Builds Old Landy: An HJ45 Story/Build Thread (3 Viewers)

[Cowboy45]

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the thread, but this past weekend we visited the barn!

 

[Cowboy45]

The first thing to come off was the crankshaft pulley. We made sure it was set to TDC/top dead center before taking it off for timing purposes, and it’s also a good guideline for when you are putting everything back on the engine so it’s all put back the same way. There is a tight press fit on the pulley itself so it is good to use a puller (shown below) to remove the actual pulley off the crankshaft.

 

[CenTXFJ60]

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the thread, but this past weekend we visited the barn!

And...
C’mon Keaton, give us some details .

 

[CenTXFJ60]

And...
C’mon Keaton, give us some details .

Ha. You posted while I was typing

 

[Cowboy45]

It just loaded in for me once I posted. Haha.

 

[Cowboy45]

Next to come off was the water pump and water pump housing. Incase anyone else is using this thread as an example we drained the coolant and oil before hand, but there may still be little coolant in the water pump housing so watch out for that! As you can see in the pics below there are I believe five nuts for the water pump and I want to say at least 6-7 bolts for the housing. (That second picture is me taking off the housing by the way.)

 

[Cowboy45]

Next, we flipped the engine and removed the oil pan. I think that was the first time I had ever seen the bottom of any engine in person! You could tell how well maintained the engine was immediately just by looking inside. Everything was clean and looked almost new (the pictures don’t do it justice) It was definitely cool to see how everything works too!

 

[dogfishlake]

Glad to see progress. That engine looks clean. I remember the first time my dad helped me open up an engine. I loved it!

 

[Cowboy45]

The oil pick up tubes came out next, and you could see how well planed out it was! First of all, the oil pick up when lined up with the oil pan was directly in the deepest part meaning no matter what ever way the engine is tilted it will get oil. Second of all, the oil pan itself was baffled so the oil can’t slosh to one side when tilted resulting in the engine also always getting oil! Sadly I don’t have pictures of the oil pan so I hope this is easy to comprehend.

 

[Cowboy45]

We definitely did this in the wrong order looking back, but next to come off was the timing cover. And this is were it goes down hill... so you know it’s just a casual day just removing the bolts from the timing cover and then *snap* we break one of the bolts off. Okay I know what you are thinking, “those idiots don’t know how to remove bolts carefully,” but a lot of the bolts on the timing cover were frozen and caked with what not so it wasn’t our fault! We were so lucky too, because it was one of the bolts that bolted the two halves of the housing together on the outside of the engine block. So we make a quick run and grab some PB blaster and let it soak over night. The next day we come prepared with an easy out and ready to get cracking again. And believe it or not it gets worse... when we are trying to get the bolt out with the easy out we end up breaking the easy out inside the bolt. (Backgrounders info: The metal used to make the easy outs are INCREDIBLY strong so if you break that you are pretty much dead.) Now as we are even farther down the rabbit hole we break out the drill and grind that sucker down. At the end of it all with two broken drill bits and a broken easy out we finally get the timing cover off. We also did all if this while the engine was upside down so it was even more confusing.

 

[Cowboy45]

^^^ The injection pump also came off as well.

 

[Cowboy45]

Next, we checked all the backlash on the timing gears and removed them all making sure to keep it in TDC. (Don’t have any pics) Then, we removed the camshaft which we think was replaced somewhere in the engine’s life, because it looks brand new along with the welch plug. There was some minor scoring on the cam lobes so we are planning to take it to a machine shop.

 

[Cowboy45]

As you can see in the picture below we also took off the Crankshaft bearing caps. Through all of this we are very carefully labeling everything to make sure they are put back exactly right. Be careful for the fourth piston’s Crankshaft bearing cap, because there are four thrust washers (two in the bottom two on the top) that need to be put back exactly how they were found. Overall all the bearings look impeccable along with the caps. There are some minor scoring but it only seemed to be a defective bearing cap. Get ready for the picture overflow!

 

[Cowboy45]

Pics:

 

[Cowboy45]

Pics:

 

[Cowboy45]

We also took off Conrod bearing caps which also had very minimal scoring marks except for maybe one or two defective caps.

 

[Cowboy45]

Pics:

 

[Cowboy45]

As the cruiser bible said we also checked the wear and tear in both the Crankshaft bearings and Conrod bearings with plastigauge and both were well within spec!

 

[Cowboy45]

Before removing the pistons we covered the threads on the conrod’s with 1/2” ID clear hose to protect the conrod bearings and the piston walls when we remove them. It also protects the threads of needed to hit the pistons out like we did. There are some examples of this in the pics above.

 

[Cowboy45]

Lastly we removed the stiffener plate and the
rear main seal housing and took out the crankshaft! Below there are also the entirety of what we did on the engine. That last picture was before we took out the crankshaft.