Day 13, the birthday of the engine:
Saturday night I slept very well knowing the “heavy lifting” part of this adventure was behind us. Toni was not so lucky thinking about the what-ifs. Never the less, we took our time getting around Sunday morning in anticipation of day’s events.
We arrived at the shop around 10am. Toni got on the computer to read the final checklist provided by Ford while I took care of a cooperative transmission dipstick which has absolutely no relationship to the *#@% engine oil dipstick. There was a unique calm to the morning, no rushing, no dreaded components that needed attention, just straight forward last minute items to be finished.
The previous day we bought anti-freeze from the local parts store. It has been awhile since I’ve worked on engines, so I sought the advice from the guys behind the counter. They was helpful in saying one gallon of anti-freeze should be plenty. I’d like to take a moment to discuss a couple of things. Back in the day when I worked on cars, the parts store guys were a wealth of information. These guys back then always had grease under their nails and knew just about everything when it came to working on a car. I don’t know if it is this particular parts store we frequent during this adventure or if this phenomena is wide spread, but the parts guys we dealt with was basically clueless. I guess now they just teach them to read the computer screen and not think outside the box. And they all seemed to have clean nails also. Don’t get me wrong, the parts guys were friendly on each of our visits and would patiently listen to our questions, but offered no solutions. I was surprised to hear a recommendation of the amount of anti-freeze to buy. The other item I would like to discuss during this pause in the story line is my surprise that they sell pre-diluted anti-freeze that is 50% glycol/50% water at about 90% of the price of undiluted anti-freeze. Have we as a society became that elementary that we cannot understand how to mix the anti-freeze or are we just too lazy?
Ok, back to Sunday morning. Toni had gone through the checklist and she not only checked it twice, she checked it a third time for good measure. The transmission dipstick was in place and it was time to add coolant. WHY IN THE WORLD would Rexhall locate the coolant reserve tank so close to the top of the front end compartment where one needs a long funnel to add water? It would have been fine if we were using a water hose, but it is impossible to pour from the container into the reservoir. So here we are using a make shift funnel made from a piece of garden hose and half a Coke bottle all put together with duct tape. It took two of us, but slowly we added the coolant until the 2 gallons of post-purchased mixed coolant was gone. We wasn’t even close to having enough coolant. Off to the parts store we went wondering why we would trust the advice of the new age parts guy. Surly the parts guy only slightly underestimated and we only need to buy another gallon to have plenty. Once back at the shop, we added the gallon of anti-freeze along with the gallon of water and still came up short. At this point we started adding pure water until we finally hit the fill mark. In total it took a little over 5 gallons of liquid. We had 2 gallons of anti-freeze and 3 gallons of water.
In my mind, we are all said/all done and ready to fire the baby up! But first Toni was insistent on going through the checklist one final time. New pcv valve, check. Oil level, check. All hoses connected, check. Engine oil level, check. Coolant level, check. Bleed the coolant, … Stop right there! We haven’t bled the coolant. I explained to Toni that we needed to start the engine and when it warmed up, the coolant would circulate allowing the air to get out of the system. We just need to watch the coolant level and add as it got low. To satisfy the master mechanic, we referred back to the service manual to verify. You see one thing I have learned after many, many projects with Toni is when she brings something up, even though I am confident in my ways and she is questioning it, ALWAYS let her verify – I have been proven wrong before and I will be proven wrong again and she is the one that will save the day.
Bleed the coolant, check (my process has been verified and is concurrent with the latest service manual). Now we are ready prime the engine. I offered the keys to Toni but she wanted no part of turning the key. I detected a little nervousness to her. Could it be because the day before someone from the flea market next door wonder into the shop to see what we was up to and claimed he was a seasoned mechanic, then proceeded to tell us how everything we did up to this point was all wrong and the slightest error would make the engine inoperable and impossible to diagnose? This guy from next door, I forget his name but we will call him BS for reference, was one of those people who knows everything and will make things up to prove their intelligence. I’m sure the flea market was lucky to hire him as a furniture mover since he has so much knowledge to share. I’m just glad BS doesn’t work at the parts store, I would rather someone tell me he doesn’t know instead of making something up. Anyway, I took the keys and climbed in to the make shift driver’s seat while Toni held the fire extinguisher close.
Priming the engine: I spent a lot of time looking though the web and other resources trying to find this procedure. Since it is a newer engine, it didn’t have the traditional distributer you use to access the oil pump. I found some methods that used an external pump but we found this method overkill since the engine had been tested at the factory and the service manual that Toni has extensively researched made not recommendations of such. The third method, which was our chosen method, cranked the engine without starting for 3 cycles at 15 seconds each cycle. Some forums talk about flipping the inertia switch to keep the engine from starting. The method that interest for me was found to work for 2004 V10’s. Apparently, you can press the gas pedal to the floor and the computer will turn off the fuel supply through the injectors. This process is used to clear a flooded engine. I assumed it worked for the ’99 engine, but never was able to find it in writing. I figured I would try and if it started, I would turn it off quickly.
Before cranking it, I warned Toni to expect the penetrating oil that was left on the exhaust system to start smoking as the engine heated up. Toni stood outside the motorhome and I pressed the accelerator to the floor. Like clockwork, the engine cranked when the key turned. The gas pedal pressed all the way down did keep the engine from firing. It cranked for 15 seconds then we let it rest. We discussed how long to let it cool before cranking again, but didn’t have the answer. As you can imagine, we are eagerly waiting when we can let it fire up so it just took a few minutes to rest before the second dry crank started. And then the third. Now we can start it for real.
Sunday, January 3, 2016 at 2:24pm the engine took its first breath. Without pressing the gas pedal and turning the key, it took about a quarter of a second for the engine to come to life. It was beautiful. We rejoiced, yelled and screamed! I could hear the Queen song “We are the Champions” playing in the background. All the work had paid off. Pressing the gas pedal to raise the RPMs to 2,000 was so sweet until a rattle started to sound off towards the top/rear of the engine. It sounded like something wasn’t tighten. By the sound, I could tell it wasn’t internal, just more of a nuisance. The engine was purring perfectly in spite of the rattle. As I was trying to determine the cause of this rattle, Toni was on the lookout for any leaks. As predicted, a thin layer of smoke started rising from the exhaust, but no big deal. The rattle would stop when I brought the RPMs down to an idle. Just about the time I had the sound pinpointed, Toni came screaming “Shut it off! Shut it off!”. As the engine shut down, I could hear water pouring on the floor.
Our faces grew long, our voices was quite as we approached the front of the coach. Water was all across the floor. Then Toni pointed to the reservoir as the source of the leak. Somebody (me) didn’t put the lid on the reservoir. I let out a heavy sigh of relief, simple fix. We mopped up the mess and fired it back up. Finally the sound was pinpointed at the EGR valve. The water leak was no more and all gaskets was holding. Later that evening I would read where the EGR valve is susceptible to the diaphragm getting clogged with exhaust residue which makes sense considering we had the intake manifold upside down while cleaning it.
Around 3:30 we cleaned up our tools and went home to get ready for a steak dinner in celebration of our success. We can replace the EGR valve another day, now is the time to bask in the glory.
