Project Malibu resurection: Death and rebirth

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threeputtpar, yes I have some experience with them, albeit not much. My wife had one in a 97 Sunfire. That thing sure would scoot! I would love to drive it with a manual transmission...

As a mechanic, I've done some work to them- timing chain, cylinder head and cooling system work. I'll agree- that stat/water pump is just about the worst location someone could dream up! I have a new OEM one coming and don't intend to fool with it, unless needed. No preventative maintenance there!



A small update:

The water tube from the lower radiator hose to the t-stat was a nit rusty, and not wanting any issues, I blasted it and sent to the powder coater.

I also cleaned up the belt tensioner mount and throttle body (having a bead blaster is really nice!), as well as got the pistons about 90% clean. I'll hit them again when my ultra sonic cleaner shows up. I talked to the machinist this morning and I'm on deck... Told him to surface the block and do the valves and head surface. May be done this week, though he's not sure.


Also: Kudos to fellow member Trav for helping me out with rebuilding my fuel injectors!

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Originally Posted By: asand1
Is this a different engine than the quad four?


Yes, slightly. The Quad 4 was the original, and this engine shares many things in common with the Quad 4, but is called the "Twin Cam" I believe they built and tuned this engine to have a bit more low end torque. The Quad made good power, but only higher up. This engine has a bit smaller bore and longer stroke, with a more torque friendly head.
 
The block showed up today, along with the timing cover and oil pan. I was busy doing brake work and cleaning parts, so not too much action yet.

A pic of the block:

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And another showing my ridge ream and hone job, as well as the machinist's surfacing work:

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And finally, just for those who think that there's an over abundance of room, a picture of my car and it's stable mate... My friend and I are replacing hub seals and a few gears/bearings in it... Yes, the L/F set of duals is off, that's why it's so far back. Believe it or not, we were able to take them off by hand. It's powered by a 390 odd HP (re-powered to 360HP + 10%) 855 Cummins.

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Originally Posted By: The_Eric
A pic of the block:

20140318_144559_zps8r9qxaet.jpg



Ahhh, so that's where the starter would have been. Over the 7 years I owned the Sunfire, I never could find where the starter was. I was afraid of it failing like many of my previous cars and costing me a fortune to replace at a shop, but luckily it never gave up the ghost.

Also, I'd love to have as much room as you have even with that big ol tractor in there. I have a 2 car garage that has the equivilant of a small Toys R Us in it right now. This summer might be a good time to have a surprise garage sale before my wife buys anything else.
 
Originally Posted By: ls1mike
Looking good man!

I have to ask the big light on the hood? Where did you get that?

I think I would like one.


I purchased that light off the Cornwell truck when they had a sale going, but it can be had from the local parts stores- you'll have to have them get you their tool sales catalog. NAPA will likely have them (catalogs- usually distributed to shops) or a regional parts house should have them too. Not sure about the other big name stores, since I rarely deal with them.

Here are examples. Underhood Light


Not sure what your preference is, but mine is a fluorescent, since I haven't quite warmed up to the LED ones yet. The LED lights seem to be all the rage, so if you want a fluorescent light, or a different hood attachment method, you may have to look a bit- but they're out there.
 
Today's progress:

The balance shaft assembly started off looking like this-
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And ended up like this-
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A thorough cleaning, new bearings (think small rod bearing) and attaching the new oil pump.

The three good piston and rod combos were a bit stiff and the full floating rod wouldn't move freely on the wrist pin so I drove the pins out.

They looked like this when I started on them-
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Some Scotch Brite and light oil turned them into this-
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I took a piece of steel dowel and wrapped just enough tape around it, so the wrist pin would slide on, but stay put. Then turned the drill press on and give it polish. The small end of the connecting rod got a similar treatment when I wrapped the rod with Scotch Brite and ran the con rod over it.

Some of you may ask "Why"? Why not buy a new this or that, or take it to the machine shop instead? Well, beside the obvious part- you know the rod missing a bearing, the engine was in pretty good shape. It wasn't showing any real odd wear. Sure, I can sink boatloads of $$$ into it, but it's not really broke... Too badly. So I don't want to spend the $$$ to fix it. And I can be really cheap.

It's like that Kenny Rogers song, "The Gambler". You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em...

I figured it today- If I spend 2500.00 on this project (hopefully less) and drive it for 50k miles, then it will cost us 5 cents per mile. If we spend say 20 grand on a new or lightly used car and drove it for 200k miles, we would spend 10 cents per mile. Heck, even if we spent 10k on a car, we would still have to drive it 200k to equal the value of the Malibu.

Either car will have some repairs and maintenance along the way, so I didn't factor that. It's a total wild card. But the way I see it is we are saving money by spending wisely and looking for good deals, VS buying a much newer, lower mileage, but more expensive car that may still need major repairs.
 
Also, I got the crank back today. I had the shop order a new piston and a replacement connecting rod. The problem was the rod was a different style- probably from an older 2.4, or maybe even a 2.3? Don't know. Will find out more tomorrow.
 
Well, not too much to show on this update. Still waiting on the connecting rod- they were able to find the correct one, but it won't be here until sometime Monday. I went to install the rings on the pistons (DNJ made in Taiwan from Rock Auto), but found that the expander ring for the oil control set was too big in circumference. I was going to either re-use the OE expander or MacGyver the new ones, but I lost all faith in the ring set and wound up replacing the whole set with a Mahle set from Northern Auto. I was hoping that the DNJ stuff was all re-box goods, but ended up being wrong. I rolled the dice and lost. I did call Rock Auto and they were cool about it. They have sent a FedEx call tag and will refund the purchase price and shipping on them. The new ring set did cost a few more $$$, but that is one thing that I don't want to cut corners on. I can justify cheaping out many things, but tearing down an engine completely to replace junk rings isn't one of them.

Also, the 'Bu got a bath yesterday... Just as I wheeled it out of the shop and started applying degreaser, we encountered hurricane force winds. Yeah, real fun when you're soaked, it's 50 degrees and the wind is so strong that it's blowing the degreaser across a field to the neighbor's house...


Here is a pic of the crankshaft nestled in the main bearings...

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The main bearing caps with new bearings, coated in some Permatex Ultra Slick assembly lube:

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Finally, even though I soaked the pistons and scrubbed them lightly, I thought that I would wash them up with soapy water. I used some LA's Totally Awesome in a 5 gallon bucket and exceedingly cold water from the outside spigot. I was absolutely amazed to say the least! I literally just dunked them in and swished them around to achieve this! I did end up using a wash rag and scrubbing them too for good measure though.

Before:

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After:

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Originally Posted By: The_Eric

Some of you may ask "Why"? Why not buy a new this or that, or take it to the machine shop instead? Well, beside the obvious part- you know the rod missing a bearing, the engine was in pretty good shape. It wasn't showing any real odd wear. Sure, I can sink boatloads of $$$ into it, but it's not really broke... Too badly. So I don't want to spend the $$$ to fix it. And I can be really cheap.


You have the right idea.

I've seen people invest more than double the value of a car then be surprised when they can't get the money back later. You're working on a car that will provide safe, reliable transportation when done, but is not a particularly valuable or desirable car. Why dump a dollar more into it than you have to?

I used to be one of those, "as long as I'm in there, I might was well replace this, this and that..." guys myself. I've learned to be realistic about what I'm working on and make smart decisions, not emotional ones. No more fixing things that aren't broken for me.

Glad you're putting this Chevy back on the road. Way too many cars go to the crusher prematurely because owners do not maintain them.
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
I went to install the rings on the pistons (DNJ made in Taiwan from Rock Auto), but found that the expander ring for the oil control set was too big in circumference. I was going to either re-use the OE expander or MacGyver the new ones, but I lost all faith in the ring set and wound up replacing the whole set with a Mahle set from Northern Auto.


Thanks for telling us the truth about parts from DNJ. I will be doing a complete overhaul on a Ford 3.8 V6 in about a month. Rock Auto has been pushing DMJ and it's hard to pass up the prices on DNJ components, especially when they are about half the price of older name-brand parts. My overhaul kit will be purchased from Northern Auto next week and the components will be more familiar names, even if some of the parts are not made in North America.
You have just convinced me to stay away from DNJ. I will still order from Rock Auto, but I do now know of one brand to stay away from.
 
Originally Posted By: pottymouth
Originally Posted By: The_Eric

Some of you may ask "Why"? Why not buy a new this or that, or take it to the machine shop instead? Well, beside the obvious part- you know the rod missing a bearing, the engine was in pretty good shape. It wasn't showing any real odd wear. Sure, I can sink boatloads of $$$ into it, but it's not really broke... Too badly. So I don't want to spend the $$$ to fix it. And I can be really cheap.


You have the right idea.

I've seen people invest more than double the value of a car then be surprised when they can't get the money back later. You're working on a car that will provide safe, reliable transportation when done, but is not a particularly valuable or desirable car. Why dump a dollar more into it than you have to?

I used to be one of those, "as long as I'm in there, I might was well replace this, this and that..." guys myself. I've learned to be realistic about what I'm working on and make smart decisions, not emotional ones. No more fixing things that aren't broken for me.

Glad you're putting this Chevy back on the road. Way too many cars go to the crusher prematurely because owners do not maintain them.


You hit the nail on the head.

At the rate I'm going, I may or may not be able to recover my money/make a profit from this car in a private sale, but that's not the goal. The goal, like you said is for a safe, dependable car. So far, it makes good financial sense and is on track to being a very cheap car to drive.

Originally Posted By: Kruse
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
I went to install the rings on the pistons (DNJ made in Taiwan from Rock Auto), but found that the expander ring for the oil control set was too big in circumference. I was going to either re-use the OE expander or MacGyver the new ones, but I lost all faith in the ring set and wound up replacing the whole set with a Mahle set from Northern Auto.


Thanks for telling us the truth about parts from DNJ. I will be doing a complete overhaul on a Ford 3.8 V6 in about a month. Rock Auto has been pushing DMJ and it's hard to pass up the prices on DNJ components, especially when they are about half the price of older name-brand parts. My overhaul kit will be purchased from Northern Auto next week and the components will be more familiar names, even if some of the parts are not made in North America.
You have just convinced me to stay away from DNJ. I will still order from Rock Auto, but I do now know of one brand to stay away from.


I have nothing to hide. If anything, I'd like this to be a guide for others. What to look for, what to do and what not to buy.

The gasket set, so far, shows promise. It looks to be a well made set. Time will tell. Heck, even the rings could have been a good set and the manufacturer accidentally included an oversize on the expander. It doesn't matter- they made me nervous. I am willing/able to tear most anything down to repair or replace something, but that is not one. Unless of course I'm getting paid to do it.

Also, Kruse: Thank you for reminding me of Northern Auto! You saved the day on the rings.
 
I live near an independent parts store that sells DNJ kits. You will always see one there because they ship them everywhere. The parts in those kits seem almost random. The timing belt, timing belt pulleys, timing idlers, and water pumps would be made by different companies, and different countries which seemed extremely weird to me. Some of the parts came from China. It made me decide not to use DNJ.

Every time I saw one, it would have NPR/Nippon Piston Ring labeled rings in it. That was the OE supplier to many car companies.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Originally Posted By: gregk24
Ouch, very common on these old GM 2.4's though.


Any idea of the actual cause of it? Some light reading on the interweb suggested low oil levels would do this.


Greg takes any opportunity to bash GM he can, and really doesn't have a lot of automotive knowledge. Any engine you run low on oil is going to spin a rod, and I think you were on the right track with the bad sending unit being partially to blame. Driver probably never checked the oil.

Thanks for the pics, can't wait to see the progress!


Really? We own two GM's and one Honda. I do know however that these older 2.4's do have issues spinning bearings. It usually happens when the engine is run low on oil (that would happen to almost any engine), or under high RPM, in such case it starves certain bearings of oil. Read up on it, on these 2.4's its not a matter of if, its a matter of when. Many make it to respectably high miles before it happens though.
 
Update: Finally got the correct connecting rod, and the proper rings showed up today too. One more thing to note about the DNJ rings- they weren't the same exact design as the OE. The inside of the top ring of the OE set was rounded and the inside of the DNJ replacements were pretty much square. That was another reason I was unsure about running them, but neglected to mention it in the other post. The Mahle replacements do have the same configuration as the OE.

I didn't photograph all the steps as I was kind of rushing, so you'll have to make due with two... Sorry.

Here the pistons are installed and the rod caps are tied firmly to the crank. I already have the balance shaft assembly installed and timed to the crank- what a mess, hope it's close enough! There are no index lines, splines or keys. The gear is retained only by bolt tension and timing is a bit tricky without the factory tools.

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Here is the head just before I cranked it down to the block. Machinist did a nice job on the surface.

20140324_180043_HDR_zpspulxe7qr.jpg


More to come soon!
 
Another update: I skipped several photos today, as I was in a hurry. The engine is more or less screwed together and resting comfortably back in the car.

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I'll add that I likely won't be using the DNJ gaskets again either. The set was missing the inner timing cover gasket, the oil/air separator gasket (not sure the after market even makes one) and a few misc. o-rings.

I picked up the water tube from the powder coater today and installed it with a new GM t-stat.

The e-bay timing set installed okay, but one of the guides wasn't made correctly- the hooks that fit into the timing cover were improperly spaced, so I modified them a bit.

Sigh... The things a person will go through to save money.
 
Originally Posted By: The_Eric

Sigh... The things a person will go through to save money.


A few weeks ago I looked at their website and I was not impressed. After your experience with them, I've probably sworn them off permanently.

http://www.enginecomponents.com/
 
Nice progress!

I have been looking on Amazon for deals on AC Delco parts, I have had a number of aftermarket parts fail on me quite young.

I had an aftermarket front wheel bearing on my truck fail after only 20k miles, the original had done 110k!
 
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