Saturday, February 4, 2012

Explorer Engine Swap - Installing The Valve Train

In the last article I discussed how to put the timing cover and water pump.  Now it is time to start putting the top of the engine back together so we can get it ready to drop into the car.

We are going to start with the valve train.  Ok, maybe not the full valve train, but the parts that we had taken off in an earlier step so we could change the cam and valve springs.

This step is going to require some patience.  It will involve cleaning and putting parts in places that are not necessarily the easiest to get parts into.  You will want to have a couple shop rags handy as well as some assembly lube.

Remember when we took this apart, I was pretty anal about how you stored the parts and made sure you put them in the right order.  Well, here is where you will thank me for this.

Since you have all of this stuff in position and ready to go in, we are going to start with the lifters.  Make sure you examine the lifters to make sure there isn't any abnormal wear.  If there is, you will want to consider replacing them.  Typically there isn't, but it will depend on how many miles your engine has on it as well as how well it was maintained.

Using your shop rag you will want to wipe all the old oil off of the lifters.  It is very important that these are free of any dirt as they are hydrolic lifters and that can damage them.  Once you have your first one clean you will want to put some assembly lube on the bearing wheel that rides along the cam shaft.  Place the first lifter in the appropriate spot and move to the lifter that is paired with this one.  It is important to do this in pairs because of the clip that goes between the lifters.  Once you install the pair of lifters, you will want to place the retaining clip in the middle of them.

The purpose of this retaining clip is to make sure the lifters do not spin or turn.  If they were to spin, it would cause the bearing to not turn appropriately and cause severe internal engine damage.  make sure you get this clip in there correctly (it really isn't difficult).

Follow this same procedure for the rest of the lifters ensuring that you put them in the same spot that they were removed from.

Once you have all of the lifters in place you will remove the push rods one by one from the box.  Clean each push rod to remove any old oil and place some assembly lube on both ends ensuring that the end that was on the lifter before is on the lifter again.  Do this for the remaining push rods.

Next you will be placing the rockers back on.  The rockers will also need to be cleaned of any old oil prior to installing back on the engine.  you will remove the bolt and spacer from the middle of the rocker arm and place some assembly lube in there prior to putting it on the engine.  Also add a dab of assembly lube where the pushrod will be.  Put the Rocker arm on the engine, but only tighten the bolt finger tight.  Do this for the remaining rocker arms.  Remember, you are not torquing the bolts down at this point.  That will come later.

Next you will be installing the spring plate that was removed from the center of the engine.  This will make sure the clips stay in place for the lifters.  Torque those bolts to the appropriate setting.

Now you will be bringing Each cylinder to top dead center on the compression stroke.  Going in the same order as the firing order you will torque each set of rocker arms down.  You may be wondering why the compression stroke has been identified for this.  The reason is simple.  On the compression stroke both of the valves are closed.  This leaves as little pressure as possible on the valve springs.  This is the safest way to torque them down.  As you move to the next cylinder, make sure you bring it to top dead center on the compression stoke, continuing the process until all of the rocker arms have been torqued.  Remember, you are doing this in the firing order, not the cylinder order.

Once this is done, you will be ready to move on to the next step which is putting the intake manifold on.

Good Luck!

1 comment: