Rebuilding an ea82

jims · Post by **jims** » Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:29 pm

Hi everyone,

With the wreck that I bought a few months ago I acquired another ea82 that I plan to rebuild. It has 200k on the clock as opposed to the 330k on my current L Series. After a bit of thought and a lot of reading I have decided to do a mild rebuild: pistons rings, head gaskets and resurfaced heads, new timing belt, gaskets, seals etc.

Here she is: [ATTACH]3815[/ATTACH]

I'm not really after more performance but more so longevity. The body on my L is in pretty good nick and I'd like to have a strong motor sittin under the hood to see her through.

Before I get started however I wanted to post up my plan (see below) for people to comment on. Does this sound like I am on the right track? This will be my first rebuild so any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Pressure clean block.
Remove timing covers and timing belt.
Remove water pump (this is a new pump) and crank and idler pulleys.
Remove rocker covers.
Remove cams
Remove heads and take them for resurfacing.
Check intake and exhaust valves for leaking. Perform valve lapping and install new valve stem seals.
Remove pistons (can i do this without splitting the block?) and measure piston bores. If within specs hone and install new piston rings all round. If outside of acceptable specs get them rebored and buy over sized pistons.
Disassemble oil pump, clean and inspect. Renew all oil pump gaskets .
Replace oil seal in flywheel housing and possible seal at the crankshaft front end.
Begin putting back together with new head gaskets and rocker cover gaskets.

Questions:

Am I on the right track? What have I over looked?

Are there welsh plugs in the heads and or block i should renew? Where exactly are they?

Do i want a vrs kit like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/VRS-GASKET-S ... 1265wt_894

Are there other gaskets/seals I should consider replacing?

Can I use a pressure cleaner and just go to town washing down the block? What is the best way to avoid water getting down the inlet holes?

Bits i will need to buy:

Oil filter and oil
Spark plugs
Leads
Timing belt
Gaskets: oil pump, heads, rocker covers,
Possible new engine mounts
Possible webber conversion!

555Ron · Post by **555Ron** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:43 am

First, I'll say I'm half way through my first rebuild so I'm not an expert - so take that into mind.

jims wrote:Pressure clean block.

What are you going to pressure clean with? Water - you won't make much of a dint in the crap on your block imo. I sand blasted my block and it came up nice. But if you aren't going to split the block I would get a wire brush insert for an electric drill and spray a bottle of carb cleaner on the block and heads and scrub it with the wire brush. I had a bit of a go at doing this is it comes up as a very (surprisingly) shiny, clean finish but I wasn't sure about the longevity of it so I finished it off with glass bead.

jims wrote:Remove pistons (can i do this without splitting the block?) and measure piston bores. If within specs hone and install new piston rings all round. If outside of acceptable specs get them rebored and buy over sized pistons.

Yes, you have to remove the pistons before you split the block if you were going to. They can be quite hard to get out (depending on age, condition of motor - they are supposed to slide out easily)- most people use a screw driver but I had no luck there. I ended up making a tool out of two M8x140 bolts - grounded down the head with a grinder stuck them together with a bit of metal on the outer one to make a slide hammer - which is what the Subaru tool is that is no longer available. I can show you some pictures if you need help. It was so much easier then the screwdriver method.

You will need to remove the flywell and the bell/flywheel housing to get to the rear gudgeon pins.

jims wrote:Disassemble oil pump, clean and inspect. Renew all oil pump gaskets .
Replace oil seal in flywheel housing and possible seal at the crankshaft front end.

Personally, I'd just get a new pump for the simplicity of swapping them over. But I did have a set of O-rings for the EA82 pump somewhere here - if you want them - you can have them. My EA82 was toast before i got around to it.

jims wrote:Timing belt

I would probably get a complete kit with idler pulleys and new tensioners. Only risk not doing it is breaking the belts before they are due which will bring you to a sudden holt but cause no damage. Just depends on your budget - If it were me and I had the engine out on a bench I'd use the opportunity to do it.

Your plan looks alright to me in. I'm not 100% but I think there might be an O-ring in the oil passage between the head and camshaft housing on each side. Could be wrong. It's been a while in my defence.

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 11:47 am

200,000km ? Sort of think there is no reason to rebuild it - other than for reliability as you have said. I say go genuine gaskets and seals - from experience.

Done a few with geniune gaskets now and they have never needed a retension after warm up - makes it worth the extra paid.

As for cleaning your block - even before you take anything more off scrub it with scouring sponges, wax and grease remover is good for greasy stuff. I bought a heap of little brushes from Honkers to fit my dremel like rotary tool and got stuck into it as well as drill wire brushes - nearly got th autosol out too

Yep there is a little O ring as Ron says - all available from Subaru / FROG

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 11:48 am

Oh, which dizzy/s you got ? If it is the single module no harm in putting a new one in or in the glovebox for reliability

jims · Post by **jims** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:13 pm

Thanks Ron and Steptoe.

I think I will go for the new oil pump and complete timing kit. When I get to removing the pistons I might give you a pm Ron about that tool you made, thanks!

As for buying the gaskets and seals should I buy these all individually or is there a kit I should buy that contains what I need? What do you think is the best way to go? Would definitely go genuine with the head gaskets etc.

I'll start on the scouring and wire brush method for cleaning down the block. I will post some pics of how i am going if you're interested.

Steptoe, I'm not sure what dizzy I have. I know it's electric not points. What are the options for dizzies on these engines?

Thanks again guys, James

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 6:34 pm

Glad you asked...

showthread.php?t=23050

jims · Post by **jims** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:11 pm

Ha, thanks Steptoe.

I had a few spare hours this afternoon so I began work on the engine. I attacked the intake manifold with some degreaser, a toothbrush and wire brush and cleaned it up pretty good.

Before: [ATTACH]3816[/ATTACH]

After:

Next I removed the timing covers and timing belt, cam pulleys, tensioner pulleys, idler and crank pulleys.

I also got in touch with Frog today and made some progress in ordering the parts I need for the rebuild

jims · Post by **jims** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 10:13 pm

After: [ATTACH]3817[/ATTACH]

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:30 am

ah, remonds me - all the hoses and pipes for pollution control will need a good internal clean so no crud enters your fresh rebuild. The breathers at top of rocker covers can be choke packed with crud. PCV valve in the manifold too and blow clean all the vac lines. Made a good start and sense to do inlet manifold. Dunno how many engine swaps people pay for and get a dirty old inlet tract !

Cliff R · Post by **Cliff R** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:54 am

One thing with the timing belt change, when I did it with parts from FROG we couldnt get new tensioner springs.
Anyone know if this situation has changed and the springs are now available ?
Just suggesting it would be a pain if one was to break.

jims · Post by **jims** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:46 pm

Good point, thanks Steptoe. Have added it to my list of tasks.

How much was the kit from Frog, Cliff? I was just going to get one off EBay, about $100 delivered. Doesn't come with tensioner springs though.

James

Cliff R · Post by **Cliff R** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 1:41 pm

James
For me, I would be very cautious on eBay kits unless they were from a known, reliable source. I decided to go with FROG as he is associated directly with Subaru and I knew I would be getting what I needed. I could be wrong but I think the kit was about $230 or something like this. As mentioned before the tensioner springs were not included but I dont think any of the kits have them.
Also, for $100 I would question what are you actually getting in the kit, maybe you could ask the supplier to itemise what is in it, are they supplying both belts or only 1 ?
I seem to recall the price from FROG was much the same as our local Auto 1 store so the pricing was good.
As your engine is not in the car this is the time to do it all right so (only my opinion) I would be paying a bit more for a known brand of kit. As most would know it isnt exactly easy to replace the belts once the engine is in the car.

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:07 pm

Once you have got the belts tensioned , you lock the thing in place and the spring does zip in service, and you adhere to loose torque for the tensioner bolts to block, spring could almost be eliminated

jims · Post by **jims** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:27 am

Here are a couple of links to the eBay kits I was looking at.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Subaru-1800- ... 1860wt_978

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/85-94-1-8-SU ... 2200wt_752

They include both belts, both tensioners and idler pulley. Still umming and arring between something like this and genuine subaru (Frog) parts.

Today I removed the water pump, as well as the oil pump pulley and crank pulleys. I got the drivers side rocker cover off and cleaned it up too.

[ATTACH]3820[/ATTACH]

After that I removed the camshaft case, cleaned it up, pulled the cam out to check for tolerances and wiped that down too. Finally I removed the rockers and the lash adjusters. I didn't get a photo but to keep them in order and together i placed the lash adjusters and their respective rockers in a marked ice cube container adjacent from one another so I can return them to their right valve position.

jims · Post by **jims** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:36 am

My next question is, how do I remove the alternator bracket from the passengers side of the engine?

I have removed all the bolts so that now the only place it seems to be connected to the engine is by that hexagonal shaft (inside red circle in pic) that seems to be bolted into the side of the camshaft casing.

[ATTACH]3821[/ATTACH]

Does this shaft unscrew? Have I missed something?

steptoe · Post by **steptoe** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:46 am

must do, those long nuts have long threads, and watch for a spacer ring to drop off from behind, then get some help to lift it off - bout as heavy as an old V8 cast iron intake manifold

Cam boxes grooves all clean too ? I soak them face down in degreaser for a while to soften the gunk in the grooves giving much easier clean up,

Tell us you put yer lips on the breather and blew ......

those plugs for gudgeon pin access are 14mm hex, lucky yours looks well cared for. Sometime a good rattle gun, sometimes a 600mm breaker bar, sometimes also some heat from a torch around the bung helps release its grip - has an alloy washer and oil behind, water in front, obviously

Cliff R · Post by **Cliff R** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:59 am

Kits look OK except from memory I also got the crankshaft and cam shaft seals.
These should be changed while you are in there.

Haymaker · Post by **Haymaker** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:12 pm

If your going to replace rings and hone cylinders etc you really need to split the block. When honing where do you think all the fine shavings from the cylinder and associated crap goes. You dont need all that fine debris getting into the main bearings ready to throw a spanner in the works a couple of thousand kays down the road. Split the block remove the crank and replace your main seals at the same time. If your already putting so much time and effort into doing the job take an extra hour and do it properly.

jims · Post by **jims** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 2:30 pm

Yep, I below them out Steptoe! Drivers side was fine but passengers side was very clogged like you said.

I did the same for the cambox and soaked it and then I was able to remove all the gasket gunk from the groves. So between the cam housing and the heads it's just a gasket glue hey? No actual pre made gasket for this area?

Should I replace all my gudgeon pins even if the access holes all look as clean as the one in the photo above?

Haymaker, I was planning on doing what Revmax has suggested in another forum: placing some cut out foam at the base of the cylinder bore so as to stop debris getting down there. Obviously I would have turned to block upside down as well.

Only reason I wasn't going to split the block is I've read some people have had trouble physically splitting it. Can you shed some light on this process? Also, is reassemble the block and reinstalling the crank difficult?

Thanks for the advice again guys!

James

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Sun Jan 13, 2013 2:37 pm

When I did the rebuild on my EA82 MPFI I pulled it down, found out what was needed and went from there. I purchased the appropriate parts as I needed, had I gathered all the bits then did the work I would have spent a lot of unnecessary coin.

I ended up with a 40 thou oversize rebore and new bearings as the major work. If I were you and building for reliability I'd be putting a new set of bearings in too. It's not hard to do, just a bit more work.

As for where to get parts, I looked up what I needed on rockauto.com when I needed some bits for my EJ. I got kit codes from there then shopped on ebay in the US for the same parts, picked the kit/parts I needed and had them shipped over here for almost less than half of what I could buy them over here. The main one was a full cam belt kit.

One of the sellers recommended to me from the US is "theimportexperts" - they have an ebays store called - wait for it, "The Import Experts".

They should have what you need.

Cleaning the block/heads: the shop you take them to should chemically clean them for you - this will get rid of all crap build up, of course, if it's caked on badly try and remove as much as possible to help out.

At the end of the day, if you're building for reliability I'd be going for a re-bore. This will remove any out of roundness or other issues with the cylinder's shape and ensure that the new rings will bed in properly.

All the best with it.

Cheers

Bennie