Most liked posts in thread: 998 Motor and Auto Trans for Pup

A friend and fellow Mini owner came down today to pick up some old parts I had for him, and while we were in the shop he helped me engineer and build a crate to ship this transmission out. It turned out great and is really strong, so I have no worries about it making it to California and back undamaged.




Nicholas at Boot 2 Bonnet is also going to rebuild the oil pump to make sure it's up to snuff, as this trans looked like the oil hadn't been changed in a dog's age - although the camshaft itself and the rod/main bearings looked to be in pretty good shape.

I'll run it up to Fastenal on Monday morning and he can get started whenever he's ready. I'll be out of the shop for a good month I'm betting, so some of these jobs will be done while I'm out, then when I'm feeling better I can get back to work with parts here and sub-work already done.

The block and crank will go to that shop when the new pistons get here sometime next week, then after they've mic'd the crank (I'm thinking it will need to be ground at least to 10 under to clean it up and cure taper) I'll order the right main and rod bearings. In the meantime I'll soak this head in some rust remover before I send it down to the head shop. the block will get hot tanked before and after it's bored so I don't need to clean that rust out of the water jacket, they'll do it for me.

Sawdust made a mess in the shop, but it was 30* today so I wasn't going to cut wood or try to build this thing outside!

 

Yes, that's what I'll be using.....

 

OK, so I'm back on my feet - somewhat - and have started going down to the shop now that it's 40* outside and not -10!

I am walking without assistance and although not smooth I'm getting there and I decided it was time to get up and get moving again. Today I'm just cleaning and putting away tools, then organizing parts and getting set up to do some work.

We're supposed to have 60* on Tues, then fall back into the mid-40's for the rest of the month and early March, but I can deal with those temps!

I have the 998 head soaking in Evaporust (well halfway - that's all that would fit in the bucket) and in a few days I'll pull it out turn it over and drop it in for another few days. Judging by the color of the liquid, it seems to be doing it's job!

I have most of the parts I need, tho I haven't heard from the machine shop about the crank so I can order bearings. I'll call them Monday, but chances are good they haven't gotten to it yet - it's only been 2 weeks!

I have a bunch of parts at the powdercoaters ready and waiting to be picked up too.

The owner isn't in a huge hurry to get this 998 and since I sent the trans off to California I haven't heard whether he got all the parts he needed yet either. I'll call him on Monday too

Lastly, the car that this motor is going into is still being painted, so I have a little breathing room. But, I can see a lot of jobs that are going to become time sensitive in a hurry now that the weather has changed.

I have two Sprite race gearboxes to build ( all the parts are here for those) two Mini gearboxes to build and three Mini engines to build. A LOT of work to keep me, the machine shop and DHL busy delivering parts!

Once the car is done, it will be brought up to me to drop this motor in, but that's as far as I'm going with it - the rest is up to the owner as it's a bare shell - no wiring, instruments or anything.

Of course, I want to get going on my electronic fuel injection project too! As my wife says, I'm a complete failure at retirement!

 

Thanks everyone, it's been a long month....still more pain to go but I'm getting there.

 

The race engine for Clancy got shelved, and I still haven't seen or heard anything from the guy in Cuba, Mo - which is Ok by me - I have enough to do!

The transmichigan sat at the warehouse here in KC for 10 days, so I called and asked what the heck was going on with my shipment - it was here the next day! sheesh, wonder why I have to raise hell to get my stuff sent out the last mile?

Now that the Sprite race engine is finished, I got started on this 998 rebuild again. The transmission arrived from California yesterday, so today I uncrated it and got it up on the hydraulic assembly table - I just can't say enough how much I like and appreciate this new toy/tool. Not only is it far easier to work off of, but it really saves my back, and being able to adjust the working height is just makes it that much better over working on my fixed height workbench!

First thing I had to do was disassemble the crate, once I had it open I found I could just slide the gearbox off the pallet and right onto the work table - easy peasy, no engine hoist required. I'll use the engine crane to lift the block onto the transmichigan later of course.

The tranny looks brandy new, and because Nick did such a great job on it I talked the owner into leaving it silver instead of painting it green to match the block like he originally wanted. Which now means I need to clean up and paint the drop gear housing and clutch cover to match!









I've got probably at least a full days worth of clean up yet on all the other parts and fasteners, brackets and such.

I'll drop the block on it tomorrow and get started on the assembly - I still need to paint the cylinder head green to match the block tho. Maybe I can get that knocked out today - it's warm and sunny and there's a very slight breeze - perfect for paintwork!

 

I sent the carb off to Joe Curto on Long Island to have it rebuilt, Joe is the man when it comes to SU's and they did a terrific job on this HS4 for me. New needle and seat, new float, new jet and needle, all the hardware re-plated, throttle shaft re-bushed and all set up ready to run. Looks as good as new for about 1/2 the price of a new one.

 

Ran into a snag....the first motion gear (bottom one) is not going into the right place, but stands proud of the case by about 1/8", so the rear cover won't go on properly.

Nick and I have talked about it and I sent him this pic, he's scratching his head too. for now I'm stuck as I can't really go any further till I get the back cover on and torque converter in place so I can fill the crankcase and pump up oil pressure.

Loyal readers will remember that the end of this shaft was broken off, so Nick had to supply us with a different reverse drum, but he claims they are all exactly the same and this is the original first motion gear, so it all should go together normally.

 

Ha! I dunno....seems like an irresistible force meeting unmovable object sorta deal....

Still waiting to hear back from Nick so I'm working on other projects, but I'll bet I'm going to wind up taking it apart again.....

 

And now.......for my next magical trick, I'll pump up the oil pressure without turning the engine over!

How does he do it, you ask????

Simple. (Well, I hope so anyway!)

Since this is an automatic, the torque converter and the oil filter are both empty - I can't prefill either as they sit sideways. Consequently, it takes a LOT of cranking both to get the pump primed and to fill both of those up before you can get pressure to the bearings and such. This isn't good for either the starter or the bearings.

My plan is this - I'll set the pistons 1/2 way down the bores so the valves can't hit, remove the chain from the cam (the oil pump is driven off the back of the cam) and put my big ol 1/2 drill motor on the cam nut and spin that sucker till I feel the resistance of the oil pressure building, then I'll know the filter and torque converter are full. I'll top off the oil and close the front end up (after putting the chain back on of course) and it will be ready to start. Then I'll know it will have oil pressure the moment it starts and I won't have to wind the crap out of the starter motor getting oil pressure up.

The only thing I don't know about this plan is whether oil will come gushing out of someplace on the front of the engine as the pressure builds - could be interesting.....

More as it happens later today.....

 

Ready to go into the engine stand.....waiting on a distributor - yes it has one in it now, but that's an old points dizzy and I have a new electronic one on it's way. I can run it on this but I'd rather have the new one. It's also a lot easier to change it out while on the bench than when it's loaded in the test bed, but I may go ahead and drop the motor into the stand anyway. I want to hear this puppy run!

 

Today I fired up the 998 Automatic that's going into the Pup, I had to mess with the kickdown link quite a bit to make it bend around the header pipe and function correctly, but it came good in the end.

I started this engine, let it warm up to 140* and retorqued the head and checked the valves, then fired it up again and ran it for 20 min at 2K fast idle. It sounds really smooth and idles nicely with good oil pressure. Ran cool too, only about 165 but it's only about 60* today so that probably affected it some.

I'll let it cool down overnight, then retorque the head again and do a final setting of the valve lash, then fire it up again, and fine tune the timing and carb, then it will be ready to go.

 

If you all remember, I was concerned this engine might run hot because of all the debris and rust I had to dig out of the head and the block that was blocking all the water passages, luckily it looks like that won't be a concern after all, it never went above 170 on my test stand!

 

The Pup in the title of this thread showed up today, tomorrow I'll get the green engine out of the stand and the cream one in, then get started putting this motor in. My brief is only to bolt it in and tighten down all the front subframe, axles and brake assemblies. The car doesn't have an interior, wiring harness or much else at this point.....the owner wanted a project he could make his own. It does have completely rebuilt subframes, brakes and suspension already so the rest will be up to him. I don't know how quickly it can get loaded out to the northeast, right now the plan is to load it up in the trailer on the 6th, but I'm hopeful it can go sooner than that to free up the rack. I have my green Mini's engine to swap out and another one to get started on yet this year.

 

Final chapter on this build - at least for me......today we loaded it into the trailer for the trip to Boston.

My friend Clancy will leave next week for the coast, with several stops along the way to pick up another car and deliver it and meet up with some of his vendors and such. He also plans a stop at the Vietnam vets memorial in DC along the way home. He was a Medivac tech during the war.......