My Engine replacement odyssey - 1994 HR
My engine replacement odyssey has begun. I posted questions about the 460 V8 in my 1994 Holiday Rambler some time back and after much engine diagnosis and finally laboratory analysis of my crankcase o...
Forum Discussion
Hi all y’all,
I haven’t posted since the 18th so for those interested folks who’ve been following my engine replacement odyssey I figured I’d update.
Early in the morning on the 18th I took the engine hoist back to the rental yard. I spent the rest of the day mostly kicking back and thinking how I wanted to sequentially handle the remaining parts of the install. Handling things such as first retightening all the engine and other underbody pieces while the rig’s still elevated, after that reinstalling all the bits and pieces such as the alternator, intake and exhaust manifolds, resetting the engine timing, all that sort of stuff. I also took my alternator into a rebuilding shop to be freshened up with new bearings etc and the radiator in to be checked out and freshened up. From the radiator shop I later learned that I don’t have the original radiator which, coming from the rust-belt, is a good thing.
I spent the morning of the 19th running up to an Austin salvage yard to pick up a pair of valve covers to replace the old-style valve covers my original engine was equipped with. The new style 4-bolt aluminum valve covers are so much nicer than the leak-prone 7-bolt tin valve covers that my former engine had. After that I met with my new friend mpaton for lunch. After lunch we had a nice discussion about RV engines, air pumps and fuel injection, among other things. After all, what would one expect two gear freaks to talk about, world peace?
Yesterday, the 20th, I cleaned and installed my new-to-me valve covers and then crawled my still achy body back under my RV (thank you Aleve) and worked tightening down all the underbody fasteners that were either loosened or removed, I also reinstalled the starter. Around noon, with the sun beating down, it became too hot so I went out and gathered up my refreshed alternator and radiator. During the early evening I carefully lifted each side of the RV and took it down from the heavy duty mobile-home leveling blocks the front was resting on. BTW many folks have said not to use concrete blocks but these ones are different, they’re engineered to have a great deal of compressional strength and weigh I’m guessing about 80 lbs each (they’re damned heavy!).
Here it is the 21st and I’m going to put as much of the front of my engine back together as I can. There are some things I don’t want to reinstall now because they get in the way of other things that I still need to work on before I install them, such as my exhaust manifolds. About my exhaust manifolds, as much as I’d love to replace them with SS headers at this time I don’t have a bottomless wallet so what I’ve decided to do is coat the mounting bolt threads with graphite grease (spark plug release compound) to ease in future removal when I do finally swap out the manifolds for headers. If anyone knows of a used set of SS headers for sale now’s the time that I’d love to hear about them.
So that’s what’s been happening with my engine replacement odyssey.
I haven’t posted since the 18th so for those interested folks who’ve been following my engine replacement odyssey I figured I’d update.
Early in the morning on the 18th I took the engine hoist back to the rental yard. I spent the rest of the day mostly kicking back and thinking how I wanted to sequentially handle the remaining parts of the install. Handling things such as first retightening all the engine and other underbody pieces while the rig’s still elevated, after that reinstalling all the bits and pieces such as the alternator, intake and exhaust manifolds, resetting the engine timing, all that sort of stuff. I also took my alternator into a rebuilding shop to be freshened up with new bearings etc and the radiator in to be checked out and freshened up. From the radiator shop I later learned that I don’t have the original radiator which, coming from the rust-belt, is a good thing.
I spent the morning of the 19th running up to an Austin salvage yard to pick up a pair of valve covers to replace the old-style valve covers my original engine was equipped with. The new style 4-bolt aluminum valve covers are so much nicer than the leak-prone 7-bolt tin valve covers that my former engine had. After that I met with my new friend mpaton for lunch. After lunch we had a nice discussion about RV engines, air pumps and fuel injection, among other things. After all, what would one expect two gear freaks to talk about, world peace?
Yesterday, the 20th, I cleaned and installed my new-to-me valve covers and then crawled my still achy body back under my RV (thank you Aleve) and worked tightening down all the underbody fasteners that were either loosened or removed, I also reinstalled the starter. Around noon, with the sun beating down, it became too hot so I went out and gathered up my refreshed alternator and radiator. During the early evening I carefully lifted each side of the RV and took it down from the heavy duty mobile-home leveling blocks the front was resting on. BTW many folks have said not to use concrete blocks but these ones are different, they’re engineered to have a great deal of compressional strength and weigh I’m guessing about 80 lbs each (they’re damned heavy!).
Here it is the 21st and I’m going to put as much of the front of my engine back together as I can. There are some things I don’t want to reinstall now because they get in the way of other things that I still need to work on before I install them, such as my exhaust manifolds. About my exhaust manifolds, as much as I’d love to replace them with SS headers at this time I don’t have a bottomless wallet so what I’ve decided to do is coat the mounting bolt threads with graphite grease (spark plug release compound) to ease in future removal when I do finally swap out the manifolds for headers. If anyone knows of a used set of SS headers for sale now’s the time that I’d love to hear about them.
So that’s what’s been happening with my engine replacement odyssey.
