Restoring my Skoda Estelle's engine: Sharing the joy (and ordeals) :)

[Aram]

Greetings from Havana, Cuba!

 

After my latest post here, I decided to go as deep as needed to restore my Skoda Estelle and especially its clubbed engine. I'm now a pinch near to be ready to assemble it back, just need to take care a few little "issues"

 

I have a saying like "life is made of knots, some gets undone while new ones appears"...well this Skoda is more like Penelope's carpet!!! heheheh. Anywa, pics of what I have so far (and a question):

 

After a lot of work cleaning the engine for weeks, I decided to first build an engine stand for it, to help me with assembling it back.

 

 

So, engine block is ready for assembling. It took literally "weeks" to get rid of all that gunk that seemed like welded to it! After a few mild acid bottles, scrapping, brushing and cursing...I got it done.

 

 

Copper washers and massage engine plugs for put them back.

 

 

Fixing the oil pressure switch's adapter

 

 

Finished plugs

 

 

Some gaskets work

 

 

Cylinders liners

 

 

Tabbed washers

 

 

Camshaft and crankshaft keys

 

 

 

Delco

 

 

Delco: adapting Lada points

 

 

Delco: adapting VW Beetle's cap and fabricating the capacitor/coil wire pole

 

 

Delco is done

 

 

 

Fuel pump bakelite plate

 

 

 

 

Fuel pump massage

 

 

 

Valves cover / Oil cap work

 

 

 

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Greetings Aram.

That post made me very happy. Thanks.

I wish you great success and enjoyment in the completion of this project.

[Aram]

On 4/11/2017 at 16:28, Wino said:

Greetings Aram.

That post made me very happy. Thanks.

I wish you great success and enjoyment in the completion of this project.

 

Thank you! Well it is coming slow but I want to do things right I'm a pinch, a little pinch near to start putting everything back up.

[Aram]

I'm working in a broken part at the head assembly: a supporting leg in one of the ends of the rocker arms shaft. They tighten it too much and broke part of its seat against the head. It is cast iron, and initially thought to weld the pieces back, but I rather want to make the part as new, I can't find a healthy replacement, the ones I have are also broken.

 

Today's work: seal strips! Finally...got a bit of time to work them. Nothing complex: a sandwich made of cardboard strips glued together with silicone gasket maker. To install it, I will apply gasket maker around it and it should hold ok since there there isn't oil pressure, it is just to stop splashes. The one it got disintegrated in my fingers like being just pressed in dirt with used oil

 

[KenONeill]

@Aram Best wishes with your project, which you most assuredly are doing properly, given that you've gone the length of making a proper engine stand!

[Aram]

Today's (well lots of days work: studs. The engine studs had a lot of variation in length and even thickness, some got bent too, so I wanted to put new ones with the same measures, but non of the lathe guys here were willing to do them, besides they don't usually have good steel for this. After studying options I found that bicycle wheel axles, which are hardened, are M8 in front, M10 in rear.

Perfect since the head studs are M10. Only problem is that these axles comes with 1.0 thread, and the engine is 1.25, so I had to re thread the rods towards the block...and they are so hard! Anyway, pics

 

[Aram]

Today's work: fabricating rockers shaft's right support, pass #1

 

[Piko]

Great job Aram; special admiration for all the solutions you found for the encounterd problems.

Here in Holland when a part is gone I order a new one in Czech Republic.

I myself owe a Rapid of 1983. It is partly restaured.  As I haven't got the tools,space and experience

it is done by a company; which lead me almost to bankrupcy.

All the best with your coming works

[Piko]

By the way what happened to the fuel pump, I see 2 bolds and one empty hole.

What is the size of this engine? from the pictures to me it looks like a 1300cc.

 

Once again super quality you deliver.

 

[Aram]

On 4/30/2017 at 14:47, Piko said:

Great job Aram; special admiration for all the solutions you found for the encounterd problems.

Here in Holland when a part is gone I order a new one in Czech Republic.

I myself owe a Rapid of 1983. It is partly restaured.  As I haven't got the tools,space and experience

it is done by a company; which lead me almost to bankrupcy.

All the best with your coming works

 

Thank you sir. It is coming slowly because I'm not working on it full time, besides, everything I crack open needs work one way or the other I just can't escape from having to restore any part; the most common problem I see are different measures/threads in fasteners, and missing parts. What I do is to pick a thing and compare against the parts catalog, and fabricate anything missing.

[Aram]

On 4/30/2017 at 14:58, Piko said:

By the way what happened to the fuel pump, I see 2 bolds and one empty hole.

What is the size of this engine? from the pictures to me it looks like a 1300cc.

 

Once again super quality you deliver.

 

 

You mean the pump's "seat" in the block? In the parts catalog it shows two studs for holding the pump, and one bolt below it to hold the bakelite plate. I guess they decided this way to avoid cracking the bakelite with a nut, maybe not since it would crack the same with a bolt head. Maybe just an economy/easiness decision.

 

The engine cc, I don't know. The pistons are 72mm...

[Aram]

Final assault!

 

Round #1.

 

So...installed crankshaft, camshaft, distribution pinions and chain. All tightened.

Worked the rings: all were oversize, so with a little file put them to fit. I used a blade from those disposable razors to check the gap

Then moved to the cylinders: first applied a thin coat of silicone gasket maker to where the copper crush washers goes (they are in the bottom of each liner towards the block floor), then installed them.

 

[MotorsportFinland]

On 5/2/2017 at 03:51, Aram said:

 

You mean the pump's "seat" in the block? In the parts catalog it shows two studs for holding the pump, and one bolt below it to hold the bakelite plate. I guess they decided this way to avoid cracking the bakelite with a nut, maybe not since it would crack the same with a bolt head. Maybe just an economy/easiness decision.

 

Some pumps are with three hole pattern.. although interchangeable with two hole ones.

[skomaz]

Hi Aram. Looks like you have done a lot of hard work and effort and come up with some ingenious solutions for broken parts.  Hope it all works out and keep posting on progress!  Good luck!

[Aram]

A couple of days ago I found out that the milling shop left the conrod bearings too tight. Even with a caliper, which I know I can't use for measures on this, shows something between 0.01 to 0.05 difference between the journals and the conrod with the bearings and torqued. This explain why the first install try ended up so stiff, why conrod #4 seized at half of torque.So I sanded the bearings to fit. This is something we call "adjust the metals" and may scare mechanics not from here (Cuba), but it is the standard procedure I have seen and told for ages...and the bearings last the same as if no action was applied. In this part of the planet, we have no "fancy" stuff like locktite...or plastigauge.

 

I should tell, tho, that except those engines with access to new parts, my engine got bearings that guys recycle: they use the shell for other engine, make them fit by curling them between heavy press cylinders, melt the babbit over and then machine them when installed and torqued in their positions.

 

So...the procedure to adjust the bearings, as I did, is like this: I first found an olives glass jar, then wrapped cardboard to make it thicker and fixed it with masking tape. Next I used, first 360 grits sand paper, later 1500 grits, to sand the thing. Put the bearings in place, torque them, inserted the jar with sandpaper and slowly sanded in back and forth rotation.When it got smoother then grab the jar in both hands, piston hanging in the middle and made the conrod rotate around the sandpaper for a few turns, then wash the thing in kerosene and install for checks. Made this by 1/4 torque steps reading the oil track in the bearing and the journal so no high spots, no lines, no scratches and just uniform oil layer

then I reached 3/4 of the torque it was still fairly stiffy, but changed the grits to 1500, and with way more effort reached full torque bit still a bit hard to turn. Therefore, made the same but just small sanding strokes, 2 or 3, check, 2 or 3, check, until I got it spinning by hands by turning the crankshaft inside the crankcase, or a wrench in the pulley bolt at the end, the bearings leave quite uniform oil layer, no high spots like at the beginning.

 

One of the bearings did got a scratch line because the milling shop forgot a little peck in the oil hole on one of the journals. No big deal, I sand it almost off, but had to leave a little little trace of it because otherwise I would sand too much the torque for the conrods is 26 to 28.5 newtons, I'm doing 27 and it is not really really smoothly free, I sense some little stiffness, but it is ok (I got told by a mechanic friend) because at first runs any imperfections will be grind off by the crankshaft.

 

 

Edited 17 May, 2017 by Aram

[KenONeill]

@Aram - That's less scary sounding than you might think to us; it's an unusual procedure to have to carry out with modern shell bearings, but would be quite reasonable when we think of 1930s and earlier cars with white metal bearings on the crankshaft mains and big ends. Also, your "after 1500 grit" picture has the bearings looking glassy smooth.

[Aram]

18 hours ago, KenONeill said:

@Aram - That's less scary sounding than you might think to us; it's an unusual procedure to have to carry out with modern shell bearings, but would be quite reasonable when we think of 1930s and earlier cars with white metal bearings on the crankshaft mains and big ends. Also, your "after 1500 grit" picture has the bearings looking glassy smooth.

 

Very cool! Now, to be sure I didn't offended the bearings geometry too much I did this: as we don't have plastigauge, I used a piece of 0.1mm tin solder like used in electronics, cut a piece and used it as plastigauge, in all the bearings and to be more infatuated, I did it up and down and in X pattern. So after about 6 back and forth on each rod, I could get convinced they all crushed the solder to the same thickness: about 0.016mm, measuring the height of the crushed wire. In any case, all of them measures almost the same. The crankshaft spins free now with the pistons with rings and torqued although I need the help of a wrench in the shaft pulley, but little effort...about 20 ft/lbs to break it, then about 14. Before torque, I could spin the stuff by bare hands.

Edited 19 May, 2017 by Aram

[Aram]

Today's work: piston installed!

 

[KenONeill]

@Aram When you were grinding away at the big end caps, did you weigh them and grind the balance pads to get them the same mass afterwards? Then weigh the rods themselves and grind off the balance pads at the little ends to get them to the same mass as well?

 

It's just that you could have got the engine to run smoother by doing that.

[roaddetective]

I am in awe of Aram. Here we have a lot of garage fitters and some rare proper garage mechanics. You my friend are a mechanic/artist. An interesting read, I tip my hat to you. 

[Aram]

10 hours ago, KenONeill said:

@Aram When you were grinding away at the big end caps, did you weigh them and grind the balance pads to get them the same mass afterwards? Then weigh the rods themselves and grind off the balance pads at the little ends to get them to the same mass as well?

 

It's just that you could have got the engine to run smoother by doing that.

 

I didn't take photos, but I weighted the conrods with nuts and cap, the pistons with pins and clips but missed the bearings. With files I put everything within 1 gram difference, weighted with my jeweler's digital scale. I did it mostly because I had to remove some material from piston #1 skirt...honestly didn't thought about performance or smoothness but more scared about having a 4 pistons vibrator

[KenONeill]

On 5/20/2017 at 01:32, Aram said:

 

I didn't take photos, but I weighted the conrods with nuts and cap, the pistons with pins and clips but missed the bearings. With files I put everything within 1 gram difference, weighted with my jeweler's digital scale. I did it mostly because I had to remove some material from piston #1 skirt...honestly didn't thought about performance or smoothness but more scared about having a 4 pistons vibrator

That's exactly what I was talking about. Avoiding your "4 pistons vibrator" (not formal English but entirely clear) and my "getting the engine to run smoother" (by doing a static balance of pistons and rods) are exactly the same thing. Yes it might also let the engine rev a little faster and higher, but we're both thinking about making it smoother in "normal driving" rather than extracting more revs or power from it.

[Aram]

Today's work: mending a shaft tab and installing oil rings

 

[Aram]

Today's work: round #2!

 

 

 

 

And this is how it looks so far

 

Edited 26 May, 2017 by Aram

[KenONeill]

@Aram - nice work. One piece of "technical English" for you though (and remember your English is much better than my Spanish); what you've described as "bolts for screwdrivers" should be called "set screws". Not even every native English speaker knows that!