Saturday, November 1, 2008

Getting Prepared...

Well... This week-end, we finally gotten around to preparing the engine for installation. Below is a breakdown of what was completed this weekend...

Attached the wiring harness...
This was pretty straight forward, attaching the harness, and shifting all the peripherals across from the old engine to the new engine. Things such as reverse shift engagement adaptor, Alternator & New belt.

Drive Shafts from AW11...
A bit of bad news... We tried bringing over the drive shaft tullips (The small piece that fits into the gearbox, to which the drive shaft attach), but noticed very quickly that they long shaft fouled the gearbox brace. So we decided when we install the engine + gearbox, we'll try to install the blacktop driveshafts, as they look very similar in length.

Selector shaft...
We actually manage to drill the Selector shaft hole on the opposite side of the gearbox housing successfully... there isn't much material to drill, and if you have a metal drill bit, this will go through like butter, as the casing is soft aluminium housing. We started with a 3mm hole, and double the size, until we gotten to the 12mm hole, where we then decided to go for the full 11/16" hole, as when we moved up in sized, it become harder to keep the drill bit centered. Sean was taking care of the horizontal and hold the gearbox, whereas I was keeping the vertical in check and drilling the hole. By the time we finished drilling the hole, we were off by about .5-1mm to the center. No biggi, as the seal will take care of this... the seal will allow for about 1-2mm offset.
We fit the adaptor with Loctite 422 Gasket seal, but that didn't seem to do the job very well...


...so I went hunting for the JB Weld... JB Weld is extremely tough, and is perfect for the job... it's a bit like liquid aluminium... but take a while to cure (24Hrs). It took me about 1/2 day to track it down, as it's not commonly found here in Perth.


ECU Installation...
Also managed to install the 20v ECU... There were a few minor differences, and 1 out of the 3x brackets had to be modified... All that was required was to cut the Tab off, and re-drill a couple of holes... Presto, perfect fit in the exactly the same location as my old ECU, including the Starter relay. The starter relay is a small black/yellow square on the bottom, left hand corner of the ECU.
That was pretty much it, on what we have completed, but getting ready for the installation next week-end...

2 comments:

martybugs said...

Sounds like you're making some real progress now. How long till you get to turn the key for the first time?

Interesting that the post is dated 1st Nov, but the 3rd photo is dated 3rd Nov.....where are you hiding that time machine? ;-)

MR2_AW111 said...

Oooops!!!! I guess my secret is out... :-)

I actually spent all of Sunday morning finding the JB Weld, and finally got some. Installed the seal with a bit of JB Weld, and let it dry, and put another layer of JB Weld on it the following day after work, so that it looks nicer... ;-)

Hopefully get to crank the key in 2-3 more week-ends or sessions. Hopefully, not too many things will come in between.