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| Building The Engine |
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Finally, oh yes, bitches FINALLY. It is time to try to explain to you how to rebuild an engine. Let me preface this whole thing by stating that if you are attempting this process for the first time, I HIGHLY suggest that you find someone who has rebuilt a Saturn before. You CAN do it yourself, and I hope that this article will make it a much easier process, but I still suggest you seek some guidance from the more experienced members of the community. But anyways, I'm writing this article assuming that you have no choice but to rebuild the engine by yourself. Good luck...hahahahahaha.
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Now, depending on why you're rebuilding your engine, you will need some different parts before you go to rebuild it. If you spun a bearing (or four), you will VERY likely need to get the crank turned, or lathed down, in order to resmooth the journals around which the rods rotate. The main journals (the big ones), will also probably have to be remachined. If you can feel the scratches in the crank, or scrape them with your fingernail and notice them, you MUST get the crank turned before you rebuild the engine. If you don't the thing will last like 200 miles and then promptly throw your wonderful new bearings. Yay. In addition, it would be a good idea to either get some new rods, or at least get the ones you have checked for straightness. You'll also need to inspect the pistons, head surface, valves, and cam journals for wear and/or damage. If anything looks even kinda fucked up, ask for a second opinion or, better yet, just replace the part. While the engine is apart, it'd be a great time to replace, or at least cheack for stretching of, the timing chain and/or timing components (tensioner, guides, etc.). Also, it's a great idea to replace the oil pressure relief valve (whatever it's called...the one right next to the oil pump in the timing cover). We'll go into that later. In addition, you'll NEED to get the cylinders rehoned, as long as there's no scarring of the cylinder walls. If there is, you'll probably need to get them bored out and then rehoned. finally, you'll NEED new main and rod bearings and piston rings. Be sure to get the correct ring and bearing sizes if you had to turn the crank or bore the block.
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Ok, so you've gotten everything you need together to rebuild this motherfucker. Now comes the actual building. It's not actually that hard...just very exacting. So be CAREFUL in everything you do, and ALWAYS, ALWAYS err on the side of more cleaning. Tiny specks of dust and miniscule cloth fibers can really do some damage to a new engine, so if you see ANYTHING on the engine, especially in the cylinders or on the crank journals or bearings, GET IT OFF! The first step is to take your nice clean pistons and get the rings onto them. There are three ring grooves in the piston. the top two grooves hold the compression rings and the bottom (and widest) groove holds the oil control ring. You'll start from the bottom and move up. The oil control ring is actually a sandwich of two identical rings with that weird squiggly, gold one in the middle. Put that weird one in first. Basically, you just open it slightly and it will slide right over the piston and into the bottom groove. Rotate the ring to place the opening of the circle 180 degrees from the middle of the two valve reliefs in the top of the piston (a.k.a. "eyebrows"). Next, take one of the ultra skinny rings (you should have two identical ones per piston) and position it so the opening of the ring is at the outside corner of one of the eyebrows (meaning 135 degrees away from the opening of the middle oil control ring), as shown here. To get the ring in place, twist the ring open slightly (don't just pull it straight apart) and slowly "roll" it around the piston and into the oil control groove, directly below the weird middle ring. Next, take the second of the ultra-skinny rings and position it 135 degrees away from the middle ring's opening and 90 degrees from the other ultra-skinny ring's opening (meaning at the outside corner of the other eyebrow). Get it into the groove in the same manner as with the last ring, but place it above the weird middle ring. You should now have three rings in the one lowest groove, making a sandwich. The openings of the rings should form a "Y" shape around the piston. Coo.
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Now for the second compression ring, the middle groove. I'm not gonna lie. This one is a bit nerve wracking. What you DON'T want to do is pull the ring apart so far that it snaps in half. This ring is the toughest and strongest of all the rings, so it's a bit touchy. But don't be timid. Just pull it apart enough to just slide it over the top of the piston and into the second groove. This ring, however, has an up side and a down side. The side to be facing up when installed on the piston is imprinted with a small dot or circle near the ring's opening. Don't place it upside down! The dot side goes UP! Rotate the ring so that it's opening is directly over the opening for the MIDDLE ring of the oil control ring sandwich. After that one is in place, the top compression ring is cake. Just pull it open slightly, and it should pop right into place. Rotate the top ring so that it's opening is directly opposite (180 degrees from) the opening for the second compression ring. That way, the gasses trying to bypass the rings have the longest journey around the piston before they can escape. Ok, didn't break anything. Great job, genius. Now do the other three pistons.
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Next up is the crank. I cannot stress to you enough how absolutely essential it is that you get this thing as absolutely clean as you can. Use a LOT of brake cleaner and some VERY clean towels or paper towels or something to clean the journals. Get EVERY speck you can off of the shiny surfaces. When it's nice and clean, put it somewhere safe and go put the main bearings in the block. Unlike the rod bearings you'll see later, the main bearings have top and bottom halves. The halves that look like this go into the block. The ones that look like this go into the main caps. The one that looks like this is the thrust bearing, and is super weird and goes into the block, too. So, anywhoo, when you get the bearings, you may THINK they're clean, but they're not. Drench them in brake cleaner and wipe them EXTREMELY clean with a fresh paper towel. When each bottom bearing is clean, put them into the block asshown. There are little grooves that the little tabs on the bearing will fit into. Make sure the block, of course is super clean and dry before placing the bearings. The thrust bearing goes in the middle main, by the way. After they're all in, put a nice thick coating of assembly lube onto each bearing surface (and the sides of the thrust bearing!) and place the CLEANNNNNNN crank into the block.
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After the crank in in the block, take each main cap, what you see to your right, and make sure the curved surface is super clean and dry. Then, after cleaning off the bearing bottoms, place the bearing halves into the main cap, fitting the tab on the bearing into the correct slot in the cap. It'll make fine sense, don't worry. Each main cap has, imprinted on the top here, a number and an arrow. Place the main cap so that the arrow points towards the sprocketed end of the crank, not towards the flywheel end. The number one cap is nearest the sprocket, and the number five cap is the nearest the flywheel. When placing each main cap bolt into it's hole, lube both the top of the hole, as well as the threads of each bolt before putting them in. Run each bolt up and down in the threads to make sure it's nice and lubed. To torque them down, make sure each one is tightened evenly, and in a progressive manner, in a spiral pattern going out from the middle bolts. That means, the top one in the middle, then the bottom in the middle, then the bottom to the right of the middle, then the top to the right of the middle, then the top to the left of the middle, then the bottom to the left of the middle, and so on, out to the other bolts in series. I believe these bolts are torqued to 37 ft-lbs, but I'd double check me on the TSN torque list or in a Haynes or Chilton's manual. When they're all torqued properly, take a rubber mallet and bang the end of the crank along its axis pretty hard. Then, switch sides and bang the flywheel end a couple times. Repeat once more. This hammering "seats" the sides of the thrust bearing to the block. Now it's time for the pistons...schwettay!
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Flip the block over and make sure the cylinders are fucking super clean. I used a clean rag to buff out any microscopic annoyance still in there. Then, take each rod and flip it over. Clean the curved part of the rod end, as well as ALL of your rod bearings. Place one half of a bearing into the rod end, as shown. It also has little tabs and slots that will fit together. When the bearing half is in the rod, get a bowl of fresh oil and dip the head of the piston into it, at least deep enough to cover all of the rings. Also splash some oil onto the wrist pin area and move it around to lube it all up a bit. While it's sitting there, put some assembly lube on the bearing surface, and have your friend put some on each of the rod bearing journals on the crank. Let it soak for about 15 seconds and then pull it out and drain it a bit. Tighten the ring compressor around the piston so you have just the bottom of the skirt showing, and all of the rings are compressed as far as it'll go. Not like crazy tight, but get it on there GOOD. Then, rotate the crank so the journal of the cylinder you're istalling at the moment is at the very bottom of it's stroke. Feed the rod down through the cylinder, being CAREFUL not to hit the walls, and VERY, VERY FUCKING careful not to let the studs in the rod scrape against the crank surface (you can also put short sections of rubber hose onto the stud ends on the rods, preventing them from scarring the crank...secret trick!!!). Make sure the valve reliefs are facing the back of the block. Then, take the bottom of a wooden or plastic or rubber hammer or something like that and hit the top of the piston to slide it out of the ring compressor and into the cylinder. I had Sam hit the piston, and I sat under the block and guided the rod down onto the crank journal. Make sure it's sitting on the journal well, and install the rod cap. Make sure you have the other half of the bearing installed onto the rod cap, and the bearing surface facing the crank oiled up with some assembly lube. If you look here, you can see me pointing to a notch in the cap that is only there on one side. A similar notch is in thr othe half of the rod, as well. BOTH notches should be facing the sprocketed end of the crank. Otherwise, yo' shit is backwardzzz! When you're done, the piston should be sitting pretty in its new home. Do two cylinders at a time, meaning the two cylinders that are at the very bottom of their stroke. Then, hand tighten the rod cap bolts on, flip it over, and tighten them all down to 33 ft-lbs, I think. Then, flip it back over, rotate the crank 180 degrees, and insert the other two pistons. When everything is all torqued to spec, put the windage tray back on over the crank and torque those bolts down to 41 ft-lbs in the same spiral pattern as before. Install the oil pickup tube (make sure the o-ring is in the hole before installing the tube!) and tighten the two little bolts until they're pretty snug. Bottom end secure. Tightnessness.
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Ok, now for the head. To get the pistons all in a safe position for the head installation, rotate the crank until the key (reverse notch) in the crank end is 90 degrees to the left of the vertical line on the block, as shown to the right. That will place the pistons all in the middle of their strokes, out of the way of the head as it's installed. Using brake cleaner and a clean rag, get all traces of grease and grime off of the top of the head surface, on which the head gasket will sit. Then, when everything is nice and shiny, line the gasket up to the head and place it flat on the surface. Next, clean the entire bottom surface of the head, where it will meet the gasket. You can again use brake cleaner and a good rag for this one. You can also use a wire brush on a drill to scrape off any old gasket pieces or tough shit on there. Don't tear anything up, but give it a nice scrub. When you're ready, line the head up the right direction onto the block and drop it on. There are mounting hole things sticking up out of the block to make sure you have it aligned the right way. Dip the head bolts' threads in oil and insert them into their holes. Using a drill (or socket...ugh), run the bolts down and up once to clean the threads out before tightening them back down. Get them all snug, and then torque them down using the familiar snail pattern. A couple notes here...don't reuse head bolts more than once, unless you check the stretch on the bolts to make sure they're still within spec. Also, if you're using ARP head bolts, the torque spec is 60 ft-lbs, and be sure to use the ARP lube that comes with them. If you're using stock bolts, the proper way to torque them is to do three passes. On the first pass, get them all down to 22 ft-lbs. Second pass, get them all down to 37 ft-lbs. On the final pass, set the torque wrench to 60 ft-lbs. Then, rotate each bolt until either the torque wrench clicks, or you reach 90 degrees rotation. Always remember to use the snail pattern for torquing the bolts.
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Alright...we're almost done with the major shit. Head is on and bottom end is done. Now to set the timing. This process actually turned out to be a LOT easier than I thought it would be, thankfully. As you can see to the right, each cam sprocket has a hole in it. Rotate the cam using a 24mm or so wrench on the middle, flattened part of the shaft until the hole in the sprocket is directly over a hole you'll see in the head behind the sprocket. Place a small allen wrench or drill bit through the two holes to hold the sprocket in place. Repeat the process on the other cam. Finally, rotate the crank, using the same wrench, I think, so that the key on the end of the crank is facing directly up, in line with the vertical mark on the block, as shown here. Then, install the timing chain tensioner, fully depress the shaft into the body, and flip the little switch you see in the picture to the left to hold the shaft in while you put on the chain. You can use a tiny ass allen wrench to hold it. If you look on the chain, you'll see a total of four "silver" links, which look like this. They are of a distinctly lighter color than the rest. You'll also notice that each cam sprocket has a dot imprinted into its surface at one point right near its edge. Align the chain so that one silver link is over each of the dots on the cam sprockets, and the other two are at the very bottom of the line, at the bottom edge of the crank sprocket. Now, place the right guide into place and tighten its three 10mm bolts. You may have to use the big wrench to rotate the chain a bit in order to get some slack for the guide placement. When it's tightened down, put on the left guide. You can see the proper hole in which to put the bolt for the left guide circled here. When both guides are on, release the tensioner by flipping the switch back to the right, and make sure the chain is TIGHT. If you need to, you can squeeze the guides together using channel locks in order to get the tensioner extended farther. Now, place the top guide, shown here, onto the top of the chain, and bolt it into the head with its two 8mm bolts. Your timing setup should look like this beauty when finished. Noice.
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Next thing you wanna do is grab your timing chain cover and flip it over so you're looking at the inside. Using a Torx 20 bit, remove the eight bolts you see to the right. When you're done, pop off the cover to reveal the oil pump. Just to the side of the pump is a smooth hole with a valve down inside. using a screwdriver, pry out that valve. That is the oil pressure relied valve, and should be replaced to prevent low oil pressure down the line. Get a new one from Saturn and use a socket just as large as the hole the valve sits in to hammer the valve back down into place. Make SURE it's in there VERY WELL.
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Ohhh, the joys of petroleum jelly...or in this case, the lack thereof. This shit is fucking nasty. It WILL get everywhere, it WILL make you feel like a weird mix between an oil slick and a candle, and it WILL NOT come off. Anyways, what you see to the right is petrolum jelly (a.k.a Vaseline). You can find it in the baby care isle of almost any drug store. You're going to use it to "prime" the oil pump. In order to make sure the oil pump is able to draw up oil into the engine, you have to create an airtight seal within the pump. To accomplish this task, you're going to pack the entire pump area FULL of the petroleum jelly. It's a nasty task, but it's essential, so don't skip it. Just fill the WHOLE fucking space that is covered by the oil pump cover. It should look like this when finished. Tighten the torx bolts back down and it's time to move on to...
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Mounting the timing cover! Clean both the timing cover sealing surface and the contact surface on the block VERY well with brake cleaner. Lay a nice, smooth, fat bead of Right Stuff silicone sealant (seen to the right) all the way around the timing cover sealing surface, as well as the other bolt hole in the middle, near the top of the inside of the cover. In addition, put a bead of Right Stuff horizontally inside the tiny grooves you can see where the block meets the head along the contact surface of the timing cover area on the engine. Finally, put a light coat of oil on the two O-rings you see in the block near the bottom of the timing chain area. When all is ready, place the timing cover onto the block and screw in the NUMEROUS 10mm bolts, as well as the one 8mm bolt. Don't forget the one 10mm bolt near the top of the cover, which I forgot to remove before prying my cover off...hence my need to get a new one...dumbass! Anyhooz, hopefully you got it right and you're now lookin in good shape.
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Next up is the infamous rear main seal. It serves as the seal keeping the oil from pouring out from the end of the crank onto the flywheel. As you can see to the right, it consists of a replacable rubber gasket inside of a metal frame. Before bolting on the rear main seal, clean off the contact surfaces, both on the outside of the block around the flywheel end of the crank, and on the inside face of the rear main seal's metal component. When they're all clear, make sure the rubber gasket is both in good shape (no cracking or missing chunks) and cleaned of all grime and dirt. Finally, oil up both the end of the crank (on the horizonatal surface without the bolt holes) and the entire surface of the rear main seal's rubber gasket using clean motor oil. Run a bead of Right Stuff around the entire edge of the rear main seal contact surface, including circling the bolt holes, and then carefully press the rear main seal onto the end of the crank. Slide it into place slowly, and avoid rolling any part of the rubber gasket under itself. There must be smooth clean contact between the crank end and the rubber seal in order to prevent massive oil leakage when the engine is run. Tighten the four 8mm bolts to 97 INCH-lbs. Not foot-lbs...INCH-lbs. Careful! It should look like this when you're done and done.
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Now onto the intake manifold. Using a clean rag and some brake cleaner, and if needed a wire brush on a drill, clean all the old gasket and dirt and oil and whatnot off of the intake manifold gasket surface, seen to the right. Clean the gasket surface of the manifold itself, as well, in the same manner. Put a NEW, UNUSED intake manifold gasket over the studs and put the manifold on the head. Tighten down the nuts to 22 ft-lbs, and you're good to go. If you need to replace the fuel rail, throttle body, or injectors, now is the time to do it. If you need help, consult the Throttle Body page in the Navigation bar. The injectors should just pop right into the fuel rail, and the rail bolts down to the intake manifold by three 10mm bolts you should still have from when you disassembled it (you still have them, right?!).
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After you've got your intake manifold back on, it's time to return once again to the timing chain cover side of the engine to install the water pump. In the picture to the right, you can see the red gasket for the piece. If you so desire, you can also lay a bead of Right Stuff onto the block where the water pump will sit, before placing the pump into its hole (to the right of the timing cover). Anyways, just tighten down the five or six 10mm bolts down and you're in business. Place the water pump pulley (the one with thee holes in the middle sction) onto the end of the pump and screw in the three 10mm bolts. You won't easily be able to tighten them up yet, but that will come later, don't worry.
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After the more complicated jobs today, take a moment to do something easy. If this job is hard, you're stupid. Three bolts hold the A/C compressor bracket onto the engine. Even if you don't have A/C, you have to attach this bracket, since it also contains a lifting loop for dropping the engine back into the car. One 10mm bolt at the top and two 13mm near the bottom of the bracket are all the fasteners you need to bolt down. Yay. Great job, homeslice.
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On the timing chain side of the engine, you've got three jobs left to do. Two of them can be done right now. The first, as you see to the right, is to bolt down the tensioner to the block using the two 10mm bolts circled in the picture. Next, place the idler pulley in front of its hole near the middle of the timing cover and screw the 10mm (I think) bolt in to hold it in place. Don't forget to use the large, distinctive washer between the bolt and the pulley. The final job on this end is the crank pulley, but we'll get to that in a moment. Hold your horses, little beeeeitch.
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Now onto the bottom of the engine. Flip the whole dealio over so you're looking at the bottom of the block, as seen to the right. Pour a bit of clean oil into the oil pickup tube in order to allow it to soak a bit into whatever is down there by the oil pump. Then, clean the ENTIRE gasket sealing surface around the bottom of the block EXTREMELY WELL, unless, for some odd reason, you love leaking oil pans. Brake cleaner and a razor blade or fingernail will work quite well. Clean the sealing surface of the oil pan in the same manner. Remove all old gasket material as well as any trace of oil or grease on either sealing surface. Then, lay a nice, fat bead of Right Stuff alllllll the way around the oil pan sealing surface, making sure to go around all the bolt holes in the process, and lay it down onto the engine. To speed up the screwing in of the eleventyZILLION oil pan bolts, chuck an 8mm socket into a drill and, after starting each individual bolt by hand to make sure there's no cross-threading, drill each bolt down until it gets just a bit tight. YOU DEFINITELY can snap these bolts off VERY easily, so be CAREFUL. After all the bolts are a little tight, go around and tighten each one down by hand. Again, BE CAREFUL and GO SLOWLY! When you're all done, your wonderful engine will look much like this. Noice.
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Now, flip the engine over so you're looking at the side opposite to the timing chain cover. You will see, as to the right, the end of the crank to which you will attach the flywheel, clutch, and transmission. Get the flywheel, lay it in place over the end of the crank, and tighten down the flywheel bolts until they're just a bit tight. Then using a torque wrench, tighten each bolt down to 59 ft-lbs. The order in which you tighten the bolts down is extremely important. You MUST do it right, or you risk warping the flywheel. Look at this picture carefully. Note that each bolt is numbered in order around the circle. Tighten the bolts, in this order, down to the proper torque: 1, 5, 2, 6, 8, 4, 7, 3. Eeeeeexcellent. When everything is bolted down, use brake cleaner and a VERY clean paper towel to clean the flywheel top surface of ANY TRACE of dirt or oil. If the flywheel is slick with oil, the clutch will inevitably slip. CLEAN IT PERFECTLY NOW, while it's still easy to do.
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After the flywheel is nice and tight, next up is the clutch. There are two main parts of the clutch you need to install onto the flywheel. The flat, frisbee looking thing you probably have is called the friction disc. Looking at the center of the disc, you'll see that one one side, the mechanisms near the middle stick out more. Flip the disc and lay it down on the flywheel so that the protruding side is facing away from the engine. Now, get that little black cylindrical thing you should also have with the clutch kit (the alignment tool...also rentable at Autozone) and stick it through the middle of the friction disc as far as it will go. The alignment tool serves to center the friction disc in the clutch assembly. With the alignment tool still stuck though the friction disc, place the larger half of the clutch, the pressure plate, onto the flywheel over the friction disc. There are four (I think) alignment pins located around the flywheel that will only allow the pressure plate to be oriented one way, so don't worry about getting it wrong. Then, going in a crisscross pattern, like with the flywheel, bolt down the pressure plate to the flywheel. Tada...clutch installation. The last piece to install is the throwout bearing. If you look into the transmission housing, you'll see the shaft with the splines on the end, a big metal arm, and a round thing stuck into the arm. That's the throwout bearing. If you twist the bearing and pull gently, it will come out of the arm. It's kept in by two little tabs that just bearly grasp the edge of the arm. Observe the one you just removed from the arm, and you should get the idea on how to put the new one in. If you don't...you probably haven't gotten this far (or graduated 4th grade), so whatever.
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Now that the clutch is on, it's time to get that tranny case back onto the engine. I know these pictures suck, but you can deal. There are four bolts holding the tranny to the engine. The two on the top are circled to the right. You should be able to find the other two by just looking around the case for two giant holes missing bolts. Keep looking...you'll find them.
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Two more things to go...both easy. To the right, you see the half shaft. It's connected to the block by three bolts, two of which you can see in the picutre, and one that is above them, nearer to the oil filter hole. Insert the halfshaft into the differential hole (to the left in the picture to the right) and just bolt it down. Nice and easy. Finally, attach the dogbone mounting bracket (big horseshoe-lookinf thing) below the crankshaft pulley. The picture I got was hideous, so I outlined the bracket for you here. There are two bolts on either side of the crankshaft pulley that you'll notice, since they're currently leaving large, conspicuous bolt holes in the side of the block. Bolt them down and you're good to go.
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As a final note, be aware that this tutorial is not a complete guide to a rebuild. I'm QUITE sure I missed many, many parts of the process, so check everything twice (or eight times) to be sure it's all nice and complete. In addition, be sure to do a proper installation of the valve cover after you're sure everything is running nice and smoothly. Plently of Right Stuff on clean gasket surfaces, as well as a preformed gasket if you've got the polymer valve cover. Noice.
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