as far as i know it was changed every three to five thousand miles like it's supposed to be. when we pulled the covers off the heads both looked really clean... just as clean as my head on my civic, which has been recently hot tanked and has seen about 50 miles since.
i don't get it. the van was owned by a business since 93 untill last summer when my dad bought it. we got no receipts or paper work, but it seems as if it was maintained... the plugs and wires had already been changed (autolite plugs, carquest wires) as well as misc. other things arent motor craft... but it's like they ran strait water for coolant.
I've broken the bolt head off my thermostat housing trying to get it off, I ended up grinding the one side of the housing down and putting a nut on my now stud. It has worked fine for the past 3 years but I have a feeling if I take a small but SHARP pipe wrench to that one bolt I can get it out. Pipe wrenches have saved the day for me many times in the past, but the key is to make sure the teeth on the wrench are sharp so they grip that bolt and don't let go. If your at the point of no return with a stud sticking out you might as well give it a try.
huh didn't know that about pipe wrenches, thanks for the advice!! well as far as this project goes it's almost wrapped up, just have to hook up a few hoses, and put the dizzy back and and crank it over and see what happens. lol
My aero is in progress now. replaced piston rings (Mahle), bearings (mahle) and gaskets (Fel-Pro). Today I gonna change clutch Slave Cyl, then I'll try to put tranny on engine
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And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
WELL crap we got it all back together, and it wont start. i'm currently TRYING to get the stupid distributor to go back in the correct way, and i can't get it to line up. but there is an even LARGER problem. i can rotate the engine 3/4 of the way around, and then it just stops, like there's something causing the engine to lock up. it is sitting with the battery off in neutral. guess i gotta tear it all apart again. also, when we went to start it the first time it was VERY slow starting for a car with a brand new starter, alternator and battery. PLEASE HELP!!! i want my van back (dad has been using my car since i have no job and he needs a car to get around)
let's start from the beginning to simplify things by process of elimination.
first we need to get the engine turning over smoothly with no binding.
remove the starter and distributor
remove all the plugs to lessen compression
turn the engine over by spinning the fan blade by hand while someone else
pushes on the fan belt.
or remove the inspection plate on the bell housing and turn the flywheel by the starting ring teeth.
we hope the engine turns over easily and smoothly now.
if not, tool or part dropped down in upper crankcase engine valley while intake manifold was off.
also may be small part/tool down distributor hole jamming cam shaft gear.
or could be defective/wrong starter binding against flywheel gear
feces happens to all mechanics. don't sweat it. take a half day off from the beast and think about the job ahead, then tackle it with a clear mind and no anger or emotions clouding decisions.
i use lots of moly grease on bolt threads now whenever i work on a rig. prevents thread seizure. common low cost moly disc brake wheel bearing grease is what i use except for exhaust manifold bolts where i use the specialized expensive disc brake assembly grease used on the caliper slider pins.
with all the dissimilar metals in these new rigs, bolt thread seizure and corrosion are all too common.
a little black moly washes off the hands with some pumice soap, far quicker than hours or days spent on a couple bolts.
i smear the threaded bolt ends sticking out with moly grease also. keeps the rust from growing and far easier removal.
shocks absorbers a prime example.
engine assembly such as rod bolts and main cap bolts are some of the places grease is not desired nor needed
auto manufacturers are only concerned about bolts coming apart from vibration, the reason they use so much thread lock now. they could care less about future repair time.
A common mistake a lot of people make when repairing/replacing the thermostat is to damage the crank position sensor wiring, as it runs right past that area. That will cause the engine to not start.
As to why it cranks slowly, I would guess the starter position. I seem to recall some starters requiring shims, but I can't remember what model or engine types. But this doesn't explain your inability to turn the engine by hand, unless the starter drive gear actually got jammed into the flywheel gears. Also, if your fan is mounted on a clutch, you will not be able to turn your engine with it. The only way is to put a socket onto the harmonic damper bolt.
Inserting the distributor require aligning the distributor shaft with the pump drive shaft while aligning the distributor gear with the cam gear. If you are off by one tooth either way, you can compensate by turning the distributor. But you should still inspect the area to see if you've dropped anything in there.
will do inspection,on all holes, engine does rotate smoothly, just not all the way around. gets stopped up on the rear two cylinders. my guess is one of the push rods is either installed wrong or fubared... i am almost certain that no tool is in the dizzy hole, as it DOES go in all the way, just in random places, not where i want it to. lol. i find it odd that a brand new (less than 6months old) starter goes bad while the car was sitting? vehicle was running and starting fine before we took engine apart, leading me to believe that it has little to do with that. however, if nothing appears out of wack when valve covers are off i will inspect the fly wheel. i'm leaning towards pushrods tho cuz i remember my dad saying that i bent one trying to remove the lower manifold.
at this point i wish we would have pulled the damn motor to work on it, since we turned a weekend job into a month long project. specially since we are going to drain the tranny and replace the filter
yes, the push rods can cause engine rotation lockup if they have dropped down out of the rocker arm holes or are up on the edge of the lifter hole. causes valves to bottom out against piston top locking engine rotation.
most common on the individual stamped rocker arm engines such as the 3L has. they wobble all over the place while assembling. especially hard to keep centered on a rig such as the Aerostar with little work room
should try an inboard boat engine.
DO NOT FORCE THE ENGINE TO ROTATE.
take off the valve covers and inspect push rods and rockers before complete upper teardown.
pushrods can be straigtened. done on a spec'd flat surface such as a lathe bed guide. use clamp force to straighten, never a hammer, can crush and weaken the hollow tube.
way to prevent distributor reset problems is set the engine on TDC cyl #1 compression stroke. take white paint and mark on distributor housing were cap electrode is positioned. will save you time in the future. still lots of distributor rigs around with the popularity of the old V8 muscle cars and classics, common ignition in marine apps.
forgot the OEM Ford 3.0L has a fan clutch, too used to working on my old junke and friends 4L creek crawler Rangers converted to solid fan blade drive for low speed low rpm cooling. was playing with 4L last weekend at a competition, Paxton supercharger, 11:1 compression pistons, modified heads, shop welded large steel headers. ran like a raped ape off the line and in the mud, massive amounts of low end torque. no turbo lag in this beast. would throw mud 20' in the air with all 4.
DCRB, did you remove the rocker shaft for any reason while replacing the intake manifold gaskets? How did you bend a pushrod while removing the manifold? If you did, I would just go to the scrap yard and pull one out of one of those engines. Don't try to straighten out a bent rod; it will easily bend again under load. Unfortunately, I think you have to at least remove the upper plenum to get the valve covers off.
I don't know how such an engine will live; normally you want to reduce static compression ratio with any kind of forced induction, or it will detonate itself to pieces.
yes, the push rods can cause engine rotation lockup if they have dropped down out of the rocker arm holes or are up on the edge of the lifter hole. causes valves to bottom out against piston top locking engine rotation.
most common on the individual stamped rocker arm engines such as the 3L has. they wobble all over the place while assembling. especially hard to keep centered on a rig such as the Aerostar with little work room
I am thinking that this is what happened, being that the last push rod on the passenger bank has to be installed after the lower intake manifold is installed.
should try an inboard boat engine.
I hope to own a boat large enough to have an inboard... dreaming about flat bottomed aluminum boats...
DO NOT FORCE THE ENGINE TO ROTATE.
I physically knew when to stop when the engine wouldn't go any farther around, but i fear damage has been caused from trying to actually start the car...
take off the valve covers and inspect push rods and rockers before complete upper teardown.
pushrods can be straigtened. done on a spec'd flat surface such as a lathe bed guide. use clamp force to straighten, never a hammer, can crush and weaken the hollow tube.
way to prevent distributor reset problems is set the engine on TDC cyl #1 compression stroke. take white paint and mark on distributor housing were cap electrode is positioned. will save you time in the future. still lots of distributor rigs around with the popularity of the old V8 muscle cars and classics, common ignition in marine apps.
I'm sure with a little more playing i can get the dizzy installed correctly. It is just frustrating, as this is new territory for me, I never have had to mess with my dizzy (although I'm going to replace cap and rotor and all that soon) on my van and i'm used to working on ye old honda (two key way style teeth that are offset to one side, so one can only install it one way)
forgot the OEM Ford 3.0L has a fan clutch, too used to working on my old junke and friends 4L creek crawler Rangers converted to solid fan blade drive for low speed low rpm cooling. was playing with 4L last weekend at a competition, Paxton supercharger, 11:1 compression pistons, modified heads, shop welded large steel headers. ran like a raped ape off the line and in the mud, massive amounts of low end torque. no turbo lag in this beast. would throw mud 20' in the air with all 4.
now THAT would be something fun to do in one of our vans.
DCRB, did you remove the rocker shaft for any reason while replacing the intake manifold gaskets? How did you bend a pushrod while removing the manifold? If you did, I would just go to the scrap yard and pull one out of one of those engines. Don't try to straighten out a bent rod; it will easily bend again under load. Unfortunately, I think you have to at least remove the upper plenum to get the valve covers off.
yes.... all were removed to clean old gaskets. even if we didn't remove all of them one still HAD to come out as ford thought it was a good idea to anchor the manifold in place by the rear most pushrod in cyl. number six...
I don't know how such an engine will live; normally you want to reduce static compression ratio with any kind of forced induction, or it will detonate itself to pieces.
race gas, stand alone engine management system, wide band o2 sensor and a GOOOOOOD tune can get you there... that's what i'm going to be doing any ways on my civic... going to have 12:1 compression
that's 12:1 dynamic total compression ratio with 15 psi total boost on the Paxton with waste gate limiting.
the static compression ratio with his custom order Tom Morana pistons is about 7:1.
set up with a custom grind cam low lift short duration, ground for max. low end torque below 3000 rpm.
he runs water/meth injection on it.
set up with a custom OBDII EEC-V PCM for max low end torque and custom knock sensors one on each block side.
VP racing C12 fuel.
not a highway rig.
5 point seatbelts and neck snap head restraint required.
Did you remove and reinstall the timing chain & Gears?
Sounds like a piston being stopped by a valve sticking out too far.
Or something big enough got dropped down on to a piston and is stopping it from reaching it's full stroke.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DCRB
WELL crap we got it all back together, and it wont start. i'm currently TRYING to get the stupid distributor to go back in the correct way, and i can't get it to line up. but there is an even LARGER problem. i can rotate the engine 3/4 of the way around, and then it just stops, like there's something causing the engine to lock up. it is sitting with the battery off in neutral. guess i gotta tear it all apart again. also, when we went to start it the first time it was VERY slow starting for a car with a brand new starter, alternator and battery. PLEASE HELP!!! i want my van back (dad has been using my car since i have no job and he needs a car to get around)
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