Project LookOwt: Saving a piece of 3.0 history

[Reaper1]

PICS!!! WE NEED PICS!!! (even though I've seen it! LOL)

[Force Fed Mopar]

Marks on the cam gears would be nice but not required. Just look at a picture on the internet of adjustable cam gears to get a feel for how little you need to move them and then use a degree wheel to see where they are at. It takes a little time but once you have a 0 degree baseline you can put a mark on it and go from there. I wouldn't trust the marks on factory made aftermarket cam gears anyway. They should always be checked with a degree wheel.

It's a little hard to use a degree wheel on an assembled engine installed in a car I'm sure I could degree them in statically with the engine on a stand (or even possibly in the car with the front tore down like it is), but what happens when I want to try adjusting at the track or the dyno? No marks to go by, so back to guessing.

I will get pics hopefully tonight.

[Ondonti]

Good engine builder won't trust the numbers on an adjustable cam gear and will set them with a degree wheel to make sure the numbers are correct. That said, a dyno is the best place to tune them so the marks don't really matter as long as you start close enough to where you need to be.

Degree wheel fits fine, use the crank bolt to hold it on the motor and bolt the pointer wire to the side of the engine. Remove the passenger tire, begin degreeing. I have 3 marks on my cam gears. 102 106 110. I made my own marks.

OEM is 110, the cam card you have is 106. I ran 102 or 106 on my cams trying to avoid unusable HP above the OEM rev limiter and putting it back to 110 made crazy power gains when I installed megasquirt.

I know that backfiring sound well. I had that happening on my Holset setup when the ignition timing was set to zero degrees or less base. My Duster does that with bad fuel. I have had it a few other occasions but I can't remember the circumstances. I would put stock heat plugs in.

[Ondonti]

Here is a video of bad fuel (and unconfirmed timing since this was just slapped together headswap) Megasquirt. 1:00 really has some popping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynln0rMcUqE

[Force Fed Mopar]

Yeah I'll degree them later, I have a degreeing kit, it's just a pain. Having the marks on the gears would still be beneficial. Right now I just want it to run

[Force Fed Mopar]

So, got it all back together this evening. Glad I tore it all the way down, cause come to find out the mark on the underdrive pulley is about 20* off of TDC. So the cam timing was probably really whacked Timed it all up using the gears, checked the distributor, and reassembled everything. Still didn't start. Finally just poured gas in the intake through a large vacuum port. That made it fire up and run a bit!

So, not getting fuel, so the injectors I swapped in must be not working. They are high impedence (stock is low impedence) but I don't think that affects anything. I put the original injectors into a spare rail and hooked it to the fuel lines and used a spare injector plug to manually trigger them, they click but no fuel spray, so apparently they are bad also. They ones I swapped in also clicked but apparently do not spray either. I have one other set of high impedence injectors but they are probably junk too. Anybody have a known good set of low impedence injectors they want to donate to the cause?

Also, the gasket under the solenoid module on the transmission is pouring fluid out, and it is milky looking so it's gotten water in it somehow, probably from the radiator (fluid was plumbed through the factory cooler as well as the external cooler).

I took a bunch of pics of the header setup also, so I will post those later.

[Vigo]

That gasket is a ----- to get unless you get it from a trans parts house or a dealer. If you know someone at a regular parts store i would get them to snag it out of a solenoid pack box, or buy one and return it without the gasket.

Good luck getting that milky crap totally out of there, too. That's crappy.

[Ondonti]

Flush a bunch of cheap cheap fluid through the transmission multiple times?


Cam timing should be set with the crank gear indicator not the crank pulley. Wacked crank pulley should just give you worthless numbers when you are messing with base distributor timing.

So you verified fuel pressure? Very odd that you have 2 complete sets of injectors that refuse to open... I remember one time I got so frustrated with my Duster that I connected the fuel rail to my injectors off the intake manifold and manually sprayed them because I had thought maybe the spray pattern was wacked on some of them. What I learned was that my wacky injectors don't atomize well :P

[Force Fed Mopar]

That's what I did, hooked up the spare rail off the engine.

[Force Fed Mopar]

Tried my other set tonight, no spray either.

[Reaper1]

Man, if the fluid in the tranny is milky you HAVE to flush it! Even if you tear it all down, the converter is STILL going to have contaminated fluid in it. IIRC the transmission and converter holds 14 quarts total.

This is what *I* would do if I were in this position. I can't say for certain that is 100%, or that bad things can't happen. However, I'd take the chance simply because running the tranny with water contaminated fluid is WAY worse than anything I'm about to suggest. I in no way claim I'm an expert in doing this and this is only something I would try simply because driving the car the way it is would most certainly ruin the transmission and the only other way to do this right would be to tow it to a shop and let them put it on a flushing machine. I hope if anybody has any corrections or better methods, PLEASE post up! I already feel bad enough as is because the car didn't run after just a little TLC. I REALLY don't want the tranny to be on the "to do" list for Rob!!! I'd REALLY feel like crap then!!

If it were me, I'd take the pan off, drain that and replace the filter. Pop the pan back on just using some RTV (yes, this is going to leak!) and put 3.5 quarts in it. I don't know which line is the discharge line for the trans cooler, but you want to leave that one connected to the external cooler only (that internal one in the radiator sounds like it's shot).

You are going to need 2 buckets. 1 will have a hose coming from the other end of the trans cooler and have just enough fluid to cover the hose. The other will have clean fluid in it. Connect a hose to the "intake" nipple of the trans cooler and put it in the bucket with the clean fluid in it.

Now, any time the engine turns over the transmission pump is working. Once this jig is set up, you can turn the engine over and let the transmission pump the old fluid out and suck the new fluid in. I don't know how much cranking it would take to move 14 quarts, so I would only do this in spurts if that's the only way it can be done. This won't get everything because you can't run it through the gears, but it'll get 98% of it out.

Once only clean fluid is coming out of the cooler, take the pan back off, look everything over and replace the filter again. Use either the MOPAR ATF sealant, The Right Stuff RTV, or there is a MOPAR re-usable gasket available for the A604. It's around $35 last I knew. It aluminum with what appears to be a silicone sealing bead all the way around it. If torqued correctly it is supposed to be able to be reused something like 3-5 times. I had one on my built A413 and it worked great. You HAVE to use a torque wrench with it, though.

Once the transmission is sealed back up, clean the discharge bucket out, and repeat what you did for the initial flush, but with the good ATF +4 rated fluid covering the hose. Clean out the other bucket and put in the good ATF +4 fluid. Repeat the flush process, but this time you are going to run more fluid (I'd suggest 4 quarts at least) through. Once the "intake" bucket is near empty, stop. The transmission should now be full of the good ATF +4 fluid and you can connect up the external cooler the way it's supposed to be.

Of course, check the fluid level, just to be sure.

Once the engine is running, get the car up on jackstands, start it, and put it in gear to make sure that it shifts through the gears. I wouldn't suggest letting it go over 35mph freewheeling like that because it is dangerous and I was told long ago it can be bad for the transmission (I don't have anything to back that claim up). I do know from experience that you want to be very easy on the brakes to slow things back down to a stop.

Once everything checks out, check the fluid as normal with the car on the ground. HOPEFULLY that will save the tranny!

[Force Fed Mopar]

I've run cars up to 70mph on jackstands to test out trannies. No bad results yet. I was thinking of doing pretty much what you just described. We have a tranny guy that would disassemble, clean and reassemble it for me for a few hundred if I remove it, but I think flushing it will work fine. Need to get a gasket for the solenoid pack first.

I may take these injectors to work with me in a spare rail and see if I can use the fuel injection system cleaner setup to check/clean them with.

Btw the little bit it ran, it sounded pretty... interesting

[Vigo]

Im pretty sure the transmission cooler return port is not going to 'suck' any fluid in. I think you will have to do this while adding fluid through a funnel yourself. Ive done it before but ive rarely had any reason to do a flush at home. I have used flush machines and would recommend it if you have easy access to someone who has one (although that means putting the car back on a trailer.. twice..).

But just doing the cooler out into a bucket and pouring new fluid in through the funnel will work. I wouldnt bother dropping the pan beforehand.. Id do it afterwards.

[c2xejk]

If you apply 12v to the injectors, do they open at all? (ie can you hear the injectors click if you hook them directly to the battery?)

Not sure if a noid light simulates load at all. It is possible that the ECU is generating the signal, but can not sink enough current to drive the injectors... When my spark fail, the ecu generated a small signal when the coil was unplugged. Plug in the coil and the signal was gone...

[Force Fed Mopar]

They click when hit with 12v, but nothing comes out. I picked up some injectors out of a 5.4 Ford I installed yesterday that do spray when clicked, so I'm gonna try those.

Injectors do go bad from sitting a long time. At my buddy's shop today when tested some 5.0 injectors from a junkyard motor we pulled a while back and they were bad also, clicked but no spray.

Also, I remembered I have a rebuild kit for a 604, should have a solenoid pack gasket in it. Too bad there's not a drain plug in the converter like some of the older Fords had I'll have to pick up a bunch of cheap trans fluid somewhere to flush with.

[Force Fed Mopar]

Pics of the exhaust

[Vigo]

Well that's certainly interesting. Looks like that front header might not have worked if it wasnt a mitsu block with a remote oil filter.

[Reaper1]

Remember that the oil filter adapter on the Chrysler blocks was basically directly between the starter and the A/C compressor. The header cleared the oil filter fine, but there is NO way A/C can be used with it.

[Force Fed Mopar]

Well, curiouser and curiouser... lol. So I get the injectors installed last night, found the gasket for the solenoid pack so I pull it off to clean it up and replace it. What do I find? No gasket at all! No wonder it leaked. Also, probably explains where the water in the fluid came from, the scoop in the hood is directly over it and with no gasket on there, every time it rained and anytime it got washed, the water would drop right down behind it. And with no gasket, leaked right under it and into the pan. I checked the cooler in the radiator and it holds over 100psi of air pressure, so it's good.

So anyway I'm thinking Ok, just gotta clean it all up and put the gasket on and change out the fluid. Laid the gasket on the solenoid pack... doesn't match. Lay the gasket on the trans, matches the ports. Sooo, looks like somebody at some point put the wrong solenoid pack on it, with no gasket. So I guess I'll be hunting one of those down today.

[Reaper1]

Now that is strange. Is the gasket you are using metal or a paper-type? I *think* the replacement solenoid packs come with a metal one (at least from the dealer), but it's been a while so forgive me if I'm wrong. I can confirm the transmission has been rebuilt in that car at least twice. Who knows what parts they used. IIRC the last time it was rebuilt was just before this engine went in it, so the job wasn't done by the shop that originally built it in Jacksonville, Fl.