admS15

Yep, working here too. Thanks @PranK

Re ultrasonic cleaners, have you guys been looking at my browsing history? Lol Continued with the crankshaft cleaning today. It went through the npb tank a total of another 4 times. There was bits of crud coming out after the first 2, nothing after the 3rd but gave it a 4th cycle just to make sure. I'm happy with that and calling it clean. It's wrapped up now and awaiting assembly day. Rings, bearings and gaskets are at PO awaiting pickup. Head will be going to shop by latest Wednesday. Things should start happening soon.

The drilling of the crank is easy, it's more I'm trying to avoid having to rebalance the crank. 4 cans of degreaser where pumped through it today and a lot more shit came out. After about 2 1/2 there wasn't anything more coming out. I was going to call it good enough but you know what it's no big deal to hot wash and npb it a couple more times and then degrease again for ultimate peace of mind. Will get that done tomorrow.

@MBS206 Appreciate your concerns. I've got a dozen cans of degreaser on hand. Will spray a few until crap stops coming out. Will then hotwash and npb again followed by more degreaser, rinse and repeat until nothing more comes out. All left over degreaser will be used on block.

Piston oil squirter sacrificed, still have an additional 4 spares anyway. OD was a touch too thick, sandpaper and file sorted it in a couple of minutes. All rigged up and ready Good thing I decided to try this. It proved that the washing machine and chemical treatment didn't do enough to get rid of what was hiding behind the plugs. The first gallery on the back end was clean, the next not so clean. This is the stuff that was coming out The plugs closer to the middle had the most crap behind them. It was all soft sludgey stuff, better out than in though. I've used 1 whole can of degreaser so far, going to hit it with 2 more tomorrow and if no more crap is coming out, I'll skip out on drilling. I reckon the washing machine and npb helped to soften up the crap but obviously couldn't wash it out. Pretty happy with myself for coming up with this backyard bush mechanic diy cleaning method, LoL.

Cleaned the block, crank and sump. Block and sump copped 2 cycles in the degreaser and 1 rinse, each item done separately, followed by a dunk in a hot water tank for a few minutes. Block is ready for paint. Crank got a degrease and rinse and then went through the npb tank which is more like a gas vapour cleaner rather than a liquid degreaser. Following that, it was degreased and rinsed again followed by a hot water bath. Both crank and block where sprayed with wd40 afterwards to prevent any rust formation. The idea of putting the crank through was to get out of drilling and grub screwing. I'm hoping that the degreaser and npb done the job. Guys at work reckon it would've. I've come up with a way to check. It involves sacrificing 1 piston oil squirter. If I file the end down, the piston squirter actually fits into the oil galleries in the crank. I'm going to line it up with the galleries behind the plugs and blast them with degreaser. If any debris at all come out, then drilling out plugs will happen.

Seems like we treat our white goods like our skylines. Just keep fixing them. I've been through what you have Johnny with a Samsung dishwasher. It's on its 3rd feed in solenoid hose and can't remember, I replaced some other bit too. 12 years old now. Like Ravi I also have an lg washing machine FL. Still going strong after 12 years. Westinghouse dryer needed some starting capacitor after a few years, then a motherboard failed a couple years later. That was terminal. Was looking for a replacement when an identical dryer popped up on gumtree for $50. I grabbed that and used the best parts from both to build 1. Built not bought 😂.

Picked up the guides this arvo, I'm confident they'll work. Spoke to engine shop and will drop head off some stage next week. Coincidentally, they did an rb25 head this week so they should be in tune. Going to take block and crank to work tomorrow and use some of the workshop facilities. We've got 2 hotwash degreaser machines. One for degreasing, the other rinsing. Going to chuck everything in for a couple of cycles. We've also got another process thats a tank using a chemical called nbp. Pretty much evaporates any residue left over after degreasing. The crank may get a cycle in there too. Unfortunately the block is too heavy for it. Will do a final clean, blow out at home.

I've ended up ordering 4 of the 40mm length guides and an additional 2 of the 42.9mm just incase. Hopefully they are suitable, if not engine shop can sort it out. #nomoreheadachesf*kn

Re valve guides. I have a freaking headache. Been down the rabbit hole trying to work out what's what. Nissan wants 65 each for intake (in stock) 85 for exh (import from jap) I read an old SAU thread where CA18 guides where used for intake on an rb25 and had to be trimmed down 2mm as slightly too long. I found this in the fsm If I'm reading that correctly, the only difference between the in and exh valves for the purpose of the guides is 2mm in shaft length and a minute diameter difference of shaft which will be accounted for with reaming. So I'm thinking the CA guides should work. The exhaust should fit straight in and the inlet trimmed 2mm. I've come across nason guides part numbers PVG9019 10.03mm OD 5.994 ID 40.005 length listed as CA18 and RB25DE/DET Also PVG9018 same ID and OD but 42.926 length. Listed only for CA18. I believe PVG9019 should work or do I buy 2 of each? I know the best bet would be to get the old ones removed and measured but I'd rather give the shop all the bits and pieces so they don't have to stop half way and wait for parts. I've got an even bigger headache now. Going to get some Panadol.

Hey @PranK is something funny going on in the forum. New posts don't seem to be showing for me. I only see posts from like a week ago. Is it just me?

I haven't weighed the piston assemblies yet, watch this space. What are people's thoughts on how to select which weights go where? Pair 2 that are closest in weight and run them as matched pairs? I was thinking of doing that and putting the 2 heaviest in the middle. Don't know how I came up with that. Probably wouldn't matter 1 bit but I'm here and would only take a minute to arrange.

Just spent some time this morning weighing up the rods on some super accurate scales at work. Pretty damn good. They're advertised as being within a gram of each other. They where much better than that at around 0.3 of a gram. Not bedh. They're close to 80 grams lighter each than stock too. Preliminary measurements of the bores of the big and little ends are spot on using the internal mic. I'm getting really good with using those now, can get accurate measurements quicker. I'm hoping to use the bore dial on them a bit later to confirm my measurements and roundness a bit better.

Valve guides you mean. Well I don't have a definitive answer but now that I have the valves in my possession, going to visit the local supplier that has listings for rb25 guides and work out if any are suitable. If not, I'm stuck. May have to ring Nissan and see if they have stock and how far I have to bend over..

Dang, it's company 23 brand. Meant for subarus. Seems like the tools made for them are about as good as the cars, sti's excluded. I bought that one as I though being tapered I wouldn't have to knock the piston down. It's only adjustable from like 78 -86.8mm. if the ring ends aren't in the 10mm of open gap I can't see how it's going to be an issue. Anyway, I'll be careful and treat it like a virgin. Plenty of lube, proceed with caution. Rods have been delivered, I'm not home ATM to check them out. Will do later.

Anyway, valves have arrived from both partsouq and amayama. Also got a nifty adjustable tapered ring compressor cheap off eBay, looks like it's been used once Still waiting on the rods, meant to be here in the next hour according to auspost. Considering the torrential rain that just started, I reckon the posty will probably hold it for tomorrow or drop back at the post office.

What size all thread are we talking here. It be pretty thin wouldn't it?

Yeah I think I'm going to try the grub screwing with the help of the machinist at work to save some $. Do they do snap on style payment plans for those crank? Might make it doable 😂

Out of those 2 definitely is350f if you don't want vw problems. The vw will be faster, not sure about nicer. Not sure on the reliability of that particular VW. I know the golf mk7 R is pretty reliable other than water pump. VW for fasts, Lexus for stress free motoring. Hope I helped, lol.

Why not just have both..

Don't own shit, all the measuring tools are on loan. Definitely is a massive help, otherwise I probably wouldn't have even contemplated doing all this. I also have access to a bore dial gauge in a lab environment that they won't let me borrow but can use. I'm going to use that one to check the bores on the maxpeeding rods. Let's see how they go.

No, never. Fark I was scared before, now I'm mortified 😂

There is plugs fitted and snapped off from the factory. They need to be drilled out, tapped for grub screws. Would of been nice if Mr Nissan did that for us, unfortunately it's not the case. I'm concerned about dried up oily crud sitting behind the plugs waiting to get pushed out into the nice new bearings. This motor did sit for like a decade. In saying that it did look reasonably clean inside and the crank was still covered in a film of oil but I'd rather know that it's 100% clean than just hoping. Machinist has taken the rest of the week off, will have to wait till next week to bother him.

I've built engines before but nothing on this scale or this involved, mostly single cylinder 2 stroke bike engines, 1 V2 and a couple of rotaries. Yeah the RB is definitely less technical than the ovlov 5 pot. The thing scaring me the most is making sure everything is clean before assembly. The focus right now is on that sort of stuff. Crank drilling/grub screwing, block cleaning. Investigating whether I can drill the plugs and cut threads for grub screws myself or even better have a chat to the machinist at work and see if he can do it for me.

Was stuffing around cleaning the pistons today. What a tedious shitty job, another reason a shop wouldn't want to reuse old crusty pistons. Spent around an hour and a half giving them a bath in a cocktail of mineral turpse and degreaser. Cleaned the ring grooves out using a couple sacrificed rb rings and used some Scotch Brite. They still don't look pretty but they're clean and passed inspection. I was going to pick the best 6 out of the 11 I have but since these are all ok, I'll just put them back exactly where they came from, with their associated pins. I even marked which direction the pin was in originally so it can go back the same way. I'm anil about stuff like that, I even try to make sure that all reused bolts go back to their original homes. probably makes no difference but it's something I've gotten into the habit of doing over the years. Will have to go down to the Nissan stealership and pick up some piston circlips. Surprisingly they have stock and only $2.35 each which is the same as nengun. I wish all their prices where like that. Anyway, old pistons which still look old. So I guess now that all the valves and rods are arriving this week, I hopefully will be able to drop them at the shop next week. No idea how long the turnaround will be. Still need to sort something out for valve guides. Will probably go to a local supplier here, they have various listings for RB, should be able to pick the correct ones when I have the valves in hand.