and easy--I highly recommend it.

Remember you will need to disconnect the oil lines from the oil cooler as well as the oil sump and then drain it from under the car. For future reference--gear oil comes perpendicular to the ground and engine oil comes out parallel to the ground.

As I'm sure you are well aware of--you need a very big crescent wrench to take off the oil lines. I got mine at Harbor Freight for about $8.
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I then disconnected the shift linkage. You can't see it in the pics, but I took off the panel that exposes the fuel tanks because it gives you more room to move the cables around when you drop the engine.

Then came the hardest part...disconnecting the brake and clutch lines. It looks easy enough but the nuts and screws and the hoses and the lines were flexible, soft, stuck, and hard to get to from the right angle. I spent about two hours getting these two lines disconnected. Be patient and use a clamp to hold the clutch line to the shock tower and for the brake line.....cuss a lot and muscle it slowly till it budges. This was a very frustrating part.
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Then disconnect the throttle cable. Make sure you route it back underneath the plenum and put it out of the way.

Disconnect the emergency brake

And then loosen the three hose clamps for the miscellaneous hoses at the firewall (three total). I have not removed these and will expect them to slide off as the engine is lifted off--but watch them in case they get stuck.
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Now a couple of odds and ends.

Disconnect both hoses at the coolant tank. Once again I use baggies and rubber bands on hoses that have fluids in them to minimize leaking.

Disconnect the two oil sump lines. I marked which one is on top and which one is on bottom so I don't forget.

Here is a shot of all the lines and other items that I have removed from the car. I keep everything in a baggie that is marked with where it came from. Again, slower and more precise helps the whole job go smoother.
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The last thing I did before I called it a night was to remove the fuel lines from the filter and the engine. Make sure that your engine is cold as fuel will spill on parts that will normally get very hot. My car had been sitting for five days so it was good and cold. Also, use gloves and make sure you are in a well ventilated area. Sounds obvious...but...well....you know how that goes.

There are two filters and two lines...remove all four hoses (two from each side).
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It does....however....the previous owner (or previous mechanic) has some sort of stop in there that does not allow me to drain it from the hole as you mentioned. I simply allowed it to drain from the hose connection but am going to look into getting it fixed while the engine is out. But good observation.

 

The only thing left for me to do is unplug the ECU's--which I have not done yet. Then I am going to run down my list to make sure that I have double and triple checked everything for the removal. I'll be using a pallet jack on Tuesday to remove the engine. I simply ran out of time today and forgot to get the jack reserved.

For those of you wondering how long it took me to get this far you know a pilot would have an exact answer for you .....it took me 6 hrs and 21 minutes. With the ECU's and the engine removal process I figure about another 2 hours...so about 8.5 hours in total.

Stay tuned....

 

I found mine through Craigslist. But they can be found all over the internet. Here is their corporate page: MaxJax Portable Two-Post Lifting System by Dannmar

It is bar none the best lift for any home DIY with limited ceiling height. I paid $1500 for mine but it came with a motorcycle adapter and was already assembled. They are new for around $2200-$2500.

 

Ok Brotherhood....back to work!

When I left off I had just about everything disconnected except for one bolt on my muffler and my A/C hoses The first two pics are of the muffler and the two A/C hoses. I also included a pic of how I put a baggie on my clutch line. That thing has been dripping fluid for three days strait...Damn!!.

But finally had the time to drop the engine tonight and have some more pics and advice to pass on.

1a- When it comes time to loosen the 12 bolts to the frame I would recommend taking off the one the four most inner bolts on each side and then loosing the two outer ones. This will make your life sooooooooooo much easier when the engine is sitting on the pallets/dolly etc. The order I would recommend would be: a)remove the outside/center four bolts and crack/loosen the inside (ones toward the body of the car). b)lower the car frame onto the pallets c) remove the four (two on each side) outside bolts d) remove the four frame bolts towards the rear of the car e) remove the shock tower nuts/washers f) raise the car

1- I ended up having to cut my brake line because it would not separate. I'm not that worried because it can obviously be spliced but not ideal. That nut was in there so damn tight and I eventually stripped it and still can't get it out. So keep in mind that the "inevitable" will happen when you work on cars.

2- Make sure that your emergency brake line is not only disconnected but that it is separated from the guiding bracket that it is fed through. If you don't separate it...well...bad things happen when you lift the engine. Luckily this didn't happen to me.

3- The washers on the shock tower were about 1mm too big and I was not able to separate two of them on the left hand side tower before I lifted the car. This resulted in a huge PITA because the screw kept catching on it and would not clear the car. I eventually had to pry off one of them using the claw end of an hammer. I am going to grind down the washers on one side so that this does not happen again.

4- I taped some edger line to both sets of cables and had them fish through the car so that I have something to help me pull the cables through when I need to re-mate the engine.

5- While the engine is out I plan on replacing all of the rubber hoses. Many of mine are cracked or otherwise past their service life. Hoses are relatively cheap and make perfect sense to replace while the engine is out....get some!

6- I used the pallet jack to move the engine and I absolutely loved it. I highly recommend this technique. You can rent them for about $10 a night and it is way more sturdy than those cheap moving carts from Harbor Freight--yikes those looked weak.

7- I could not have imagined doing this without the lift. Buy one! You will go up/down/up/down/up/down like a million times during the project and a lift is worth its weight in gold!
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These pictures show the top and the side bolts that need to be removed. I used and impact wrench to loosen all of these. with a box wrench to hold the nut. If you don't have an impact wrench go buy one. I have this one and love it:

AIRCAT 1150 Killer Torque 1/2-Inch Impact Wrench, Black - Power Impact Wrenches - Amazon.com

Then I had my friend and my wife help me look over everything to make sure it was clear as I operated the lift. My wife kept a hand on the back of the car at all times in case the CG of the car shifted and attempted to tip forward. This never happened and I felt like the lift was stable the entire time. That being said, the second the engine was clear I lowered the car immediately--no reason to tempt fate right .

I also measured the exact height of the lift and marked on the ground where the pallets were just aid in a general guide for the re-mating process.
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And finally.....the engine is clear of the car. The whole process took longer than I expected and I wasn't thrilled that I had to cut a brake line, but that is the nature of turning wrenches. You run into problems that you couldn't have anticipated. That's what makes it challenging and rewarding.

The second pic is of the green edger line that I fished through to help in putting the lines back.

13 hour day at work plus three hours of work on the car....I need a Jack n Coke!

Cheers!!
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Ok slackers....I bet you thought I just stopped working on my car! I've been hard at work but have been lazy about posting pics. So here you go.

After getting the engine out I started removing the timing cover. A note of admonishment--if you strip a bolt when you take something off don't put that same bolt back in as a time bomb for the "other guy" to have to deal with. Spend the $3 to buy a new damn bolt! Phewwww now that I got that off my chest back to work.

As I eluded to there was a stripped bolt that held the upper right timing cover down. I went through multiple iterations trying to get it out. I finally was able to remove it but not without putting a hair line crack in the timing cover case. I was so mad when that happened but it is what it is.

Remember to mark all the bolts as you take them out of the timing cover because they are all different lengths. So make your life easy when it comes to re-installing them and just mark em up.

After the cover was off it was time to take the tensioners off. Remove the three nuts holding the idler tensioner and then remove the offset bolt that locks it into position. Then with tons of force push down on the tensioner and remove it. It was a PITA to get off but it comes off with some fineness. Now you need a gear puller that has been ground down to allow you to sneak it behind the idler bearing. I took a picture of the measurement of my puller that I had ground down and it worked just fine for me.
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After getting the tensioners off I started taking off the cam covers. I am extremely anal and bagged the left bolts/washers separate from the right cam bolts/washers. I labeled each bag so help me remember. For me it's easy, 10 seconds and $2 in baggies to alleviate possibly hours of frustration.

A word of caution--when removing the cam covers be cautious of the spark plug wire routing retainers. They are plastic and very brittle. I broke one simply by lifting up on a wire without putting corresponding pressure on the clip. No biggie as they are an easy part to get from Ricambi, but why break something when you don't have to

After getting the cam covers off I rotated the engine (clockwise) until I saw my timing marks. Three of the four were spot on and the fourth (right exhaust cam) was only off by about 1/2 of a degree. I was very happy to see that. I have the good fortune of being in contact with the mechanic who serviced the car last and it has been nice getting the pass down information from him (as well as tricks to the trade).

Now it was time to check the valve lash. This is a painstaking process that takes a while but is a key component in verifying or adjusting the engine to peek performance. I was very very happy to find only about three individual tappets out of spec but was able to swap them among themselves as to avoid ordering any parts----win for me!!!
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With the timing verified (well technically timing accuracy) as well as the valve lash I now set off to removing the cam seals. I have a fancy dancy seal puller/presser kit that I love (except for at times when I want to throw it against the wall--more to come on that). It works wonders removing seals. Sooooo now I put the covers back on so that the cam rings could have enough tension on them for me to pull the seals out.

After I pulled all the seals out I then took the covers back off and proceeded to remove the cam caps. I went overboard and took a picture as well as wrote down a detailed description of how each cap was placed and its correct orientation. Again, I bagged and labeled each camshaft nuts/washers separately.

Once the caps were off and set in a very very safe place I took the cams out and removed the cam rings. Now I set to cleaning everything I could in preparation for the re-installation.

One technique I use to ensure everything is completely ready for the seals to go back in is to use carburetor cleaner and some scotch brite pads. I use the Scotch Brite pad to simply rough up the housing LIGHTLY and then clean it with paper towels and carburetor cleaner. I am simply trying to get the smallest degree of "roughing up" as I can without scoring the metal.

After everything is all clean I re-installed the cams and the new O-ring and uniformly torqued the cam journals. You will have to go slow and be very deliberate about moving form cap to cap as you tighten everything down as the camshaft lobes will want to press on the tappets in a somewhat un-uniform manner. So be slow and take your time. Also, make sure when you put in the cam that it sits in its place NATURALLY. Do not try to force the timing marks to line up--you can re-align them after everything is all installed.
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After the left cam shafts were all put back I put the cover back on in preparation to press in the seals. I use thin layer of Red High Temp Permatex that I apply with my finger around the seal. I know there are a million techniques on how to install seals and this seems to work excellent (and was a trick handed down to me by a mechanic I respect very much). The first seal went in with no problem. But....(remember when I said that I hate my seal kit sometimes)...the second one for some reason did not press uniformly. I could tell almost instantly that something was wrong. I tried to get one lip in that was just not even but I eventually came to this conclusion--better to pull it out and get a new seal then to be angry for 5 years about a leaky camshaft. Sooooooooooo I spent the $49 (seriously...wtf...$49 for a seal?!?!?!) and ordered another one. When I removed the seal from its housing I re-confirmed my suspicion--one of the outer walls hand bent.

Not wanting to take any more chances with that I took the remaining two seals on base and used their hydraulic press to guarantee success I literally had a flight brief...went to the auto hobby shop...pressed the seals in...came back and then went to go fly. My wingman was very confused. What a day!
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I finished up the evening's work by changing the spark plugs, the oil filter, and pulling the idler bearing.

I personally use anti-seize on every spark plug to ensure that they do not seize in the block. Personal preference, but if you do make sure you do not get anything near the spark part of the plug as it will really mess with the plugs performance.

Oh, and to all you gorillas out there that think an oil filter needs to be put on at 1000 N-m............I hate you
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