What's in the workshop this week, Pelikanblau edition
 

This week I have Vera's beautiful pelican blue S8 in for an engine swap :)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523135306

Some of you may know that the original engine has developed a considerable thirst for oil when driven slowly, which is believed to be down to piston rings. That's not a cheap problem to solve, so when I found another brand new engine on ebay last year I grabbed it straight away.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523135306

This is the second I've found from the batch of ten which VAG sold to a surplus dealer back in 2015. They were kept as warranty replacements but weren't needed and were sold once they reached 15 years old. I have one in my Dolphin Grey and really wasn't expecting to find another.

Vera was travelling most of the day so I've only got the front panel off so far. This one is going to be an interesting challenge since not only does it have LPG to work around, but an auxiliary heater too so triple the usual amount of plumbing to work with!

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523135306

Lovely car, and just imagine the increased MPG Vera will get when she no longer has to carry several litres of oil in the boot+++

Beautiful colur. I’m looking forward to this since the great work you did on Deans car +++

Guess that means another busy Sunday for you MJ :D

Knowing you, should be fixed by teatime. :love::love:

That was a good find on ebay.

Ooh, wonderful colour, can't wait to see what you do with it!

Excuse number 123 for when stopped by the police for speeding. "Sorry officer, but it uses too much oil if I drive it slowly"

Another lovely coloured car. At least you won't be spending time cleaning the engine as you did with Dean's, but more plumbing.

and those photos dont really do the colour justice. Its more blue than the rather grey-y blue in the photo. Gorgeous colour.

some pics here http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showpost....7&postcount=39

+++

What a great find. How nice that will be to have a spanking new engine.

Lovely colour D2 too. Enjoy the work.

Extra plumbing for the auxiliary heater:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Plumbing - LPG evaporator down by the AC compressor.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Plumbing - tee for the coolant feed to the evaporator (which uses the heat from the engine to evaporate the liquid LPG in to gas)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Plumbing - an interesting valve doodad for the aux heater on the right hand side

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Extra wiring for the LPG system

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Lots more wiring for the LPG system

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Wiring disconnected and ready to remove

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Here's a bonus complication of the manual - the clutch slave cylinder hiding on top of the gearbox. Slightly challenging to remove, extremely challenging to refit!

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

The manual exhaust support bracket is quite tidy with both of them attached together under the gearbox.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216133

Engine out:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523216603

:respekt:

I didnt think you would have it all removed by tonight! What with all the complications of LPG/aux heater. If it was me I probably would only have got as far as removing the bumper by now!

The weight balance of the manual drivetrain is considerably different to the auto. The manual gearbox is 100Kg lighter so the centre of gravity is around cylinders 3 & 6 rather than at the bellhousing, so it needs a chain on the front of the engine to lift it flat.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Extra coolant pipe for the aux heater

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Lots of plumbing here, for the aux heater and lpg

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Engine harness and coolant hoses removed

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Right in the middle of this pic is a lovely bracket to hold the clutch hose. Almost impossible to reach with the engine in :rolleyes:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Both downpipes come off together which is really cool because it means they will both go back in exactly the orientation they came off. That makes reassembly much faster since I can bolt them up fully with the engine on the ground. With the auto you can't do this as its impossible to get them back in the same place so it has to go in with the bolts loose to allow final repositioning once it's back in the hole. Of course any time saved here will be consumed by trying to fit the clutch slave cylinder back in to the gearbox :o

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Split CV boot, as is traditional. Black grease everywhere.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

The manual wiring harness is much simpler than the auto harness :D

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

Vera very kindly brought some non-alcoholic workshop beer :cool:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523217201

It's taken about 8 hours to get to this point. I can have the engine out of mine in 4, but I've obviously been taking extra time on this one due to those extra complications, and also explaining to Vera what I'm doing on the way :)

This particular 8 is a joy to work on - it likes being mended, unlike some which fight back at every turn!

It looks in remarkably good condition in terms of pipework etc - what's the mileage/km-age on the original engine? Presume it's done quite a lot of miles if someone's coughed up for LPG install....

The drive home to Germany should bed the new engine in nicely, so long as Vera can keep away from the loud pedal too much :D

I guess that by the end of the year, you'll have had ALL the calendar cars through the workshop. You've already had January, July, September and November that I know about :ROFL:

This thread brings back some nice memories.
Shame we won't see the car in person at the annual meet (unless you want to drag your heels MJ and then you can come in it +++).

Haha nice try but Vera needs to go home in it on Sunday!

170K miles. Apart from the insatiable thirst for dino squeezings the engine is in amazing condition - hardly any leaks, nice clean oil and coolant, and Vera has had it to the rev limiter in 6th +++ It just uses loads of oil at <3000rpm.

The oil should be clean. Its new every few 100 miles!

PS> waiting for this evenings installment ;)

nice work as usual mj
Dave

Not a great deal to report today. Mostly removing ancillaries from the engine, and removing the centre exhaust silencer which turned out to have a hole in it. Luckily the excellent folk at A8parts had a full system in stock and were able to cut it to the exact length needed to fit with Vera's Supersport back box so dodged a bullet there!

I also removed the LPG injectors from the old engine. You can see the LPG adapters just underneath the original petrol injectors:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523304415

Pretty neat little things actually, which save you from having to drill the inlet manifold. I don't like the way the fuel rail is suspended on nuts and bolts though so I will tidy that up ;)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523304415

The old engine all nekkid :D

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523304415

I had to adjust my engine and gearbox separatey thing to fit the manual gearbox :D

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523304415

Once the engine and 'box were split I cleaned up the gearbox and removed all the clutch fork stuff as that's all being replaced with new along with the clutch and flywheel.

Lots of o-rings and things coming tomorrow so I can reattach all the original water pipes etc to the new engine and start putting it back together +++

You didnt disappoint MJ! I was waiting for the nightly update +++

What are doing with the old engine and LPG gubbins then?

The LPG is going back on the new engine although it'll run on petrol until its properly run-in.

The old engine is going in my A4 racecar. Since it only uses oil under 3000rpm, a track car is the perfect new home for it :D

Thanks MJ, your write ups are fascinating and I love seeing how you renew these cars.

MJ

Do you get so heavily involved with the D3 S8? Engine replacements etc......

Anyway wonderfully informing posts, I love following these threads.

Exclusively D2s +++

+++

I like those injector cups! I thought you were going to have to change the inlet manifold over!

That's an LPG trait.
I ran an old VB Commodore (basically a 1980 Carlton body wise, with Holden mechanicals) on LPG for years.
10,000km oil changes and it always came out a slightly darker clear brown from the new clear amber it went in.
LPG burns nice and clean!

Interesting LPG injector adaptors, look very neat but my first thought was that it is likely to affect petrol injectors with a possibility that petrol could end up on adaptor walls and run down instead of properly evaporating and mixing with air. It's just a theory but could be possible that liquid petrol ends up on cylinder walls and wash down oil making high oil consumption on otherwise healthy engine. I guess it's unlikely as petrol should evaporate well due to engine temperature anyway. If it was direct injection petrol or diesel engine I would be more worried but still something to consider.

Hmm that's food for thought. In that scenario, would you expect it to cause permanently high oil consumption, or only when running on petrol? If its doing it temporarily as a consequence of disrupting the injector spray pattern then I would expect it would not burn oil when running on LPG (on the basis that the LPG doesn't wash the bores).

Given that it uses oil regardless of which fuel it's on, but only at low rpm, I wonder if it has been washing the bores when running on petrol and disrupted proper ring seal? That would be bad as it'll do it to the same to the new engine :(

That said, dodgy rings doesn't really correlate with the old engine being able to hit vmax. Wouldn't it be low on compression in that case and so also be down on power?

I don't know, it was just a theory as those LPG adaptors cought my eye. I guess it could be just oil rings that are worn and compression rings still fine.

Oil consumption only on low revs is interesting, isn't it usually the other way round that oil consumption goes up with revs?:Confused: :Confused:

Its very strange for sure. I might see if I can find some documentation on the spray pattern and try and calculate if its being disrupted.

Could it be due to a pressure differential between the combustion chamber and behind the cylinder?
A high revs (implies high power) there's more fuel and more combustion so higher pressure. At lower revs/power/pressure the oil works up past the pistons and is burnt.

Not sure that 100% makes sense.....

Is there evidence of burning oil in the exhaust when running at lower revs?
Difficult to test unless you have a dyno I guess.

If the bores are being washed I'd expect the oil (what's left of it to smell a bit petrolly) If she's burning it should soot the plugs and be a bit gunky?

T8 uses a drop and you can see it being burnt at high speeds, will leave a blue smoke trail >140. never seen it at lower speeds but she'd still use a drop, sometimes she'd smoke a bit at start up

I haven't pulled the plugs yet, but at the moment I'm fairly sure it's blow-by. The oil breather pipework has liquid oil in it which is unusual. Normally its sooty sludge, not clean liquid oil. I think what is happening is that at low rpm the rings are quite loose in the bores and so combustion gases get in to the sump and push the oil vapour out of the breather system and then in to the intake manifold. Exactly how its supposed to work, but more than is supposed to happen. At high rpm there is enough combustion pressure behind the rings to seal them in the bore hence lots of power and no oil usage. Pretty much as you described Andrew :) The oil smells fine - no fuel in it.

Vera says there is a puff of smoke when setting off - I think this is oil that has settled in the separator pod being pulled through the engine. There's no sign of it in the exhaust so it is definitely burning and not blowing straight through.

I've finished pulling things from the old engine and started putting them on the new engine.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Oil cooler / filter housing cleaned up, fitted with a new cooler, filter, pressure sensor, connecting pipe and bolts.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

We replaced the timing belt too. The old one is in visibly perfect condition since its only ever been run in at the factory, however it is 18 years old! Its a no-brainer to replace it at this point. Imagine the shiny new belt behind the shiny new covers, since I forgot to take a pic. You know what that looks like by now anyway :D

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Fitted the main water pipes from the old engine to the new one. The pipes that came with the engine didn't have the fittings for the aux heater.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

LPG injectors installed

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

I made some 20mm aluminium spacers for the fuel rail. Much better than it just floating there :)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Engine going back on the jig

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Cue angelic chorus: aaaahhhhoooooeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Factory manual flywheel :love: Replaced since we're in there, along with the clutch of course.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Engine back on the jig. Only 5 of 8 flywheel bolts were delivered so I can't put it all back together yet. The remaining 3 will be here in the morning.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523393464

Going back in the car tomorrow after cleaning the engine bay :)

Some good theory’s on the oil consumption , I like the thoughts .

Some of the petrol Vauxhall’s have a pcv unit inside the rocker cover with a take off pipe that comes directly from inlet manifold ( quite a big bore pipe )

This internal pcv valve in the rocker cover fails and on overrun and light throttle loads where manifold vacuum is high it pulls the oil into the manifold and the oil gets burned that way .

There’s a few engines that suffer with high oil consumption that are pcv issues , tell tale is oil filler cap gets sucked on with some vigour or dipstick gets sucked in if you pull it out a touch . The bmw valvetronic suffers with high oil consumption, that has pcv issues

Some of these issues support the ‘ only uses oil at lower revs ‘ lower revs less throttle openings = higher manifold vacuums , more chance of oil getting pulled into pcv .

I’ve never seen this but heard that on some engines where the oil scraper rings are on the piston ,the oil drillings or micro slot passsages through the piston ring landings can get carbonised up so the oil control rings cannot do there job of scraping the excess oil away .

Would of been a good diagnostic lesson to strip that engine Mikki jane to have a look just for the knowledge gains .

Good post carry on with the good work

D2s are never straightforward... http://www.corradov8.com/pics/banghead.gif


We discovered this 3 inch crack while Vera was cleaning the engine bay :eek:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523461081

The tig guy is coming tomorrow morning so I can't put the engine back in today as planned.

At the same time, we also discovered the clutch hose was frayed:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1523461081

Thanks to Goran and Mike, I actually have one of these hoses on the shelf!! Its going to be a pig to change and I still can't put the engine in, but at least we have one.

Spin up the engine on the stand to build oil pressure, then we know its all good to go when its back in the car.

Has the car been in a smack at some point? I think I read somewhere the official procedure after an 8 was hit was to remove the engine to inspect the BHD as they can crack. But that weld looks robot welded so wouldn't expect it to fail from a hairline crack from removing the cup to quick.

At least she was in the right place when it was found. +++

There's no other evidence of accident damage. I believe this is from hitting a pothole and bottoming out as there is also the usual crack in the sound deadening above the control arms too. I've seen another one pull the brace bracket off the chassis leg from the same sort of event.

The tig guy is going to re-melt the weld to fill in the crack and I'm hoping the welding won't melt too much of the paint. Vera went out for a pelican blue aerosol this afternoon so I'm hoping to be able to make it look reasonable afterwards. The weld itself is hidden but some of the paintwork won't be.