Engine Area
--Replace battery tray -- I just finished this in the past few days. I was saving this for the end because I was dreading it the most. I had bought a replacement tray and the plan was to cut out the old and weld in the new, but I ended up going a different route. My new "real" mechanic (the one I keep on retainer to fix my goof-ups) told me that if there was enough of the old tray remaining that he's always just fiberglassed them in. I searched on TheSamba.com and found plenty of others that had done the same and it has lasted them a long time. So I had a go at. I figured I could do it in a couple of nights and wouldn't put my new paint at risk with sloppy welding. I cleaned and POR-15'd what was left of my old tray, put down a thin board to hold the fiberglass in place while it set, fiberglassed in the top and the bottom, added a layer of body filler to even things out, then painted it. The end result seems rock solid and looks pretty good too. I had never worked with fiberglass before, and I hope I never have to again. It's nasty, sticky stuff and I pretty much got it everywhere.
This is what I started with
I'm pretty sure my respirator is not OSHA approved
After the fiberglass install
Sanded, primed, painted, and ready for action
--Replace the two injector to rail fuel lines on the right side -- Still to do.
--Repair the fuel filler tube -- This was pretty straight-forward. A clamp was loose where the filler tube meets the tank. It took some serious body contortions but I *think* I got it put back together correctly. I replaced the fuel filler neck too as it basically crumbled apart when I touched it.
--Clean and paint the engine compartment -- Done. It took me three nights of scrubbing though.
--Clean and paint the engine and tin -- Pretty much done with this but it took me weeks of work. I had to figure out how to get all the engine tin off first, then days and days of scrubbing to remove the baked on oil, dirt, and blood (mostly my own, I hope). More days and days of work to clean up the heater boxes, exhaust and the engine itself. I had to give up on cleaning the heater boxes by hand, after a couple days of scraping and scrubbing I still had several layers of gunk remaining. So I soaked them both in oven cleaner and let them sit overnight. 3 nights in a row of that and they were shiny and ready to be painted. I have tons of before and after pics but I won't bore you with them. Let's just say everything started off real nasty and ended up real shiny. The list of things I cleaned, primed, and/or painted are the heater control boxes, the EGR components, deflector plates, all of the engine tin, heat shield, mustache bar, air plenum, firewall, intake runners, throttle body, fan shroud, fan, oil breather, exhaust and elbows, and the heater boxes. And a few days w/ engine degreaser and a toothbrush to clean up the stripped down engine. Speaking of, here she is as stripped down as I'm brave enough to take her. Hopefully I can put her back together again.
--Paint the exhaust -- I'm using high temp. paint on the exhaust that has to be baked on. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that but my plan right now is the do the paint right before I install the engine and then follow the directions to let the exhaust heat do the baking for me.
--Replace all the FI vacuum lines and hoses -- Still to do.
--Install 2nd battery and isolator -- Still to do.
--Install CHT guage -- Still to do.
Here's some mid-post entertainment for anyone that might read this that does not care about bus maintenance. I found this little guy, and what I think might have been his last few meals, while I was cleaning out my heater boxes. It's lovely to think about how I've been breathing in the stink from his (I assume it's a him since he decided to live in such a sweet ride) rotting corpse for the last couple of months, or years. In lieu of a proper funeral and burial, I arranged his oil soaked carcass in this timeless, classic pose. Then I tipped my 40 to my dead homey and flushed him down the toilet. A burial at sea, of sorts.
There's a seemingly never ending list of things still to do. On top of everything I already listed, while doing a compression test right before I dropped the engine I found that one of my spark plug holes was stripped. To speed things up a bit I decided to send my engine off to my mechanic and let him fix that and install the front and rear main seals, pushrod tube seals, etc... I have it back now so it's time to start putting the jigsaw puzzle that is the engine components back together. So now I have a new list...
-- Install fan housing, fan, fan housing flaps, and oil filler tube
-- Reconnect thermostat wire and try and make sense of my cooling flaps
-- Install engine tin
-- Install fuel injection/EGR components
-- Install fan belt, oil filler boot, and engine carrier
-- Clean/Re-wire all ground wires
-- Move starter relay to engine compartment
-- Re-wire and install side marker light
-- Paint and install exhaust and muffler
-- Install the engine
Then on to the interior work. Ugh.
